Two to Obey

Chapter 6: Death, Rebirth and Betrayal

"I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, 'I drank what?'"

-Real Genius

*******

Thera's morning stumble to the bathroom was interrupted by a knock at the door. Snarling, she walked over and flung it open.

"You're not a morning person," Draco observed, looking disgustingly awake and well-groomed. Stepping inside, he closed the door and tossed a small box to her.

"What's this?" She squinted at the writing on the side, but it was too small to make out.

Pulling out his wand, Draco enlarged the item, timing it so that the box bonked her soundly on the forehead. "A present," he said, smiling angelically.

Now holding a moving crate of sorts, Thera glared at him before putting it on the bed. "Extendable ears," she read from the side, yawning. "Good show."

"I figure there ought to be enough in there to stash in various locations around the Manor and Shirag Castle. That way we don't have to carry them around with us. No proof."

"Brilliant," Thera said, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "I need a shower."

Draco gave her a look implying that she needed a lot more than that. "We'll talk while you're in there. I've plenty of news and they want you downstairs as soon as possible."

"What a parchment-thin excuse to gawk at me naked," Thera said, shaking her head.

"I've seen you naked already. It's not as if things have moved around or anything."

Needing to wake her brain up enough to go downstairs, Thera couldn't care less if he brought the entire Wizengamot in with him. "Knock yourself out," she muttered, tossing off her t-shirt and turning the water on. "Make it quick. I've got news, too."

"Right now, Cornelius Fudge is being subjected to unearthly torments courtesy of Bellatrix and Rodolphus. I imagine they'll put him under imperius afterwards and send him home to commit honorable suicide. Wonder why they didn't include you?"

"They probably don't want me to hear what he says," Thera decided, holding a hand out to make sure the water was hot before stepping inside. Sighing, she closed her eyes and let the water hit her right in the face for a few seconds. "So the Death Eaters managed to pull off a coup d'état, such as it is."

"He was already out," Draco said. "He just managed to perform one last act of stupidity along the way by trying to blackmail my father into helping him."

Thera frowned as she lathered up her hair. "The Wizard's Council threw him out?"

"The vote's just come in," he said. "Don't you read the paper?"

"I've been busy." Speaking of which... "I had a chat with the mystery prisoner."

"What did he have to say?"

It was difficult to summarize, it but Thera did her best. Draco was silent for a few seconds. When she heard him speak, he was standing right on the other side of the wavy glass shower door. "He's going to immanentize the eschaton? He's going to fucking immanentize the fucking eschaton?!"

"Er...if that's what the kids are calling it these days," Thera said, rinsing her hair out.

"Holy fucking Merlin," Draco said fervently, running his hands through his hair and pacing back and forth in front of the shower. "Do you know what this means?"

"No, considering I haven't the faintest clue what the hell you're talking about."

"Mass death and the unrivaled rule of evil for several thousand years," he said flatly.

"Oh." Thera gulped. "Shit." The metaphorical end of the world. It finally made sense.

"This is beyond shit. This is beyond all curse words known to mankind." Draco stopped pacing. "I have to tell Snape. Now. I need to tell him about Fudge anyway, but I'll make some excuse and..."

"The Good Side already knows," Thera assured him.

"What? How?"

"I told them."

"You found a way to get in contact with them?"

"Yes," she said, slathering conditioner into her hair.

"Well, what is it? Merlin knows, I'd rather not be trying to explain why I desperately need to go to Hogwarts at odd hours."

"It was just an interim measure. I'll find a better way as soon as I can."

Slowly, he crossed his arms. "What did you do?" he asked suspiciously.

Soaping up a washcloth, Thera went to work. "What does it matter? They have the information, and that's the whole point, isn't it?"

"If it really didn't matter, you wouldn't be so cagey about the details."

Thera sighed. "I was desperate, and it was a foolproof plan. Well, mostly foolproof."

"What. Did. You. Do?" he bit out.

"Alright, Mr. Pushypants. I called up Harry Potter on the telephone and told him."

There was a blast of cold air as Draco opened the shower door, looking half frightened and half ready to kill her. "I must have heard you wrong. I thought you said..."

Thera shot him a quelling look. "I used a telephone to call up the only other person I know with one. I doubt it occurred to the Death Eaters to tap his phone."

"Potter?!" he yelled, looking slightly panicked. "You entrusted this information to Harry 'Oh-is-this-a-trap-well-then-why-don't-I-just-walk-right-into-it' Potter?!"

"You're overreacting," she said, rinsing off.

Draco let out an amazed laugh. "Overreacting? I don't think so. It's probably posted in The Daily Prophet by now, along with..." he trailed off, narrowing his eyes and clenching his jaw. "Is that...volumizing conditioner?"

"It's conditioner," she shrugged. "What's the bloody difference?"

His mouth dropped open. "What's the bloody difference? What's the bloody difference? If your hair weren't naturally oily, you'd be walking around looking like Granger right now. You need control, not volume. You're trying to kill me, aren't you?"

"Buy me something else if you don't like what I use."

Slamming the door shut, Draco stomped out of the room. Thera finished up in the shower and found him sitting on her bed, a great deal calmer.

"You shouldn't have had any contact with him," Draco said disapprovingly.

After drying her hair, Thera went to the closet and picked out what could have passed as an Alice in Wonderland costume. "I didn't have much choice."

