Laughter and music rang through the corridors of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, and the shadows seemed to run away from them. Even Kreacher seemed unable to stand up to the mirth, and had hidden himself away somewhere. There were half-hearted suggestions that he be found, but Sirius just laughed and said to let him have his holiday the way he felt like having it.

Harry, who had come to the house pale and upset, and had spent his first day here hiding behind closed doors, was cheerful and carefree--or as carefree as Remus had ever seen him, at any rate--playing games with Hermione and the Weasley children (mostly Exploding Snap, though Ron dragged out the wizarding chess board and defeated him several times as well), helping Molly Weasley bake (he claimed to have a great deal of kitchen experience, and did seem to surprise Molly by being a passable helper), and--most of all--spending time with Sirius. Remus watched them both come alive as they did normal, everyday sorts of things together. They joked about repairs to the house, talked about what they planned to do after Sirius was cleared, abused the Ministry, and generally... played together.

"You should join them," Dora whispered to him on Sunday night as he watched them going through a stack of owl order catalogs, looking for Christmas presents (they arranged to have gifts delivered to Bill Weasley's home, to be brought over on Christmas Eve). "Honestly, Remus, neither of them would mind."

She was right, but that was why Remus stayed back. They both needed this time to be a family, to create some shape to their relationship that wasn't wrapped up in war and misery. He shook his head, and they went to the parlor, where Hermione was entertaining the Weasleys by singing a Muggle Christmas carol about a snowman and a silk top hat that had been Charmed to bring him alive. Or that was what it seemed to be about anyway; Hermione was laughing so hard that her face was red and she was only hitting one word out of every three.

"We'll have to sell one of those hats!" George declared.

"Yeah," Fred agreed. "It's just misuse of a Muggle artifact. I'm sure Dad wouldn't mind."

"You have to sing that for Arthur," Molly told Hermione, looking up from a small mountain of yarn around her chair. "He'll love it."

Hermione shook her head.

Ron dropped a tinsel crown on her head. "Are we going to have to dare you again?"

She slapped his hand away and continued to laugh.

"We're all going Christmas shopping tomorrow," Ginny said. "Harry wants to stay and shop with Sirius, but if you and Tonks want to come..." She smiled and made a gesture with her hand to say, The door is open.

"We'd love to," Dora said.

Ginny clapped. "You can shop with Hermione and me."

Molly raised an eyebrow. "Ginny, I'm sure Professor Lupin has better things to do than spend all day with a pair of teenage girls."

"Nonsense," Remus said. "What better thing is there to do than spend the day with two of my favorite students?"

Later, while Dora was getting ready to leave, she grinned. "Since when has Ginny Weasley been allowed to boss you around? I thought I was the only one of your students allowed to do that."

"You are." He got her cloak from the wardrobe and dropped it over her shoulders. "As it happens, I really don't mind spending the day with you and Hermione and Ginny. Unless you'd rather spend it with the twins and Ron and Molly?"

She turned, fastening the clasp at the neck of the cloak, and gave him an odd smile. He was suddenly very aware of how close she was standing to him. She shook her head slightly, then said, "I'll see you in the morning." She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. Her lips seemed very warm. It might have been his imagination, but he thought the kiss might have lingered a bit longer than it should have. She left without saying anything else.

He would have to talk to her. She shouldn't--

"Remus?"

He turned. Molly was standing in the parlor doorway, a small smile playing on her lips. "Yes?"

"Don't feel pressured."

He blinked. "What?"

"About shopping tomorrow. Don't feel pressured to go if you'd rather spend the day with Harry and Sirius."

"I'd like to let them be. And I do have to shop. It'll be fun."

"She is good for you, you know."

Remus felt the blood rush up into his face. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Tonks."

"She's... an old student." Remus shook his head. "And an old friend. A good friend. Honestly, Molly, that's all."

"Well, whatever she is, she's good for you. It's good not to be alone." She smiled again. "When I thought I'd lost Arthur... I was terrified. He's my dearest friend. I don't wish alone-ness on anyone."

Remus gestured to the house, where he could hear several different conversations going on behind closed doors. "Do I look alone?"

"I suppose not." She sighed. "Well, I still have knitting to do. I'm going to finish up Percy's jumper before I go to bed. I'll see you in the morning."

They left after breakfast the next day. Sirius pressed a purse full of money into Remus's hands and told him to, "Get that set of books you've been drooling over for Harry, if you think he can make good use of it. It'll be from both of us, as I can't very well owl for his gift while he's sitting right here."

Remus didn't have time to object to the plan, because he was being swept out the door into the chilly December morning. Molly started to suggest that they invite Harry again, but Remus shook his head slightly. Sirius had been willing (in a grudging way) to give Harry up for the day, but it was better that he stayed safe in Grimmauld Place anyway, and he seemed more than happy to do so. Dora, who had chosen today to look like some close relation of Hermione's, with wild, curly brown hair and a wide, toothy smile, concurred. "It's good to see Sirius so happy, anyway," she added. "They'll have plenty of fun on their own. He'll make sure of it."

