A Model

A Vast Image Troubles My Sight

Putting Lord Voldemort inside a model, even in cube form, required total concentration.

Whispering the last of the buffering spells, Atropos placed the box with a click onto the location of the model she had chosen. She sat back, smiling slightly and felt a warm delight fill her as the glowing lines began to touch the box, shooting out from it again in different directions. For all that she found the box itself frightening, Atropos never tired of seeing it affect a model. There was nothing predictable about how a black box would change a model so every placement resulted in surprises.

Looking up she found herself staring straight into Remus's eyes. He and Sirius had now stopped talking completely, and were watching the flashing lines. Remus seemed to be frowning at her.

Probably didn't want me to interrupt things she thought with a flash of guilt. She broke eye contact and looked at the model. She gave her shoulders a pettish twitch and tried to send the feeling away. Remus and Black had had plenty of time to talk. They probably needed the break.

The model is more important anyway, she announced to herself loftily. Pretending to be firmly convinced, she turned her face fully back to Remus, planning on giving a brief explanation of what she had done, when a strange humming filled the air around her.

Gripping her wand she spun back to the model. "What ..."

At the same time behind her she heard Black begin, "Something isn't ..."

As she reached for the box, a silent and enormous explosion rocked the room.

* * *

Remus stared blankly at the slowly revolving ceiling, and vaguely wondered why he was lying on the ground. He was conscious of an ache in his shoulder and a knot of pain in his side that probably meant he had a cracked rib. When his brain managed to catch up with the situation he briefly flirted with panic but quickly discarded the idea.

If they were still being attacked by anyone he would be dead by now.

Which doesn't rule out someone being gravely injured. I really should get up.

The thought floated across his mind slowly and he knew it made sense, but he couldn't seem to transform it into any kind of action. His mind felt numb. Though he was happy to hear Sirius steadily and healthily swearing somewhere to the right of him, his body didn't seem to want to check on him. He was fascinated to notice that the ceiling had stopped spinning and was now rocking back and forth. Remus couldn't decide which was better for his stomach.

Atropos's face suddenly appeared in front of him. He squinted at her, thankful that she seemed to be staying firmly in place. There was a frown line between her eyebrows and she had a quill sticking out her hair. She didn't seem to be aware of it.

Remus lifted a hand, vaguely intending to pull the feather out, and ended up almost poking her in the eye. Grabbing his wrist, Atropos awkwardly took his other hand and fixed him with a firm gaze.

"Are you hurt, Remus?" She spoke very slowly and clearly. The frown line between her brows deepened.

When he moved slightly, he felt a sharp twinge from his side again, which brought some needed clarity to his mind. He was at least able to stop staring at her hair and think about what she had asked him. Finally grasping her question, he tried to take a quick inventory. He was distantly relieved to feel nothing seriously wrong.

Her voice broke in again and her hands tightened on his. "Remus?"

Lupin blinked at Atropos and forced himself to focus on answering her. "No I'm not hurt ...I don't think I am." He ignored the cracked rib. He was familiar with it as an injury, and figured he could deal with it on his own later. He grimaced and tried to sit up tugging her forward slightly. "Sorry. I'm a little ... shook up."

Atropos looked halfway between relieved and unconvinced. She nodded slowly. He heard slight movement to the right of him again.

"You should probably help him up." Sirius sounded irritated.

Atropos glanced away from him and scowled across the room towards where Remus could not see. "I wanted to make certain he wasn't hurt, Black. Lying on the floor won't make anything worse for Remus." Under her breath she added, "Or for you." Deliberately turning back to him, she shifted her grip on his hands. "Are you ready?"

The fog in his brain receding, he started to nod and thought better of it, simply beginning to shift himself. As Atropos hauled him to his feet, Remus quickly closed his eyes, promising himself he wouldn't be ill.