"You know what I mean."

"Do I?" Thera turned around as she buttoned up her blouse. He was enjoying it, no matter how impassive he appeared. A girl got a sixth sense for these things after a while, and a nasty urge forced her to fasten the buttons far more lasciviously than necessary.

"He seemed all hacked off at you the last time I talked to him," Draco said, his eyes glued to her fingers. "I'm surprised he forgave you."

Thera pulled on her skirt. "Who says he did? And why were you talking to him?"

"I've decided that he'd in need of my expertise," he smirked.

She snorted. "Your expertise for what? Personal hygiene?"

"That too," he said thoughtfully. "But there are a great many nasty curses and dirty tricks that one learns growing up in the house of Malfoy. I figured I'd teach him."

Thera regarded him skeptically. "And Harry agreed to this?"

"He will," Draco said with a wave of his hand. "I've got it all worked out."

She hummed. "So what do we do with those in the meantime?" she asked, gesturing to the extendable ears. "We can't just leave them sitting on the bed."

Draco studied the box. "I suppose we could transfigure it into something else."

"I could use a nice bracelet, I suppose. Nothing tacky."

He looked offended. "I would never create anything tacky." After taking out some of the ears to take back to Malfoy Manor with him, he waved his wand, transfiguring the box into a tasteful tennis bracelet.

Thera put it on, raising her eyebrows. "Tiffany? How uncreative of you."

"You're going to have to take the spell off to hide the extendable ears, then transfigure it back. I didn't want to make it too hard for you to manage. How can you recognize a Tiffany design anyway, oh former inhabitant of ghettos and sewers?"

"Reina," she said simply as they began making their way downstairs. "She could rate diamond clarity at fifty paces."

"Well, at least she taught you something useful."

"She taught me lots of useful things. How to drive, how to give a fantastic blow job..."

"Both of which will get you very far in life."

"Who needs to know anything else?"

The entrance hall was empty, but a house elf led them to the library. Thera inwardly cringed. She fucking hated going in the fucking library.

Lucius, Bellatrix and Rodolphus were in conference. Cornelius Fudge was seated in the same chair her father had sat in her dream, staring into space with his bowler hat askew.

"You asked for me?" Thera prompted them as she and Draco walked in.

"Yes," Rodolphus said, looking businesslike. "We're about to send the Minister home, but before we do, there's another matter to be dealt with."

Thera recognized the feeling at once. It was dread. "Oh?"

"His assistant," Bellatrix said excitedly, stepping forward. "She's downstairs right now. We saved her for you."

With Charlie Weasley, it had taken a good long time for automatic reaction to kick in. This time, it happened immediately, before she'd even seen the victim. The grin, the false excitement...they came almost naturally. She must be a quick learner.

"All for me?"

"You can't kill her though," Rodolphus said, looking apologetic. "It would look too suspicious if they both did themselves in. We doubt she even knows anything, but it's worth a try. Just find out what you can, then obliviate her."

Nodding, Thera turned to go, only to be stopped by Draco. "I'll be by later," he said, smirking while conveying a clear message with his eyes. "You can tell me all about it."

"I could show you if you want," she said, baring her teeth at him.

He blinked in surprise and Thera left the room as quickly as possible. In the back of her head, she recognized that what she was about to do was unforgivable. This wasn't a case of just witnessing, or of the Dark Lord forcing her to do anything, this was...

Her conscious mind interrupted. Was she a Slytherin or wasn't she? This wasn't an Auror or a member of the Order. This was Fudge's secretary, for crying out loud. All she had to do was reason with the woman, through a few crucios around for good measure, then obliviate her. Outside the cell, Thera performed the standard surveillance charms. It was bugged, but that was all. They could hear her, but not see her.

All she had to do was give them what they wanted.

Fudge's assistant was well into her sixties, tied to a chair and frightened out of her mind. She didn't look entirely put together - they must have gotten her while she was still getting ready for work, before she could finish her cosmetic charms.

"I know you," she whispered when Thera walked in. "You came in last year..."

"Shut up," Thera said, crossing her arms and staring the woman down. "Let's be honest here. Fudge already told us everything. You're just an afterthought. You work long hours at a thankless job and get paid shit for it, am I right?"

The secretary just stared back at her, looking confused.

"There's no reason for you to protect him. He's a lost cause and you don't owe him a damn thing. So just tell me everything and save us both a lot of trouble."

"I...I told them already. I don't know anything," the woman pleaded. "I truly don't."

Thera felt that was the perfect time for the first crucio. It wasn't a bad one, but the screams were certainly loud enough to satisfy everybody upstairs.

Lifting the curse, Thera conjured up a chair and sat down, using one of the Dark Lord's tried and true tricks. "That was rather unpleasant, wasn't it?" Still gasping for breath, the woman nodded. "You don't want me to do that again, do you?" Frantic head shake. "I didn't think so. Let's start easy, shall we? What's your name?"

"Gladys," the secretary said in a small voice.

"Now, Gladys, why don't you tell me about the Minister's regular visitors?"

Gladys quickly became a fan of full disclosure. Thera tossed in a few more crucios when the woman couldn't remember something, but the whole thing took less than half an hour from entry to obliviation.

Then she went upstairs, horked her guts out, splashed some water on her face, rinsed out her mouth and returned to the library.