They took the tube to a station close to Diagon Alley, slipped through the Leaky Cauldron, and emerged into the bustling magical neighborhood. Molly and the boys drifted off in one direction; Remus and Dora followed the girls in the other.

Unsurprisingly, Hermione led them first to Flourish and Blotts, where she looked for a wizarding history book for her parents. Remus went to buy the set of dark arts reference books he'd seen in a catalog--it was in a section of the store where he'd never been able to afford to shop before--and Ginny tagged along with him. Dora went off to find something for her father.

Ginny's eyes widened when she saw the books. "Oh, Harry will love those!" she said. "They're just the sort of thing we could..." She looked over her shoulder nervously and lowered her voice. "He could use them for his project."

Remus did a quick Charm to distract people who might overhear. "That's the idea."

She helped him carry the series over to the counter to purchase them. "You should see him, Professor," she said. "He teaches just like you."

"Really?"

Ginny nodded. "My boyfriend, Michael Corner--"

Remus raised his eyebrows, and Ginny grinned broadly.

"My boyfriend Michael Corner said it after the first class. He said it was just like having Professor Lupin back. I hadn't noticed, because I thought he was being just like Harry, but I think Michael's right. When he's teaching, he's like you. Really good at it."

Remus felt strangely touched by this--not simply by the fact that Harry had learned something from him, but by the fact that Michael Corner, not one of the students to whom he had become close, had chosen to express his approval in that particular manner. "Thank you, Ginny," he said.

Remus Charmed the book purchases to be feather light, and let Dora choose the next shop. To no one's surprise, she chose a clothing store, and she and Ginny went off to try on hats and scarves. Hermione stayed back with Remus, looking through a basket of Charmed earrings that had been placed on sale. Remus bought a pair of them for Molly. Hermione sighed and said that she preferred to do the Charming herself. "I Charmed some homework planners for Ron and Harry," she confided. "I spent a lot of the time they were practicing Quidditch at it this fall."

Remus nodded, trying not to imagine the reaction of the boys to being given homework planners, but it was certainly a Hermione sort of gift. He spied a floppy purple hat, told Hermione to keep Dora busy, and bought it. He Transfigured it into a wrapped box before the others came over.

"Cheater," Dora said.

They met Molly and the boys for lunch, and after some wrangling, ended up changing the configuration. Remus and Dora went off with the twins, while Ron and Molly left with the girls. Ron kept looking anxiously at a package in his mother's bag; Remus wondered who it was for.

Shopping with the Weasley twins was more enjoyable than shopping with Hermione and Dora, simply because they were frank about saving money, which made him feel less self-conscious about looking for bargains. Dora didn't notice, of course, but still... he didn't like looking cheap. They dropped into a toy store, where the twins fully forgot about Christmas shopping and went to analyze the merchandise in the joke aisle, and Dora spotted a tiny model of a Firebolt, which she bought for Harry. Remus thought it might be a painful reminder of something he'd lost, but Dora said he thought too much.

Harry and Sirius had cooked dinner when they got back to Grimmauld Place (quite a good roast of beef), and they all crowded around the table to eat. There was a great deal of jostling of elbows, spilling of drinks, and general mayhem. No one seemed to mind. Afterward, they all went to the front room to sit around the fireplace and talk or play games. The Weasley twins got Sirius into a Transfiguration duel and were giving him more trouble than he seemed to have expected. The rest of the children watched with enthusiasm.

Molly was back in the winged armchair, yarn piled around her again, several pairs of knitting needles clacking at her instruction. Remus sat down across from her. Dora wandered over to the large front window, which was Charmed to show the square outside, though no one ever seemed to pull aside the draperies. She did so now, with a decisive flourish.

"What do you want to look at Grimmauld Place for?" Sirius called, chasing down a shoe which had sprouted legs and started to run under the couch.

"It's cheerful," Dora said. "They've got lights and such. Wreaths. So on." She smiled to herself, looking out at the street outside, then sighed. "I should get home. Get some sleep. Remus, are you coming caroling with us tomorrow?"

"Hmmm?"

"Dad's caroling group. I think the money's going to a soup kitchen this year."

"Oh... I think I'll stay in."

She shrugged. "All right. I think they're mostly paying Dad to stop singing." She raised her voice. "Going home now!"

Sirius kissed her cheek and the girls hugged her. George Weasley dangled some mistletoe over her head, and she rolled her eyes at him. He made it chase her to Remus's chair, at which point she physically batted it away. She kissed his forehead and whispered, "Leave the curtains open." Then she left.