Not only did his side begin complaining strongly, but he also felt drunk in the most disagreeable of ways. The world seemed to be alternating between lurching and spinning on its axis, and his stomach seemed convinced he was aboard a plummeting broomstick. When he tottered slightly, Atropos gave him a nervous look. Perhaps she was worried he was going to collapse on top of her. "Are you certain you're not hurt?" she asked uneasily.

Remus, after considering her temper and his weakened state, bit back an irritable retort and focused on keeping his innards in place. He was perfectly capable of deciding for himself how hurt he happened to be.

His head began to pound in ironic agreement.

With a death grip on her arm and several deep breaths, he felt marginally more stable and was able to risk a glance about the room. It looked as if Peeves and all of his most malicious relations had attacked them. Somehow every book had been piled into a single stack that exactly reached the ceiling. One entire wall was covered with what looked like Merriman's questionnaires. Everything else that could possibly be moved had been moved and then tossed about for good measure. Sirius was nowhere in evidence, but Remus could hear him muttering from behind the overturned desk.

Coldness settled in his stomach as he envisioned weeks of work completely ruined. He couldn't bring himself to turn his head toward the model's side of the room.

Atropos seemed to know what he was thinking. When she spoke, she sounded rather overly cheerful. "Actually the model is surprisingly ... unaffected. Or at least mostly. There are parts ..." Her voice cut off when Sirius's voice interrupted her irately.

"If it isn't too much trouble, I'd love to be able to get off the floor some time in the next week or so." There was a scrabbling sound from behind the desk.

Remus frowned and, still clutching one of Atropos's hands, began walking unsteadily towards Sirius's voice. He was rapidly becoming more cognizant and now realized how odd it was that Sirius had left Atropos to deal with his friend's possible injuries.

Behind him, Atropos was muttering. "I offered to help him. But no, he could do it himself. Silly fool thinks he's so ..."

When Remus rounded the corner of the desk, his first reaction was cold horror. Sirius's face was a mask of blood and his robes were covered in dark wet stains. He was surrounded by broken glass.

Remus made a strangled noise and dropped to his knees next to his friend. Atropos squawked a protest as he dragged her down with him.

Did Atropos sit looking at the model and poking at me while Sirius was taking care of himself?

"My God! Sirius!" Was all he managed to gasp out, before Black interrupted him waspishly.

"No, I am not dying of a sucking chest wound!" His hand lifted and tugged the neck of his robes. His fingers came away black. "This is all ink. I was thrown into Merriman's writing kit. And I can't move because of those." He gestured towards his legs and Remus blinked with amazement. All around Sirius's legs quills, transfixing his robes, were buried several inches deep in the stone floor, effectively pinning him to the ground. Several loose quills around him revealed that he'd been picking them out of the floor to free himself for some time now.

A slight grin twisted Sirius's lips. "Rather remarkable isn't it?" He raised a hand that was covered in thin rub-burns. "And they are nearly impossible to pull out. Though I think it is almost worth it now, just see the expression on your face." He laughed and gave one of the quills a sharp yank.

Remus sat back on his haunches and allowed his heart rate to return to normal. Atropos snorted disgustedly and abruptly tugged her hand out of his grip. The sudden loss startled him and made Remus jerk his head up. Atropos was rising to her feet, her face tense.

"I think you and Black can wrestle with the quills on your own, Remus." She dusted her knees off, evidently unaware that she was still sporting a quill in her hair. "I am going to see if I can find our wands in this mess." The last few words were said with some violence. Remus grimaced and purposely avoided looking at the model. He hadn't inspected it closely yet, but the little he had seen had convinced that he didn't want to look at any more just yet.

His whole body ached; he wouldn't be able to fix anything without a wand anyway; with a wand, he wouldn't be able to do more than help clean up; and not even that could be achieved fully with Sirius literally pinned to the floor.

Remus had learned the value of confronting the problems he could solve first.

He turned back to Sirius and gave an experimental tug at a quill. The feather refused to give.

Or at least try to solve. Maybe if I dug it out with another quill?