*******

Lucius watched as his son's eyes followed Thera Castelar's rear end out of the room. Much like Bellatrix, the girl didn't walk - she oozed.

"Cornelius," he said, turning to the Minister. The man fixed him with a blank stare. "You know what you're supposed to do. It's time to go now."

"Of course," Fudge said dreamily, taking his wand out and apparating away.

"So who's going to take his place?" The Idiot...Rodolphus asked.

"There are options," Lucius replied noncommittally. "Come, Draco."

"Don't you want to stay for the fun?" Bellatrix asked, pouting a little, holding up a surveillance receiver. "See how our little girl performs under pressure?"

He didn't particularly, but the Dark Lord would be interested in how it went. "I suppose I can. There's no need for Draco to stay, though." He turned to his son, who looked relieved to be left out of it. Lucius could relate. "Tell your mother I'll be home in time for lunch," he said, substituting 'my monthly humiliation at the hands of her bloody harping parents' for 'lunch' in his head. Nodding, the boy apparated home.

"It won't take long," Rodolphus said, sitting down and propping his feet up on a gleamingly polished mahogany table.

Bloody classless clod. "An aging secretary with nothing to gain by holding out? I certainly hope not," Lucius agreed, sitting down across from him.

Thera was - he hated to admit it - a rather good interrogator. She knew what information was relevant and what was worthless. She knew when to ask more questions, when to let the prisoner keep talking, and when to remind the prisoner that answers were required. In terms of actually collecting intelligence, she was effective. It was far preferable to the Bellatrix and Rodolphus method of interrogation, which often resulted in the two of them getting carried away and skipping the part of the interrogation where one asked questions. Perhaps Thera did have a bit of her father in her. Atreus had been their best interrogator.

It was a shame, really. Lucius missed him at times. He had not relished the idea of setting a trap for one of his oldest acquaintances, but Atreus had changed after Bellatrix had gotten her hooks into him. He'd gone from an objective, interest-driven servant of the Dark Lord to a true believer, obsessed with the cause and - later - obsessed with resurrecting the Dark Lord. After being raked over the coals following the Dark Lord's defeat, Lucius had held no desire to go chasing down rumors and dark spirits.

Atreus' death had been necessary. Lucius felt no remorse over the action. Had the situations been reversed, Atreus wouldn't have hesitated to do the same to him. And yet, surrounded by idiots and fools as he was, Lucius felt a bit of nostalgia for the old days.

"So how are things coming along with the foreigners?" Rodolphus asked over the secretary's shrieks emitting from the receiver on the table.

"Fine. We've a few holdouts - the Chinese will insist on being difficult - but aside from that, we're ready to move forward."

"How soon?" Bellatrix asked, a distracted smile on her face as the screaming continued.

Lucius pinned her down with a glare. "Soon."

The screaming stopped. Thera yelled at the woman and managed to get a detailed description of the man whose name the secretary hadn't been able to remember. The prisoner was obviously tapped out, and Thera obliviated her.

"Only five crucios," Bellatrix said disgustedly. "Didn't we teach her anything?"

"She'll learn," Rodolphus assured his wife, patting her hand. "In time."

Fighting the overwhelming desire to roll his eyes, Lucius stood. "If you'll excuse me, I've business to attend to," specifically refraining from mentioning lunch with Narcissa's parents in front of Bellatrix. Meetings between Bellatrix and her mother usually resulted in the destruction of every piece of furnity in the immediate vicinity, followed by several hours of Bellatrix sobbing and loudly recounting forty years of maternal cruelty while Narcissa drank steadily and used the guise of sympathy to engage in an extended bitch session re: her mother. Lucius was forced to stay in the room or be subjected to the anger of two overemotional half-veelas - one drunk and one utterly fucking insane - convinced that he didn't care enough about their problems. The last time, he'd nearly lost an eye.

He popped into the bathroom to check his hair and winced. As usual, the summer humidity had done its work. After hours without being tended to, it was frizzy. Pulling out the jar of Slick 'n Shiny he'd pilfered from Draco's room, he smoothed it down to perfection. The bathroom stank of sick and Lucius gritted his teeth. The lower Death Eaters had a communal bathroom farther down the hall and there were several charms in place to keep them from using the nicer facilities, but one of the alcoholic morons must have gotten through. He'd have to find the culprit and decapitate him publicly.

As if he didn't have enough to do already.

Finally pleased with his appearance, Lucius apparated home. A house elf popped into the entry way in front of him. "They is here, master. They is waiting for you."

"Who is?"

The elf twisted its rag. "The mistress' parents, master. They is in the sun room."

The house elf disappeared before he could kick it. They had gotten far too quick for his liking. Storming down the hallway, Lucius glanced at his watch. It was quarter after eleven. What the bloody hell was he late for if they were supposed to come for lunch?

"You're late," his mother-in-law snapped as he entered. Lucius avoided looking her in the eye. Age degraded quite a few of the powers of a veela, but not all of them.

His father-in-law looked worse than ever. Immediately following the death of her first husband, Elegia Black had wed a German potions tycoon twice her age. Any hopes Lucius had harbored for his future father-in-law being less of an ass than his previous one had quickly been dashed. Hans Rickenbauer took great pleasure in reminding Lucius that his fortune was larger than the Malfoy family's. The man was especially fond of the phrase 'buy and sell.'