Molly Banished the mistletoe and gave George a nasty look. "Sorry about that," she said.

"It's all right."

"Why not go caroling with Tonks?" Molly raised her eyebrows.

"I'm not much for singing, really. I've gone a few other years with Ted and Andromeda, but it's hardly a tradition." He smiled. "Besides, I'm happy here."

Molly shook her head and didn't say anything else.

Remus got up and wandered over to the window, wondering what on Earth Dora meant everyone to see outside. A few half-hearted lights had been strung on the barren trees, and the shop at the far corner of the square had a very large wreath above the door, but it was hardly a brilliantly festive atmosphere. Still, a gang of neighborhood children was out there, playing some sort of chase game and celebrating being free of school for a few weeks. Remus tapped the glass with his wand, and he heard their laughter coming through. He considered taking the Charm off, but decided not to.

The next day, Christmas Eve, dawned damp and cool, and the fire in front room was again the most attractive spot in the house. Remus used a school quill and a piece of old parchment to sketch a bit, trying to get an image of Harry and Sirius down--he thought Harry might like such a thing, though hopefully he'd be able to get some better materials and re-do it in a more respectable way later. Hermione tried a complex sort of braiding with Ginny's hair. Harry and Ron were secreted up in different rooms, wrapping gifts (Bill had dropped by before Remus got up with a sack full of things that Harry and Sirius had ordered), and the twins were doing some experimental Charms. Molly had gone out earlier to owl gifts to Charlie, Percy, and Fleur (who was spending the holiday with her parents in France), and had brought back a large box of chocolates that everyone was dipping into. Sirius was in the kitchen, making lunch.

It seemed odd to have the curtains open, like there was too much light in the room, but it was nice. The neighborhood children were out again, and attempting to make a snowless snowman out of damp leaves. Occasionally, they would hear them calling to one another, or cursing when their project fell apart.

Molly looked over Remus's shoulder. "That's really quite good," she said, pointing at the sketch.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I'm a bit out of practice."

"Oh, let's see!" Ginny said as Hermione tied off the plait. She peeked at the parchment. "I think it's good," she declared. "Are you going to give it to Harry?"

"I'm going to work on it a bit," Remus said. "Maybe put it on something that's not fraying around the edges. And doesn't have someone's old Charms notes on the back."

Ginny eyed the pile of similar bits of parchment beside Remus's chair, then smiled. "I don't mind Charms notes."

Remus looked down at the sketch he'd done; it was as finished as it was going to get with these particular limitations. He couldn't do much with the details with an old quill. "All right," he said. "Sit still, then. I'll--"

But Ginny was already distracted. "Look at that," she said. "Carolers!"

Remus glanced at the window and smiled. Of course. "Ginny," he said, "go get Sirius."

She looked puzzled, but went. Remus went to the window. There was a group of about twelve carolers in the square, led by a young woman with black pigtails, tied off at the ends with ribbons. She turned in the general direction of Grimmauld Place and winked.

"Is that Tonks?" Molly asked, coming to stand beside him.

"I'm going to kill her," Remus said, smiling.

Dora reached into the crowd and pulled one of the carolers forward.

There was motion at the door, then Sirius said, "Ginny said I should--Oh, carolers. That's..." The sentence broke off and he was across the room in two strides. "Andromeda," he said, grinning. "It's Andromeda!" He tapped the window to increase the Sound Charm just as Andromeda, looking a bit embarrassed to be singled out, started to sing "Sleigh Ride" in her clear soprano voice. Ted was standing beside her jingling a charity donation can in one hand and a set of jingle bells in the other. Remus didn't recognize anyone else in the group; he had a vague notion that they were from Ted's church, but he knew nothing else about them and didn't care. They were set dressing.

Sirius leaned against the glass, his fingers splayed as though he were trying to reach through it. Andromeda became more comfortable with the song and began to play a bit, smiling and miming and waving at passers by. When she finished, the children in the square clapped, and Ted invited them to join in for the next song.

She didn't sing everything as a solo, but Dora kept her at the front of the group, ignoring her puzzled frowns. By the third song, Sirius was singing along with her, and the Weasleys and Hermione joined in by the fourth (the lyrics, more often then not, were mangled on this side of the window). Remus contented himself with listening. It must have gone on for the better part of half an hour. Hermione had some Muggle money, and she scurried out the back way and came around from the far side of the square to drop it in Ted's jar. Dora immediately dragged her into the group for the grand finale ("Joy to the World").

There was a great deal of applause on both sides of the window when they finished, and Sirius sank happily into one of the armchairs. "So that's why she wanted the curtains open. Bless Dora." He leaned his head back and laughed.

Dora came by after dinner that evening, no longer in the pigtails. She hugged Sirius and kissed his cheek. "Happy Christmas, Coz," she said.