Black was working on the other side. Remus could hear Merriman shifting debris and muttering to herself. Of course, when the quill finally came free it did so abruptly, sending him sprawling back. His rib gave another tug of pain.

Remus felt his somewhat replenished patience ebbing away. "What the hell happened here, anyway?" He waved the quill at Sirius.

Sirius snorted. "Damned if I know. All Academic Merriman would say was that there had been 'a kind of magical explosion'." He jabbed his finger behind Remus and raised his voice slightly. "Isn't it nice to have really well educated people around to explain these things to us?" The sounds of Atropos's industrious search did not pause.

Remus grimaced. It was the kind of obvious answer Atropos gave when she didn't know what was going on. Or did know and was keeping him in the dark.

Watching Sirius angrily tugging again at one of the quills, Remus sat back, thinking it would be better to wait for the wands and avoid rope burns on their hands. This gave him time to notice something lying next to Sirius. He picked it up with a sigh. There were times when having magical powers meant that you spent your time bailing the boat with a teaspoon when your hands would be far more effective.

"I think these might work a little better," he said dryly and offered Sirius the pinking sheers.

This won him a sour look, but it got Sirius off the floor too.

It took a few snips and Sirius was on his feet, dripping ink and still vividly red from the smears of ink on his face. Atropos made a triumphant noise at this point, waving Sirius's wand from where she had just found it under the Invisibility Cloak. She brought it to Sirius, who quickly snatched it from her, pointedly walking away to clean himself up.

Remus wearily rubbed his head. Sirius didn't take well to being made a fool of, and he seemed to be blaming Atropos for what had happened. Though, to be fair, she seemed like the likeliest candidate.

Stopping her from leaving to look for their wands with a hand on the arm, he drew Atropos aside. She looked up at him, her expression guarded.

Remus decided that he ached too much to be diplomatic. "What exactly happened here, Atropos?" When she opened her mouth he quickly interrupted. "And do not say a magical explosion. I think I can deduce that on my own."

Atropos's shrugged, her mouth set in a stubborn line. "I don't know," she said reluctantly.

Remus felt his jaw tense. He was confused, probably concussed, and completely exhausted with her hedging. Now was not the time for oneiromancer pride.

His attitude was apparently clear to Atropos. She sucked in a quick breath and answered hurriedly, "Remus, I mean I really, really don't know. I have never had anything close to this ... this ... this ... violent happen with a model." She ran a hand through her hair and encountered the quill. When an angry tug didn't get it free she gave up and continued, "I am going to need to study the mod ..." Her voice trembled. The little lines between her eyebrows were very deep. "To study what's left of the model." She dropped her head, staring at their toes. "Black can probably leave when he wants. I am not ready to use his information anymore." She glanced over her shoulder at the model and her shoulders slumped. Following her gaze, Remus finally saw what had happened to the model.

It was not destroyed. There were small favors. But one whole section near the corner of the room was completely gone; the props mysteriously vanished or so spread about the room that they may as well have been gone. The hanging cloths were twisted around themselves and the glass was producing a series of unconnected sentences.

Even he could tell that they had suffered a frightening setback.

Gazing at the ruin of the entire room, Remus suddenly felt the looming presence of Selim Crowlet. Atropos had been working on a deadline; this was something approaching a disaster.

Remus, feeling helpless, looked back at Atropos. She had both hands pressed to her mouth, her eyes huge and miserable. The white quill, more tangled than before, stood out starkly against her black hair. He wordlessly reached out and gently started working it out of Atropos's hair. Though she twitched slightly when he touched her, she didn't protest and startled him by leaning slightly into his touch.

"This was not something I anticipated." Atropos's voice was choked, though whether with unhappiness, frustration, or both he could not say. "I have never even heard ..." She ground to a halt.