"I apologize," Lucius said glowering at his wife. She gazed back at him coolly, which meant she had set this up. "If I'd known you were coming so early I would have..."

"Fifteen minutes," his father-in-law interrupted, "we haff been waiting."

"My most abject apologies..." Lucius tried, only to be cut off again.

"I could buy and sell you," the man said, glaring at him from behind his bifocals. "And you are fifteen minutes late."

Lucius sat down and braced himself. It begins.

*******

Bunny Fudge was one howler away from barmy. They'd started arriving early that morning and showed no signs of stopping. Unable to sleep the night before, she had at least been awake and dressed before the rush. Otherwise, they probably would have attacked her in the shower. The British people were angry, and she couldn't blame them.

Every time she thought about what she'd read of the Commission's Report in The Daily Prophet before the owls started arriving, she felt sick to her stomach. They were offhand comments. She knew that. She knew Cornelius.

Her husband didn't hate Muggleborns, but that's the way his statements had been presented. He regretted the difficulties involved in integrating Muggleborns into the magical world. His job made this difficulty more real. Every Muggleborn was a security concern. Would they tell others about the magical world? Could those others be trusted? Could the Muggle families of Muggleborn witches and wizards be trusted? Obliviating Muggles was now a full-time Ministry job, when it never had been before.

It cost money to bring Muggleborns into the magical world, and their integration was funded by taxes paid by those in the magical world, not Muggles. There were many reasons to be wary of Muggleborn integration. Bunny understood that as well as Cornelius did. She didn't have his job and didn't pretend to conceive of the sort of pressures under which he performed it. A few complaints in cabinet meetings...

He didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to be hated. Perhaps he hadn't been experienced enough to be Minister of Magic. Perhaps he hadn't made the right decisions at the right times. Perhaps he had listened to the opinions of people he shouldn't have listened to, but he wasn't a monster.

On the other hand, that fact mattered very little. There was truth, and there was 'truth.' And as yet another owl bearing a howler landed on her shoulder, Bunny felt as if the whole of wizarding Britain was willing to believe the 'truth' without reservation.

She opened the envelope, plugging her ears as a magically amplified voice issued from within, denouncing her husband, his appointees, herself, her children, Cornelius' parentage and anyone who might find it in their hearts to spit on any of them if they were all on fire. She didn't even hear her husband walk in.

"Cornelius!" she said, standing. She didn't ask where he'd been all morning. She didn't want to know. He looked strangely calm, almost...empty. "Are you quite well?"

"I'm sorry, Bunny" he said tonelessly.

"It's alright, Cornelius," she said, approaching him carefully. "The children are all coming by for dinner."

"I'm so sorry for everything," he said, completely blank.

She studied his face. When angry or disappointed, Cornelius was one for raging and yelling. This lack of reaction scared her. Perhaps the situation had simply cut too deeply for him to really feel it yet.

"We'll be okay, Cornelius," she murmured. "It doesn't matter. None of this really matters. We meant to retire last year anyway."

He showed no reaction to her statement. "I'm terribly sorry that I disgraced the family so. I think I'll go upstairs now."

Before she could say anything, he'd turned stiffly and left the room. Puzzled and worried about his behavior, Bunny followed him. He looked heartbreakingly forlorn, walking up the stairs with his shoulders held rigidly. It pained her, on top of all the other pains, and perhaps it was simply the straw that broke the thestral's back.

"I don't care about all of this," she said loudly. He stopped on the stairs without turning around. "You know that. I never wanted it. Meeting foreign dignitaries and attending charity luncheons and state dinners...I'll be glad to be rid of it. We always talked about growing old together, buying a little house on the beach and living out our lives. That's all I ever wanted. I've been waiting for it, through all of this ridiculous political yap. We've a few ounces of life left in us yet, Cornelius. Let's just go. Let's leave now," she said desperately. After forty years, it wasn't a petty matter of who was right or wrong any longer. It was about plans made as giggling teenagers, solidified as parents, planned and budgeted for as grandparents. They'd been waiting their whole lives for this.

He turned to face her, impassive as a stone. "I'm sorry, Bunny," he said. "I'm sorry for everything. I'm terribly sorry that I disgraced the family so. I think I'll go upstairs now."

Agog, Bunny watched him walk up the last few stairs and disappear into the bedroom.

She walked up a few steps. "Cornelius?" There was no answer, and alarm bells went off in her head as she raced up the rest of the stairs. She heard the muffled thump of a body hitting the floor and tore into their bedroom. Her husband was sprawled on the floor.

"Cornelius!" She rushed over to him. His face was gray, his eyes unfocused. In his left hand, he held an empty vial. He was, she quickly realized, quite dead.

Sitting back on her heels, Bunny simply stared down at him, her mind slow and sluggish, unable to comprehend what she was looking at, much less what it meant. She should do something, shouldn't she? Call somebody? She honestly didn't know what to do. She'd kept a level head through four children's bumps and bruises and broken bones...and she really had no idea how to handle this kind of situation.

Balder would know what to do. He was so good at handling things like this. She needed someone with a cool head, someone to figure this all out. She had the vague feeling that if she tried to do it herself, she'd finally cross the line into insanity.

Bunny went downstairs to call him on the floo.

*******

"Is everything alright?" Mrs. Polkiss asked.