Remus took her aside when the initial flood of thank yous had faded. "You know," he said, "it's possibly not the best idea to have Andromeda seen so prominently in the neighborhood. People might guess."

"Not unless Dumbledore tells them." She smiled. "Come on, Remus. No harm could come of it."

"No. No harm."

"So why the warning?"

Remus was sure there was something dangerous about it, but he couldn't come up with a scenario. "No idea," he finally conceded. "But let me in on it if you're going to do something like that in the future."

"So that you can tell me all of the reasons it's a foolish idea?"

"So that I can make sure everything's in place on this end." He smiled.

She smiled back and hugged him, then they went back to the kitchen and helped everyone clean up so things would be in order for tomorrow's holiday. Remus went to bed still feeling happy and content.

But such things never seemed to last for long, and he supposed he shouldn't have been as unpleasantly surprised as he was when he woke up to the sound of Molly Weasley weeping while her sons cursed their brother's name.

Remus pulled on his robes and went down the main staircase, ignoring the packages that had been left outside his door for the time being. Molly was sitting on the bottom riser, weeping over a bulky, partially unwrapped parcel. Fred and George were red-faced to the a point of apoplexy, tripping over one another's curses until they were unintelligible.

Remus touched Fred's shoulder. "What's happened?"

"That..." Fred's jaw worked, trying to find a new vile word. He gave up. "Percy sent his jumper back."

"He didn't even send a note!" Molly wailed.

"Percy's a pile of rat droppings," George said. "Percy's--"

"Stop it!" Molly leaned further into the jumper and rocked back and forth, looking miserable.

The twins were too angry to do much more than sputter. Remus could see George's fingers flexing, as if he wanted to be sinking them into Percy's neck.

Remus sat down beside Molly and spoke to Fred, who was closer, using the firmest tone he could find without expressing anger at them. Their reaction was, after all, justified, if entirely unhelpful. "Why don't the pair of you go see if the others are up yet?" he asked. "And tell them Happy Christmas."

George's jaw clamped tight and Fred started to argue, but Molly nodded and waved them along. It still took a minute before they left, but finally, one or the other of them--Remus couldn't tell from which side it began--surrendered and they stomped up the stairs toward the room Ron and Harry were sharing.

"I'm sorry," Molly said, wiping savagely at her eyes. This was a pointless gesture, as she was wracked with another wave of tears. "I was just so certain... the holiday... Percy..."

Remus put an arm across her shoulders, feeling a bit awkward, but knowing in his bones that she needed it. "It's all right, Molly," he said.

"He hasn't even been to visit Arthur at St. Mungo's or asked how he is."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

She sniffed and wiped her face again. Remus Conjured a handkerchief and gave it to her. She took it with a grateful smile and dabbed at her eyes. "I can't even talk to Arthur about it. It's the first time in our marriage that I haven't been able to talk to him. But Percy... Percy hurt his feelings so. Arthur will forgive him--he's a good man, and he will--but Percy will have to ask for it and I thought he would, I really thought... the holiday... the... accident..." She buried her face in the handkerchief. "I was certain..."

Remus patted her back between her shoulder blades, soothing her as she would have soothed a colicky baby. He wasn't sure what to say to her precisely. He'd known Percy only marginally--Percy had been in his N.E.W.T. level classes, but hadn't been especially passionate about the subject, and the only things Remus remembered for certain were his determination to keep the castle safe, and his devotion to his Muggle-born girlfriend. Both at the very least boded ill for an alliance with Voldemort, so he said, "I think Percy will come around when the Ministry does."

"He should come around for his father, not the bloody Ministry."

"I know. Shh."

"You're a good man, Remus. Don't let anyone tell you that you aren't. I'm sorry I ever--" She looked away, and Remus knew that the sentence was, I'm sorry I ever recoiled in horror when I learned what sort of Creature had been minding my children for a year. This was not something they had talked about and it wasn't something he held against her (at least not on a personal level), and this was the closest she had come to acknowledging it outright. She wiped her face again and sniffed. "I'm sorry," she said. "Going on like this, and on Christmas Day, of all things. I'm spoiling everything."

"It's all right to be upset, Molly."

"It's Christmas."

"Yes," Remus said. He took the handkerchief from her and dabbed the moisture from her face. "And that's why we'll get you cleaned up and have a good day no matter how it started. But we'll do it because you should have a good Christmas, not because you ought to be sorry about 'going on so,' all right?"

She made an odd sound in the back of her throat--choking back more tears--and nodded, taking the handkerchief from him and putting it in the pocket of her dressing gown. "Right, yes. And the children should have a good Christmas."

"And that will make you feel better, too, to see them having a good Christmas."

"It will, yes."

"Then there you have it." He stood and offered her his hand, which she took, and helped her up. "Come on, now. We'll go down to the kitchen and get some breakfast together, and we'll put this away"--he Banished the jumper to a wardrobe in the parlor--"and you'll be all right."