Frowning at his own fingers, he searched for some way to express the encouragement and faith she needed. "Nothing about this was going to be what we had heard of." He finally pulled the feather free and fluttered his fingers to allow it to drop to the ground. He reached up and carefully smoothed down her hair. Remus felt some of the tenseness leave her. "It is why Dumbledore asked for the best," he finished quietly. She laughed shortly in response, but it did not sound bitter.

Then, turning swiftly about, Atropos looked up at him, her usual expression of stubborn confidence almost back in place. "Damn right," she said with only a slight wobble.

Pleased that he had succeeded partially in comforting her, Remus was suddenly aware how close they were standing. Her motion had moved his hand from her hair to her shoulder. He could feel warmth coming from her body and saw for the first time that she had small scar, almost invisible against her pale skin, to the left of her nose.

Atropos's expression had become unreadable, her eyes slightly questioning.

Remus was bemused when he realized that Atropos was not going to move away from him. She had tipped her head down slightly and now appeared to be staring at one of his buttons.

He also realized abruptly that, not only had he the choice of stepping forward or back, but he also had absolutely no idea which he would prefer to do.

Fortunately or unfortunately Sirius solved this problem for him by expelling the most hair-raising string of curses he had ever heard in his life. Remus jumped, dropping his arm from Atropos's shoulder, and Atropos practically leaped away from him, her face vividly pink. She then turned toward Sirius with just a little too much enthusiasm.

When Remus, desperately hoping that Sirius hadn't been staring at them the entire time, swung about as well, he blinked in confusion. Sirius was surrounded by a pile of ashes but he was still covered in sticky ink. Patches of his robes had dried and he now looked like an eccentric painter who was very unamused. The red ink on his face had dried into an interesting swirl pattern.

"What the hell is this ink made of?" he snarled. "I've used every spell I know. I've practically flayed myself!"

There was a short silence.

"Oh dear." Atropos said the words softly. "I completely forgot."

Remus turned to her and Sirius lowered his wand. Atropos's expression was so perfectly neutral that Remus knew she was holding back an impolite expression. Possibly a grin.

"What did you forget?" Sirius bit out.

Remus enjoyed the unique experience of watching Atropos search about for the correct words. "Well. The Academy has had problems in the past with people trying to erase their biographs," she rubbed her hands together, "to dispose of evidence. So we have a policy of using Frink's Indelible Ink for a lot of our documents."

This announcement was followed by an extremely eloquent silence. Remus wondered wildly whether Sirius was deciding how best to murder Atropos, or merely contemplating his future as a convict with a face covered in bright red swirls.

Atropos rolled her eyes at their expressions. She walked across the room and gathered up Harry's cloak. "It comes off with lots of effort and strong soap. Though I think that your robes may be permanently altered."

She handed the Cloak to Sirius. "Though you should probably begin your clean up now. The longer the ink has to set the harder it will be to remove." Remus didn't think she sounded particularly sorry about this.

Sirius wasn't the only one in the room who occasionally took their problems out on others.

Sirius scowled at the oneiromancer. Remus thought, though, that his vividly red nose ruined the fearsome effect.

Deciding to step in before Sirius said something that would make his working with Atropos impossible, he also walked over to join his friend. "Sirius, why don't you use the bathroom in my rooms? You have a wand so you will probably be able to get in. I can go with ..." He paused, noticing that Atropos was looking about the room, her amused expression giving way to the previous distressed one. "I mean, I can help Atropos find our wands ..."

"No." Atropos's voice was flat. Remus was startled. He had expected Atropos to want him around, if only to do all of the clean up work while she tried to find out what had happened.

He didn't like to think of her being alone while she sorted through the rubble of her weeks of diligent work.

Remus arched a questioning eyebrow. Atropos looked away from him and stared at the model. Sirius's eyes flicked back and forth between them thoughtfully. He carefully began shaking out the Invisibility Cloak.