Harry forced himself not to snap at her. "Yes," he said, stabbing his hand shovel into the dirt once more. "Everything's fine."

He couldn't seem to get his mind to settle down. He hadn't been able to, not since his talk with Remus. He felt like a pot of water getting ready to boil over. It was just too much: the eschaton, Thera, his parents, the idea of giving press conferences and interviews, his future bloody self. He couldn't even separate out the different emotions any longer. They'd become a thick, heavy stream flowing through his veins, weighing down his limbs and blocking up his brain until he couldn't think of anything at all.

"Harry?"

His hand tightened on the shovel. "What?" he asked rudely.

"I think the hole's big enough." Looking down, Harry realized that the hole he'd been digging in order to plant the cabbage seed was about twelve inches in diameter and six inches deep. "Sorry," he mumbled, pushing dirt back in.

"It isn't anything the doctor said, is it?"

It took Harry a moment to figure out what she was talking about. Oh, right. His alibi. "No, it isn't. I'm fine."

She remained silent as he filled in the rest of the hole, planted the seed and covered it, but he could feel her eyes on him and felt himself growing increasingly annoyed with her.

"It's frustrating, isn't it? To be so close to adulthood and yet still be treated like a child."

"I don't mind it," Harry said through clenched teeth.

"Really? That's surprising. You seem like a very independent person. I would think you'd find it even more frustrating than most."

"What's so great about adulthood anyway? Everything just gets more complicated."

"That's true," she conceded. "But you have more freedom, also."

Harry snorted. "Everybody says that, but it's a lie. Even if you're an adult, you can't just go off and do whatever you want to do. You have responsibilities and things you have to, things you don't have a choice about, and you have friends you have to think about..."

Abruptly, he stopped talking and went back to planting. He'd said too much already.

"I agree that responsibility can be a burden," Mrs. Polkiss said slowly. "And there will always be things you have to do that you'd rather not do. That's life. But responsibility isn't such a terrible burden. We're responsible for those we love, and they're responsible for us. There will never come a time in your life when you're answerable to nobody but yourself. Or at least I hope it won't. I imagine it's very lonely."

Harry sat back, not feeling comforted by this at all, largely because they weren't talking about the same thing. They weren't even talking about the same bloody universe.

"You seem unimpressed by my insights," Mrs. Polkiss said mildly.

It was a nasty little desire, to want to shock her a little bit, to knock her out of that impenetrable calmness. "What if you had to do something - something awful, something you'd never want to do at all - and you had no choice about it? If you did this thing and you succeeded, it would mean that you and everybody you knew would be safe for the rest of your lives. But if you failed, then the opposite would happen. What then?"

She looked surprised and a bit intrigued. "Give me a moment to remember all of the conditions. This thing you have to do is awful, right?" Harry nodded. "And you don't have a choice." Harry shook his head, and she narrowed her eyes. "Do you absolutely, positively not have a choice, or is it just that all of the other options are distasteful?"

"You absolutely, positively don't have a choice," Harry said firmly.

"Well, if you absolutely, positively don't have a choice, then it's simply a matter of whether you succeed or fail, isn't it?"

"Yes, but what about the thing and how awful it is?" Harry asked, a bit exasperated with her. Weren't Catholics supposed to be able to hone in on sin like bloodhounds?

"I guess that depends on how awful it is."

"Really awful. The person you'd be doing it do deserves it, but it's still really awful."

They'd given up any pretense of gardening. She crossed her legs in front of her, a gleam in her eyes, looking very young. "Now this is interesting. So it's kill or be killed?"

"Exactly."

"No possibility of turning the other cheek?"

"Well, you could. But then he'd kill you and everybody you care about." And then bring about a reign of evil for the next several millenia.

"You'd have to kill him. And then you'd have to make your peace with it."

Harry looked down at his hands, feeling even more confused than he had before. "But how do you do that, exactly? Make your peace with it, I mean."

"Repent and ask for forgiveness."

It was hard not to laugh. "From God?"

"Yes. Also from yourself and from those you've hurt."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Including the dead guy?"

"Well, if you succeed, I suppose you can assume that God speaks for the dead guy also."

"And that's it? You're forgiven, then?"

"You're forgiven if you're truly repentant, and if you perform your penance."

"I knew there was a catch," Harry grumbled.

She laughed, and he couldn't help but smile a little. It felt good to make a woman laugh. She tilted her head, sending him a penetrating look. "You don't pray, do you, Harry?"

"No, I don't," he said, a bit sheepishly. Hell, he'd never even been to church.

"I'm not trying to convert you, Harry. At least, not right now at this very moment," she said, smiling mischievously and patting his hand. "Though you'd make a very good Catholic and I think you'd find a great deal of wisdom and guidance in the Church."

"Not that you're trying to convert me or anything," he said dryly.

"Of course not. You don't have to be Catholic to pray, or even religious. You don't need a set script. It's very personal. I find that it's a good way to put my thoughts in order."

His head snapped up at that. "Really?"

She nodded. "It's nice to take a few moments and just sit silently and think."

"I can never do that," Harry said, deflating a bit. "If I sit and think, everything just gets more and more confusing."

"Well, you can't just let everything overwhelm you. You have to start small. Usually, I begin with my family and my friends, and I give thanks for their health and happiness. If they're not healthy or happy or if I'm worried about them, then I pray for them."

"To what? Get better? Be happy? Win the lottery?"