She nodded shakily. "Yes. But... I'll get breakfast. You go open your presents."

"Molly, I really can wait--"

She wagged a finger at him in an unconvincing way. "I insist."

"If it's what you want."

She nodded and made her way down the kitchen stairs. Remus went back to his room, and pulled in the astonishingly large pile of presents from the corridor outside.

One sack held gifts from the Tonks family--Dora was on duty today, and must have left them here on one of her earlier visits. Andromeda and Ted had given him several books; Dora, apparently deciding that he was unlikely to show his gifts around, had given him cufflinks and a tie with the Smeltings crest on them. She'd also given him a key ring with a Never-Lost Charm on it, and the key to her flat was dangling from it, with a note that she'd found it on the floor beside his desk.

Ginny had given him a box of homemade molasses biscuits, and Hermione had Charmed a journal to tell him every day that things were quite good or possibly "getting better." He was rather touched to find that she'd had her dormitory mates, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, also leave messages. She must have been sitting there in her dormitory Charming things for hours, and in his mind, he could almost hear Parvati saying, "Oh, who's that for?" and Hermione answering, "Oh, Professor Lupin... I've been writing to him and I thought I'd give him something for Christmas..." It was a bit overbearing in its expressed sentiments--sugary, really--but the sentiment behind it was real enough, and he valued it.

Harry and Sirius had given him art supplies--a wooden box full of charcoal sticks, drawing crayons, sharp-tipped quills and black ink, a bottle of Madam Miranda's Fading and Erasing Potion, and another of her Lumos Libation, which was used to create lighting effects. Remus had never tried it, as it went for four galleons a bottle, but he'd always wanted to. A long, flat package contained a large sketchpad with waterproof covers.

Beneath these things was a large, bulky package that he recognized as soon as he saw it, and smiled. Molly had wrapped the jumper in bright red paper, but it was a sensible, rust-brown color on the inside. It looked warm and comfortable, and he was happy to put it on for the day. It was a bit large, but he knew that Molly would have done that on purpose, and rather than shrinking it to fit him, would declare that he needed to eat more and grow into it.

By the time he went down to breakfast, the family was mostly gathered there. He thanked the various present-givers (asking Hermione to pass thanks along to Parvati and Lavender as well) and tucked in for an excellent meal. Molly seemed to have cheered herself up a bit, and she was certainly enjoying the company of the children. The twins seemed to have reached the conclusion that it was a foolish idea to bring Percy up again, and were instead playing with a new set of unusual Potions ingredients that Ron and Ginny had assembled for them, creating several odd effects over the course of the morning. Hermione watched this with some interest. Harry seemed not to notice it; he was happily buried in the books Remus had brought from Diagon Alley, and every now and then, Remus would see him close his eyes to make a mental note of one thing or another.

"Will they do?" he asked, hunkering down beside him.

Harry smiled. "They're very good," he said.

"Thank you for the art things. Very thoughtful."

"Mostly Sirius's thoughts. I didn't know what you'd like," he said apologetically. "Is that what you like?"

"Yes. It's an old, old hobby."

Harry looked back at the books. "This is wonderful," he said. "I'm not really sure how I'll show them how to do this..." He flipped to a page in the section of the book that dealt with Cursed objects. "At least without actually having something with a Curse on it to--"

He was interrupted by the arrival of Mad-Eye Moody, who was to accompany them all to St. Mungo's today, and the subject of how to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts without the presence of the Dark Arts didn't come up again. Of course, it was one of the great ethical questions, but Remus never did get a chance to discuss it with Harry over that long Christmas holiday. Still, in the moment when Harry had looked up at him and started to speak as freely as he ever had, Remus had understood that the door between them was still open. Just a crack, perhaps even just a small crack. But he knew that if he needed to, he could open it wider, and Harry would take his presence as a matter of course and welcome it, and that was the best present he got that day.

Dung came with a Charmed car to take them all to St. Mungo's after lunch, and they made their way to Arthur's ward reasonably easily. Remus waved to the various Healers he knew. When they arrived at the Llewellyn ward, Remus supposed he shouldn't have been surprised to see that this was also where they'd brought the man with the werewolf bite. He looked considerably better physically than he had in the house in Kent, but he was obviously quite depressed.

"...Why have you had your bandages changed a day early, Arthur?" Molly asked, and her suspicious tone cut into Remus's thoughts. The children were looking at one another in an edgy way, and as Arthur began to explain that he and the apprentice Healer had tried an experimental Muggle treatment, Bill and the twins quickly excused themselves to go to the coffee shop. From the way Harry, Ron, and the girls were shifting back and forth on their feet, Remus guessed they wouldn't be much longer in doing so.