When Atropos turned back her expression was composed. It also looked manufactured. "Mr. Black will probably need help since he can't wander around alone. I can bring your wand to you Remus. As soon as I find it." Meeting her eyes, Remus realized that she wanted at least a little time alone with the model. He didn't like leaving his wand here, but Sirius wouldn't be leaving Lupin's apartment, so Remus could use his friend's wand to return to the modeling room later.

He finally nodded and turned to Sirius, who was already whipping the Cloak around himself. Black left his head visible for a moment. His eyes were bright with curiosity, but he only said, "You'd better go first, Remus. I don't want any students to catch me coming through the fireplace."

Remus shrugged back, avoiding his friend's eyes, and snatched up the flu powder. "They'd probably think it was Peeves causing trouble - or maybe a faulty, uncleaned chimney." He tossed the powder. "They'd be practically right too!" He braced himself for the unpleasant trip and wondered if they could get Dobby to give the fireplace a little cleaning.

When they reached the office, covered in ash again, Remus could sense Sirius had a question for him. A question that he wasn't going to answer with a cracked rib and rattled nerves. It had been bad enough on the trip here, when Sirius had chosen to quiz him about Atropos. Now he didn't feel up to another round of questions.

He quickly spoke at the spot where he thought Sirius was standing to forestall his comments. "Trust you to take a bath in indelible ink while wearing some of my more presentable robes!"

Remus could hear the grin in his voice. "Sorry about that Moony. Maybe you can wear them to finish off that masterpiece you never got around to painting." He could tell that Sirius knew he was trying to distract him.

He led Black over to the door. "Or use them as dish rags." He shook his head ruefully.

"Well you can send your laundry bill to Dumbledore, and I will charge him for my facial treatment after I remove this ink with skin-stripping soap." Sirius's head popped out of the Cloak again briefly and so he could roll his eyes at Lupin. "She isn't so terrible. But don't expect me to spend my dinners in that room!"

To this sally, Remus kept his voice even, grateful that Sirius was showing some restraint. "I am immoderately delighted to hear you say so, my friend."

It was probably for the best that Merriman's office was in such an obscure wing of the castle. Sirius was laughing far more loudly than Remus felt the comment warranted.

* * *

Selim Crowlet was pleased to conclude that his model was progressing nicely. The small difficulty with a few missing years had been resolved by the consultation of a retired obstetrical Mediwizard under Imperio. Now all there was left was to get the information he had gleaned into the model correctly. Not simple, but certainly a new step.

He delicately placed the hat, gloves, and boots to the right of the model. They were located near the glass and the book. It had taken work to bind them to the quill but he was certain now that they would work well together. He frowned and swiftly spun the left boot around. It would not matter when the model was in use but he wanted the proper angles respected until then.

And part of him was glad that the Dark Lord would be wearing one bright pink boot while he was destroying his most hated enemy. He was almost being forced to get a little of his own back. It was wonderful.

Crowlet knew his masters, both past and present, treated him abominably. He also knew that when he had the purification spell, he would be worthy of punishing them all for it.

All it took was a little time, a little diffidence, and a little patience. These were all things he had in great quantity. Things that he was willing to use up entirely to get his revenge.

The model seemed to sigh softly. Selim raised his brows. That meant Master Weasley might actually begin feeling the slight effects of being modeled, though luckily it was doubtful he would recognize them for what they were.

Selim was the first to admit that it was a weakness of his model that a person could conceivably know something was being done to them long before it was finished. But someone's will was not a single object that could be snatched up all at once. It needed to be gathered slowly in bits and pieces.

Perhaps in the future, if he had leisure and life in him, he would find a way of building an undetectable version of his model.

Though it was equally likely that some bright oneiromancer with vision would be able to add on to what he had already made.

* * *

Remus waited around for an hour or two in his rooms before he reluctantly concluded that Atropos wasn't going to appear with his wand. When they had first arrived he had needed to find strong enough soap for Sirius to be able to remove his war paint. Now, listening to Sirius curse and splash in the bathroom, and resisting the urge to grip his side that was beginning to ache in earnest, he decided he wouldn't wait any longer. Sirius's probably leaving permanent ink stains on everything. The house elves are going to be spitting in my food.