She looked amused. "Spoken like a person who only prays when he wants something."

Harry shrugged. "Isn't that the point?"

"The point is to be grateful for what you have. To feel compassion for others. To try to understand and empathize with the difficulties and sufferings of those you care about."

"So if someone you love is sick, you don't ask God to make them better?"

"I do. All the time," she said, looking thoughtful. "I'm only human. Nobody likes to see their loved ones in pain. But people get sick. People die. We can't stop it."

"But aren't you really just praying because you want something, then?"

"Not entirely. After I've gone through everybody I care about, I start praying for everybody I don't particularly care for."

"Like my aunt and uncle?" Harry asked, curious.

She half-smiled. "I have. I don't think it's done much good, though." Harry laughed, and she looked a bit guilty. "I'm sorry. They're your family. I shouldn't..."

"Don't worry about it," he interrupted, still laughing. "What did you pray for?"

"That they would learn the joys of humility, and how to love their fellow man."

Two things they were certainly lacking. "That's very nice of you, considering."

She shook her head. "It's as important to pray for those you dislike as it is to pray for those you like. And to ask God's forgiveness if you've ever wanted someone you dislike to be run over by a bus. I still do that far more often than I'd like."

"Isn't it hard, though? To hope that good things happen to people you hate?"

"I don't pray for good things to happen to them. I pray that those who willingly hurt others are brought to justice, or that they're taught the error of their ways and are allowed to repent and beg forgiveness."

Harry thought about that for a moment. Some of the Death Eaters probably warranted that wish, those who'd been misled or intimidated into joining. But the others were a different story. Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix LeStrange, Wormtail...none of them deserved to be let off the hook. None of them deserved less than death, really. But what she said...it reminded him of Hermione and her belief that the good side had to hold themselves to a higher standard than the Death Eaters. Otherwise they weren't much different from them. It was something to think about.

Like he needed anymore to think about. By the time Harry flooed to Hogwarts, he was well aware of the fact that he was in no shape to deal with other people.

"What's wrong?" Ron asked immediately after he stumbled out of the fireplace in Professor Wellbourne's office.

"Nothing's wrong."

Professor Wellbourne flooed in a moment later, looking frazzled. "I left a few things back at Headquarters," she said, tossing a stack of parchments on her overburdened desk. Pausing, she frowned at him. "Are you alright, Harry? You look awfully...tense."

"I'm fine," he said through gritted teeth, and if it had stopped there, he might have been able to keep his temper. But - predictably - it didn't stop there, because Ginny flooed in.

"Sorry I'm late. Mum's had me at manual labor all morning. I barely escaped."

"Don't worry about it," Professor Wellbourne assured her. "I just arrived myself."

Ginny squinted at him. "What's wrong, Harry? Did something happen?"

And just like that, his temper exploded. "Nothing happened! Nothing's wrong! I'm perfectly bloody fine! Now can you all just leave off for once in your lives?!"

Ginny stepped back, looking stricken. Professor Wellbourne regarded him with surprise, her mouth open. Ron stepped forward and dragged him from the room. "Be back in a moment," he called over his shoulder. Shutting the door behind them, he shoved Harry into the opposite wall of the hallway. "Mind telling me what the hell is going on?"

Harry sagged down the wall, feeling wretched. "I'm sorry."

"I didn't ask for an apology, and anyway, you owe it to Ginny, not me. What's wrong?"

Ron sat down in front of him, and Harry found it surprisingly easy to tell him about it all, even the weird parts. He honestly didn't know if this meant that their friendship was restored to its former state, or even repaired all that much, but he found himself talking for quite a while, just because...well, it felt good to talk to Ron again.

When he'd finished, Ron looked a bit shell-shocked. "That's...a lot."

Harry dug up a smile from somewhere. "I've been a right prick, haven't I?"

His friend shrugged. "We understand. Being Harry Potter isn't exactly a party."

"Would you..." Harry trailed off, not really sure he wanted to hear the answer, nor even sure he wanted to ask the question. In retrospect, their friendship before had involved a lot of unanswered questions, and a lot of topics that either went unmentioned or were carefully skirted around. He supposed if it was worth trying to rebuild, they might as well do it right. "Would you want to be me, if you got the chance?"

Ron bit his lip, looking off to the side, down the empty, silent hallway. "No, I wouldn't."

"Can't say I really blame you," Harry admitted. "I just...I wondered."

"Don't get me wrong," Ron said fervently. "If I didn't have a girlfriend, I would."

Harry felt his face split into a grin.

"You could have any girl in this school you wanted. And even if I didn't have one... Some small part of me might've still wanted to be you until about five minutes ago when you started talking about meeting your future self in the middle of the night."

"Really?" Harry laughed.

"That'd freak me right the fuck out," Ron said, shuddering a little bit.

"Worse than Voldemort?"

"Not worse, but about a million times weirder. Though the prophecy certainly isn't working in your favor. I nearly piss myself at the idea that he inhabits the same island I do. I'd go batshit crazy if someone told me I had to fight him to the death."

"Maybe I am batshit crazy," Harry suggested, raising his eyebrows.

Ron shook his head, smiling. "Sometimes I wonder, mate. Believe me."