Molly made a kind of harsh snarling sound, and Remus realized that all of the events of the morning were about to come out again, focused this time on Arthur and his fascination with all things Muggle. This time, she didn't look like she wanted comforting. She looked like she simply wanted to let loose, and he understood that Arthur was expecting it and knew how to absorb it after all these years.

He backed away as he saw Harry, Ron and the girls do the same. He started to come around the bed to follow them, but Moody shook his head slightly and Remus nodded. Harry was to be protected by Aurors, not schoolteachers. Remus changed the direction of his movement--hopefully not noticeably--and headed over to the werewolf who was across from Arthur Weasley. The man was looking up in a hopeful way, but still seemed not to quite believe he was having a visitor until Remus pulled up the chair beside him. From the corner of his eye, he saw Mad-Eye slip out a few paces behind the children, and pull an Invisibility Cloak from the pocket of his long coat.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Better," the man said. His eyes traced Remus's face, and finally lit up with recognition. "You were there," he said. "In Kent. You came in."

"Yes." Remus held out his hand and waited for the other man to shake it (which he did with a kind of dazed surprise). "My name is Remus Lupin," he said.

"Edward Holmes."

"I've been lycanthropic since I was six."

Holmes pulled his hand away quickly, his lip curling in horror, then the hand dropped to the blanket and he closed his eyes. "I supposed I'd best get used to people doing that to me, eh?"

Remus bit back the bitterness. Whatever sins this man had committed, the vengeance had already been wreaked upon him. He nodded. "I wish I could tell you something different, but yes."

"Are you the one that fellow was talking about?" He pointed vaguely at Arthur. "He said he knew a werewolf who found it quite easy to live with."

"Er... as far as I know, I'm the only werewolf Arthur knows," he said. "Arthur is a good man; he likes to make people more comfortable. He may have exaggerated somewhat."

"Oh." Holmes sounded deeply disappointed.

"It's not easy," Remus said. "But it's also not impossible. The Wolfsbane Potion helps a great deal with the transformations; you'll want to talk to the Healers about finding someone to brew it for you."

"How will I pay for it? I won't have a job." Holmes sniffed. "I supported that legislation. The Umbridge laws. I talked several people into voting for them. Now I have to live with them. Justice. That's what those fellows in Kent said."

Remus forced himself not to berate the man, who had already been berated. "No matter what you once supported, what was done to you is a crime, and the werewolves who did it are quite properly in Azkaban."

"Right."

"And as to paying for the Wolfsbane Potion, it's part of your health care, and it's taken care of, if you can find it. The problem is the difficulty of brewing it; there aren't many qualified to make it. You may have to come to St. Mungo's every month. I think they have one or two people on staff who've learned it."

"What do you do about it?"

"I'm quite lucky. A friend is a quite a good Potion brewer, and she makes time to help me."

Holmes nodded and leaned back into his pillows. "I don't know anyone in Potions," he said. "Charms, perhaps... Have you ever heard of the Homorphus Charm?" he asked hopefully.

For the first time, Remus felt a wave of genuine sympathy. Holmes was beginning the path that so many werewolves had walked before him. In some ways, Remus was lucky to have bitten as young as he was. It was his parents who had gone through the agony of one shattered hope after another, while he had simply accepted that something about him had become different and it meant that there was a great deal of rushing around after one medicine or another. The hope of a permanent cure had never been there to torture him because he hadn't really understood the sickness until long after all the hopes had been exhausted. "There are some strains of lycanthropy that Homorphus can alter--particularly the Antipodean strain--but it's at the cost of the werewolf's life. The advantage is that you wouldn't die transformed, but no one has lived more than a few days afterward. And to the best of my knowledge, it has no effect whatsoever on the Black Forest strain, which is what most lycanthropes in Britain have..."

Holmes listened with disappointment, but not despair. Remus was careful about that. He would drive himself mad if he chased cures from one end of the world to another (not to mention driving himself into debt), but lycanthropy wasn't a death sentence, at least not until a nearly normal number of years had passed. It would only kill him if he let himself become too weak for the transformation, or if he contracted any sort of wasting disease that was left uncured too close to the full moon. If he stayed reasonably healthy and ate intelligently--and made sure that he didn't try to put off the transformation, so that it wouldn't take him violently--there was no reason for him to die any sooner than he would have otherwise. And, Remus couldn't help suggesting, perhaps he could use the same contacts he'd had before to work on easing the werewolf laws. Holmes laughed bitterly at this--his wife had already left him, and none of his political friends had deigned to visit--so Remus didn't press the issue.

When he looked over, he saw that Molly and Arthur had stopped arguing, and were now holding hands and talking fondly to one another. Molly saw him looking and said, "It's safe."

Remus nodded. "Look, Edward," he said to Holmes, "you know better than most that there are werewolves out there who aren't up to any good. But that's not the way it has to be. The lycanthrope you choose to be is no different from the man you choose to be. Do you understand that?"