He walked stiffly over to a table and shouted over his shoulder, "I'm taking your wand, Sirius. Atropos hasn't brought mine back yet so I need to get it myself."

Sirius's response came a moment later. "I'm really shocked, Remus! Academic Merriman seemed so considerate." There was a splashing noise followed by a thump. "And its great for me to know that when the Ministry comes to get me I will be wandless, as well as soaking wet, naked, and covered in ink."

Remus snorted but also began double-checking the wards he had placed over the room. If anyone came into his room by force, Dumbledore would know and act accordingly. He walked over to the door. "No doubt The Daily Prophet would have a field day with that picture!" Remus called.

Shutting the door on Sirius's response, he hurried towards her office. He figured that Atropos was probably moving past the wanting-to-be-alone stage and beginning to enter the needing-Remus-to-shift-trash-and-complain-to one. It was probably best that he be there for her.

She shouldn't be alone this long anyway. It only encourages morbid thoughts. Remus knew this from long experience.

And, deep down, he knew that these weren't the only reasons he wanted to see her. When he looked at whatever the foggy something was which he had almost done and which Atropos would have allowed him to do, he felt a deep confusion. He had never expected himself to feel anything but a professional friendship with the oneiromancer.

And now ...

Now nothing happened. Now I am going see Academic Merriman and help her with the model ... Now ... Now is not the time.

It was on this bracing thought that he entered Atropos's office and almost tripped over the enormous pile of splintered furniture that had been placed, very conveniently, directly in front of the door.

Bending down to soothe his banged shin, he looked around the office. It now resembled a lumber-room. On a cursory glance, he guessed that Atropos had, quite literally, banished every single item that had been affected by the explosion into her office. Even the books, previously stacked to the ceiling, were now lying in a pile right next to the shards of glass from the inkbottles. She had also generously spread all of the marbles onto the floor.

Gingerly picking his way past the piles of bric-a-brac, Remus finally reached the fireplace.

At least now he knew that she had managed to find one of their wands.

Emerging from the fireplace sneezing, he blinked away tears to get a glimpse of the room. The remaining sections of the model were still present, but the rest of the room was almost completely bare. Atropos sat on the floor in the middle. She was holding his wand and reading a book. Another open book sat next to her along with a black box and a stack of papers.

Alerted by his sneezing Atropos looked up from her reading. She blinked at him a few times and then smiled a vague greeting.

Remus smiled thinly back. "I'm glad that you found my wand."

Atropos started guiltily, looking at his wand as if noticing it the first time. "Oh Remus, I am sorry, I meant to return it but then I thought I should move things a bit first and then I thought I should try to find out what was happening and then I was completely ..."

Feeling warmly amused, he walked over to stand near her, "Completely distracted?"

"Well yes," she admitted and tapped one of the books. "But I have found a few things out and got the room clean." She bit her lip.

Remus briefly considered sitting with her, but his rib loudly protested any such thought, "Yes, the room." He asked the question that had been niggling him since he had seen the mess in her office, "Atropos, how are you going to see students, if your office is filled with trash? It was practically a steeple chase just to get across the room in there!"

She shrugged and waved his wand at the box, distracted from him. "That's just a temporary fix. You'll have time to clean it out before I have to see students, Remus." Her voice became slightly tense. "I just needed all of the stuff out of here so I could work."

He stared at the top of her head for a few moments. Though his first thought was to dismiss this as just more of her usual thoughtlessness, he could not help but feel that there was something strange in her manner. Carefully sitting down to avoid jostling his rib, he put a hand over the book, making her look up at him. "What have you found out Atropos?" he asked evenly.