*******

The nightmare wasn't the same as the first one. The Burrow was on fire, consumed with it. She could hear people inside screaming for her to help them, and she screamed back, telling them to get out, to apparate away or jump out of the windows, but nobody did. They just kept screaming and screaming, so she ran to the front door to get them out.

Obviously, it wasn't a great plan. In fact, it was the sort of plan that would make Draco roll his eyes and sarcastically praise the keen ability of Gryffindors to think on their feet. In any case, her plan didn't get a chance to work out. Flames erupted as soon as she reached the porch, knocking her backwards. A hand reached down and helped her up, and Ginny held on to it, relieved that someone had survived, that there was someone who could help her now. Only it wasn't anyone like that. It was Tom.

It wasn't much of a logical leap to figure out who was behind the fire. Pure, cold hatred arose in her and Ginny launched herself at him, fists aimed directly at his perfect face, itching to rip out his perfect hair.

He caught her hands easily, unsurprised and unaffected by the attack.

"Make it stop!" she yelled into his face. "Let them go!"

Smiling, he cocked his head, listening. It was silent now. The screams had stopped. Ginny went limp, too horrified for any other reaction. Gone. They were all gone. "I think it's a bit too late for that now," he said, chuckling.

She stared at him, unable to comprehend this. It was all so pointless. "Why?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "Why did you do this?"

Tom looked puzzled. "Because you asked me to. Isn't this what you wanted?"

Ginny didn't suddenly come awake the way she had with the first nightmare. Instead, she had to force herself to wake up, swimming up to the surface of consciousness. Sleep kept trying to pull her back down, back into the dream, but eventually she managed to open her eyes and sit up.

She scrubbed her hands against her face, trying to wake up, brushing away the last tendrils of sleep still clinging to her. It wasn't long before dawn - she could see the sky just beginning to lighten outside the window. The nightmare was understandable, she supposed. Charlie, returning to The Burrow...she was just worried about her family.

She didn't want to wake up Ron, and she didn't want to go out to the pond, either. A restless sort of energy overtook her. She wanted to do something. After throwing on some clothes, she grabbed her broom and headed downstairs.

There were voices coming from her parents' room and Ginny paused to listen. Then she quickly hurried away. They weren't talking. Oh, ick. Honestly.

It wasn't as if she didn't know her parents had sex. Every once in a while at dinner, her father would smile at her mother and ask her if she'd seen something he'd misplaced. He'd say that he thought the last place he saw it was in the bedroom and wink at her. Her mother would blush and smile back and tell him she'd be up in a few minutes to help him find it and wink back, and all of the Weasley children would know that it was time to go outside for a while. That, she could stomach. Actually hearing it was a bit nauseating.

It was annoying to practice Quidditch alone without the benefit of magic, largely because every time she made a shot on goal, she then had to go find the quaffle in the woods. She released Fred and George's old practice bludger to make things more interesting.

Ginny didn't know how long she'd been at it when she spotted Ron waving her in. She dove down to circle him. "Mum wants you to come in for breakfast," he said, yawning.

"Wanna take me on afterwards?"

He shook his head, looking wistful. "I'm still going to work mornings at the store."

Ginny landed, waiting for the bludger to come around so she could catch it. She managed to get it on the first try, though the force of the thing - sd always - knocked her flat on her ass. Ron guffawed as she shut it back in the case.

"That never gets old," he sighed.

"Why are you still working mornings?" she asked as they started back to the house. "What exactly is this extravagant present you're going to buy for Hermione?"

"Who said I was buying anything for Hermione?"

"Come on. I won't tell her what it is."

After a few moments of indecision, he dug into his pocket and handed her an owl-order catalogue. "This one," he said, pointing to a picture of a very smart dragon skin bag. 'Seven bags in one and light as a feather!' the advertisement proclaimed. "It's charmed to be weightless," Ron explained, "and there are different zippers you open that separate your books and parchments and homework assignments, so that if you want your transfiguration book, you just open that zipper. All of the compartments expand to fit as much as you want - within reason, at least. She's taking six courses and I figure she can use the seventh for N.E.W.T. study guides or whatever," he finished.

Ginny whistled at the price. "Two hundred fifty galleons? No wonder you're working so much."

"Well, it's one hundred percent Norwegian Ridgeback. Do you think she'll like it? I mean, it's not exactly romantic or anything..."

"Hermione? Are you kidding? She'll love it." Ron flushed proudly, folding the catalogue and sliding it back into his pocket. Impulsively, Ginny leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. "I never realized you were so thoughtful."

"I didn't buy it for you," he said, wiping his cheek.

"I know. I'm just happy that at least one of my brothers isn't a skirt-chasing prat."

"Aside from Percy, you mean?"

"Well, yeah," she conceded. "And I suppose Bill's skirt-chasing days are over."

Charlie's name wasn't spoken, but they were both thinking it. Ginny cleared her throat. "So...at least you're not Fred and George, in any case."

He sent her a half-smile and they went inside. Her mother was in a state of mind the Weasley children referred to as 'Manic Mum.' She didn't even sit down to eat, instead bustling around the kitchen, muttering to herself and adding to a rapidly growing list of things to do. Ginny had a feeling that most of those things would include her.

After a morning spent airing out linens, scrubbing bathrooms and generally working like a house elf, Ginny was happier than ever to be able to escape to Hogwarts.

Or she would have been, had she not been immediately met by Irate Harry.