"Yes."

"There will be people who... have other ideas. But you remember what they did in Kent. Those people aren't trying to help you."

"Don't I know it. Will you come talk to me again?"

Remus nodded. "I'm not allowed to counsel you--technically, anyway--but if you'll have me to visit as a friend, I'd be happy to come. And I'll come here for the next moon so you'll know someone."

Holmes's eyes filled up with tears, which he blinked rapidly to hide, and he said nothing else.

Remus rejoined Molly and Arthur, and after awhile, the children came back to them.

The post-holiday letdown was quick and steep.

It began with the resurfacing of Kreacher, who delighted in glaring at Harry and making people uncomfortable, but Remus knew that wasn't all there was to it. The horrible resumption of the normal pace of life at Grimmauld Place was every day more imminent.

Molly was preparing to go back to the Burrow when Arthur was released, and the moderately happy decorations in the square outside had taken on a dispirited look. No one had objected when Sirius closed the curtains on the world outside with a decisive swish of velvet. The children still seemed glad to be out from under Dolores Umbridge's thumb, but they were already starting to pull out their holiday assignments and talk about classes (and Dumbledore's Army, at least when Molly couldn't hear them). Remus himself was beginning to put together post-holiday lessons, and spent the Saturday after Christmas at Dora's flat, catching up on a pile of first form essays. While he was there, Anna Garvey called and invited them to "a bit of a New Year's Eve gathering" that Tuesday. Remus promised to check with Dora, who was keen to go. Remus had no special interest in the New Year, but the prospect of an evening away from Grimmauld Place held increasing charm for him.

Sirius seemed to feel the oncoming change--or rather the oncoming sameness--more acutely than anyone, and he wasn't making any consistent effort hide this. More and more, he locked himself up in Buckbeak's room, leaving Harry wandering around the house with a dazed and hurt look on his face. Remus tried to open the door between them once or twice, but Harry wasn't interested in that door, only in the one on the third floor, behind which his godfather was tossing dead rats to a hippogriff. He spoke to Remus in a distracted way, only becoming animated when he asked on Sunday if Remus was sure that Sirius was all right.

"I'll check on him," Remus said.

Harry nodded. "Thank you. I could go. I should go."

"No. I don't think Sirius wants you to see him in there. But I'll get him out, by hook or by crook."

Remus didn't bother knocking, or offering any respect to the locked door. He pointed his wand at the knob and said, "Alohomora." The door popped open.

Sirius, sitting cross-legged on the floor with an open bottle of firewhiskey beside him, looked up at him without much interest. "Is something wrong?"

"Get up," Remus said.

"I was just feeding Buckbeak."

Remus took the basket of dead rats away from him and placed it on the ruins of his mother's bed, where Buckbeak had made a rough and reeking nest. The hippogriff ate delicately from the basket without any need of human assistance.

"Buckbeak doesn't need you in here. Harry needs you out there."

Sirius looked at him dully. "You think he needs me like this?"

"So stop doing this. Get out where he can see you and make an effort."

Sirius gave one short, sharp bark of laughter. "Right. I'll take your advice on that."

"What are you talking about?"

"I come up here for a few hours and you lecture me. But you? You're the master of sudden disappearances from Harry's life."

"I'm trying to give the two of you a bit of room."

"I didn't ask you to, and neither did Harry. You're not doing it for us. You're doing it because you're a damned coward and you're afraid that Harry won't like you anymore if he knows who you are."

"Harry knows perfectly well what I am."

"He knows you're a werewolf, and he knows you're a teacher." Sirius thought about it, and grudgingly added. "And he knows you love him. I think he does, anyway. But that's about all."

"And you think he would be somehow better off if he could recite my hobbies and my favorite colors? What else does he need to know?"

Sirius took a deep breath and shrugged, picking up the bottle of firewhiskey. Remus Banished it across the room with enough force to make it shatter against the windowsill. Buckbeack started to sniff at the remains, so Sirius Vanished them with a languid wave of his wand. "You're right," he said. "I shouldn't be drinking."

"And you shouldn't be in here, either. Come on, Sirius. Get up, sober up, clean up. Go downstairs."

Sirius pulled himself to his feet, but didn't swagger at all. He wasn't drunk. Somehow, that was the worst part of it. He brushed past Remus on the way out, and stopped. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have said that. About you being a coward. I was angry."

Remus sighed. "Go on. I'll clean up after Buckbeak."

Sirius went out, and half an hour later, he was making a manic effort at rekindling the good cheer, laughing heartily at the twins' jokes and telling Harry wild stories about James's Quidditch exploits. Harry seemed relieved to see him, even if he didn't entirely trust the mood, and he didn't notice Remus watching them from the shadows. Later that night, Dora came over to begin brewing the week's Wolfsbane Potion, signaling the return of the unchanging, unforgiving routine of Remus Lupin's life.