Atropos frowned at him and seemed to consider. Remus chose to wait. He didn't think that she was going to hide anything about this from him. She finally reached out and lifted the box up. "Well, I know why we had an explosion." She set the box down. "And I know why my wand isn't working!" she pulled it out of her sleeve and waved it ineffectually. "And I know that I am going to be spending weeks trying to fix it so none of it happens again!" The last was said explosively, her cheeks were flushed with unhappy anger.

He had left her by herself for too long.

He carefully reached out and picked up his wand. He decided to address the question that was most mysterious to him. "Why isn't your wand working?"

Atropos grimaced. "Because ... because its hard to explain." She waved it again, "And your wand doesn't work very well by the way," she said almost sulkily.

Remus snorted, "Probably because it's my wand. Now answer the question."

The oneiromancer let out a sigh and seemed to come to a decision. She lifted the box again and set it in his lap. "That," she announced, "is Lord Voldemort."

Remus blinked at the smooth black cube, "I didn't expect him to be so ... geometrical."

Atropos smiled weakly. "He is as far as the Academy is concerned. After he was defeated, our first act was to begin a model of him." She brushed a hand through her hair. "It was an extremely dramatic failure. The model was a magic sucking black hole. We found out quickly after this, that no model could be made about a present time without introducing him into it." She looked at Remus out of wide, pale eyes. "He had touched too many lives. No one was immune. And he was as disastrous there as he was in his own model. So a team of wizards came up with the box. It's meant to ... soak up all of Voldemort's influence in the model. The model can use it, but does not receive the bad effect of his presence." She glanced down at the box, "Now every oneiromancer who graduates from the Academy gets a Black Box."

Remus sat back, trying to digest this information. "And yours is broken?"

"No, mine was completely overwhelmed. I think Pettigrew is too tightly bound to Voldemort." She turned to look at the model. "What happened here was a combination of several things, Voldemort's presence in the model sucked the magic out of my wand, as well as the part of the model it was touching, and the box released all of its magic at once tossing us about and doing several other strange things as well."

She lifted her wand and waved it, sparks flew out the end. "Well at least that's come back."

He blinked with surprise, "Its not permanent?"

Atropos was trying a few experimental passes with the wand, her face still tense, "The leeching effect? No." She scowled. "If it were, we would have people clamoring for it to be used as a weapon. Though it is certainly destructive enough." She pointed at the empty space where part of the model used to be. "It's because of it that this section of the model lost its protection spells. Without them, it was vulnerable to the explosion."

Remus nodded, understanding the implications. Even the temporary loss of magic in the right situation could kill or destroy. "What are you going to do then? Get a bigger Box?"

She shook her head slowly. "No. They are all the same size." She began lightly tapping her finger on the floor, seeming to work out what she believed as she was speaking. "I am going to have to do what the other's failed at - put Lord Voldemort into a model." Atropos rose to her feet. Remus stood up with her. "Let's hope that they were wrong about it being impossible."

He stared at her. For all the worry he could see in her eyes, he could also see a certain excitement starting to form behind them. He felt a smile beginning to grow in response. Remus was able to recognize someone relishing a challenge when he saw it.

Atropos's expression abruptly changed. "I almost forgot!" She bent over and began flipping through the pages of one of her books. "Here you are." She handed over a single sheet of paper.

Not thrilled at the prospect of yet more work, he frowned at it. He still had the office to clean after all. When he started reading though he was instantly intrigued. He looked at Atropos, who was openly grinning, and raised both brows. "You threw a bottle of ink at me?"

She beamed at him. "Well I figured that if they were going to replace your damaged robes, the Academy would need to know what had happened," she smiled archly, "Everyone knows how unreasonable I am."

Remus stared at her happy face and came to a quick decision. He bent forward and gently kissed her. Her lips trembled but she did not move away. He didn't know if it was acquiescence or complete shock that held her still.

Backing up and meeting Atropos's startled eyes, he smiled softly, she didn't seem angry. "Yes, you can be extremely unreasonable."

Turning on his heel, he left the both the room and a confused but happy oneiromancer in his wake.