Tuesday, he met her at her flat, where she'd found some sort of Muggle party clothes for both of them (at her beloved Oxfam, he supposed). It wasn't a formal affair by any means, but Anna had described it as "cocktail sort of thing," and that apparently meant that Remus was to wear a suit, and Dora a pretty sort of dress with a metallic sheen to it. It was only held up by one shoulder strap, leaving the other bare. Dora spent a great deal of time before they left trying to make her arm look like it was in a sort of healthy mid-fifties--unwrinkled, but without some of the natural elasticity of her youth. "I never concentrated on my shoulder before," she said, watching the skin grow marginally duller and dryer (to Remus's annoyance, she used his hands as a template). "How do I look? Appropriately old?" She winked.

"You always look like Dora to me," Remus said.

"I always look like which Dora?"

"My Dora."

She grinned. "But they're both your Dora. Do mean Dora Tonks or Dora Lewis?"

Remus shook his head. "Your mask is fine, Dora," he said. "We should go."

The "little get-together" actually seemed to involve most of the Smeltings staff. It was held in a pub not far from Alan and Anna's home, and they hadn't skimped on the hospitality. Remus wondered for the first time what Anna Garvey did for a living, because there was simply no way they could entertain this richly on a teacher's salary.

Not that it was lavish, per se. There was no fountain of sparkling wine or fine crystal--it was all beer and stout and soft drinks (though Regina Smythe set herself up behind the bar and made some sorts of sweet mixed drinks, one of which was a violent blue that Dora simply had to try). There was a game of darts going on all night in one corner, and trays of cheese and grapes on every table. Above the bar, a television was playing some film or other, which a group of Alan's friends (not from Smeltings) was acting out below it. A contraption in the far corner let people choose songs, and a small dance floor had been cleared around it. Dora, whose father was eternally obsessed with the Muggle music of his youth, happily chose four tunes that she knew well.

"Did you want to dance?" Remus asked her as a singer declared manically that he wanted to hold her ha-a-a-a-and.

She shook her head. "Maybe a slow one. I'd fall over my own feet trying to dance to this. Or more likely, yours. If you want to dance, you can dance with anyone you'd like. You have my wifely permission." She smiled broadly.

A few minutes later, Miriam Levinson dragged him out onto the dance floor, since Joe wasn't feeling up to it and she simply loved the Beatles. Remus, who hadn't danced since James and Lily Potter's wedding, felt like a bit of an ass, but ended up spending most of the next two hours on the dance floor with various partners, dancing to Muggle music had never heard before and probably never would again. Close to midnight, someone finally put on a slow song--a breathy-voiced woman singing that if he fell, she would catch him, she'd be waiting, time after time--and Dora slid off her barstool and cut in. "This one's my time," she whispered, slipping her hands onto his shoulders and then locking them behind his neck. "Dad bought me the album."

Remus reached up to his neck and took one of her hands, disengaging it and holding it off to the side, as his mother had taught him when dancing closely with a lady. Gingerly, he put his other hand on the small of Dora's back. In the hand he was holding, he could feel her pulse beating a mad rhythm.

"Dad tried to teach me to waltz once," she said. "It wasn't pretty."

"It's not really a waltz," Remus said. "The count is wrong. I just don't know how else to dance."

Dora smiled nervously, and for awhile, they simply swayed together. Again, Remus was aware of how very warm she seemed. He thought about asking her if it generated heat when she was keeping up a morph, but wasn't entirely sure how that would come out, and so said nothing.

After awhile, she leaned in closer to him, and his bearded chin rested on her bare shoulder. Then, abruptly, the song ended, and they were swept in different directions, much to Remus's relief. That dance had been perfectly appropriate for Dora and Raymond Lewis, he supposed, but his mind had been nowhere near Raymond Lewis's, and as soon as he'd let go of her, all he could think of was that he'd just been holding little Dora Tonks in a highly inappropriate way. He decided again that he needed to have a talk with her, but when he looked across the room and saw her laughing gaily at some joke Alan had told her, he knew that it would be intolerable to him to see that smile fade bit by bit as he shattered her pretty daydreams by explaining that they simply couldn't be because...

Because.

Maybe this business would fade on its own; it always had in the past.

Coward, Sirius's voice sneered in his mind.

Remus shut it out.

At midnight, the various couples, in various states of inebriation, kissed one another. Dora gave Remus another of those oddly lingering kisses on the cheek, and if his own kiss to her forehead perhaps lingered longer than it should have when they said goodbye at her flat later, he blamed it on the waxing moon above and muttered a mortified apology before fleeing into the dark shadows of the early hours of nineteen-ninety-six.

Less than a week later, the full moon rose again.