"I hate when he does that," she sighed as Ron dragged The Boy Who Lived to Bottle Up Anger Until It Exploded Onto Innocent Bystanders out into the hallway.

"Remus just had a talk with him the other day about his parents' estate," Professor Wellbourne said. "That's enough to get anybody keyed up."

"I think it's a bit more than that," Ginny said pensively. Harry didn't really get angry about his parents, just sort of...abstractly sad. The nosy little sister in her was itching to know what else he was upset about, but she doubted he'd tell her.

"Are they going to be a while, do you think?" the professor asked, nodding to the door.

"Probably."

"Then we might as well get started." Pawing through a towering stack of ancient-looking books beside her desk, Professor Wellbourne began weeding some out for them to look at. "These all ought to have some good background material for you, if nothing else."

Ginny opened one, only to have a slip of parchment fall out of it. They were notes, written in a neat, strong distinctive handwriting that she would recognize anywhere.

"Is Draco working on this, too?"

Professor Wellbourne glanced at the door. "One specific part of it, yes."

Ginny noticed the glance. "You don't want the boys to know."

"Well, he's not exactly their favorite person. I take it you don't share their dislike?"

Curse the Weasley blush. "No, not really," she mumbled.

A knowing smile crossed the professor's face. "So it's like that, is it?"

Ginny shrugged. "Does he come in the mornings or something?"

"Mondays and Thursdays, under the pretext of Defense Against the Dark Arts tutoring."

"Oh," she said in a small voice. On the one hand, it made her feel sort of warm and tingly just to know that Draco sat in the same room that she did, that summer holidays hadn't sucked him into a far-off, unreachable place where she couldn't see him or talk to him or know anything about him until September. On the other hand, it wasn't nearly enough to just know that he was here a few hours before her. She wanted more.

"So long as you're willing to work, you're welcome in my office at any time," Professor Wellbourne said casually. "But no snogging under the table or anything. The last thing I need is your mother coming after me with a pick-axe because you came home with a hickey. Do you understand?"

Dear Merlin, it felt as if she hadn't smiled since the last time she'd seen him. "Perfectly."

*******

"Hello, Severus," Bellatrix purred from a chair in the library of Shirag Castle as he stepped around the house elf who had led him to his destination and proceeded inside. Rare was the moment when he didn't detest his job. Lately, he detested his job more than ever, especially when it involved dealing with Dumbledore's pity cases.

"Too bad you had to miss the last party, after the battle at the dark creature compound," Rodolphus said, as if he cared. "It was wild."

Translation of 'wild': the same bloody party Severus had been to after every other battle since he'd taken the bloody mark.

"I was otherwise engaged," he answered, not bothering to hide his scorn for the regular practice of grown men and women drunkenly swinging from chandeliers.

"You just missed Thera's first interrogation," Bellatrix said, furrowing her brow. "I think she was nervous. I mean, we only told her the prisoner had to be left alive. We never specified whether she had to be in one piece or not."

"Who was the prisoner?"

"Fudge's secretary," Rodolphus said, sounding bored. "Old bird. Easy as pie."

Severus looked at the man, surprised. "His secretary? Isn't that a bit obvious?"

"Thera obliviated her," Bellatrix said dismissively.

"But surely..." he quickly let the sentence drop. Fudge wouldn't notice. If Fudge had a brain in his head, he was already halfway around the world by now.

Castelar walked into the room, pale, sweaty and grinning. "That was fantastic."

"Five crucios? That's it?" Bellatrix critiqued.

"We're returning her. I didn't want to fuck her up too badly."

Bellatrix looked disappointed. "Crucios don't leave marks."

Snape watched Castelar as she answered. "She's an old woman. If I send her back tortured out of her ever-loving mind, somebody's bound to notice."

Bellatrix huffed and Rodolphus sent Castelar a relatively fatherly smile. "Next time, we'll give you someone more challenging."

She smiled back at him cheerily. "Should be fun." Her eyes never even glanced at Severus as she breezed out of the room.

"I thought there'd be more going on here, considering," he said idly, turning his attention to the rows of books behind him, running a finger along the titles. A strange shiver went down his spine. He'd worshiped Atreus Castelar in school, the same way he'd worshiped Lucius Malfoy. And now here he was, a traitor to their cause, a true believer on the other side, touching Atreus' library books, eating supper at Lucius Malfoy's table, all the while coaching their children to follow in his footsteps, and not theirs.

"We took care of Fudge," Bellatrix said.

"Yes, it's obvious that he's out," Severus responded. "That's no surprise."

Bellatrix laughed. "No, Severus. I mean that we took care of him."

His eyes went to her. "I see. To what purpose?"

"To the purpose of keeping Lucius' shit smelling like roses," Rodolphus grunted.

Even if he could have drummed up any sympathy for the dead Minister of Magic, it really wasn't worth the effort. "Well, he always was an idiot."

Bellatrix snorted. "And he proved it today."

"I suppose it was inevitable," Severus said neutrally. "I'll go check on the plants." A few days ago, he'd begun cultivating plants to use in potions - the sort he certainly couldn't grow at Hogwarts. On one hand, it meant that he was providing deadly potions to the Dark Lord. On the other, it meant that he had an excuse to come to Shirag Castle.

Whether or not she'd noticed the garden was irrelevant. She'd left the room first; she'd surely have found a position in which to watch and follow him.

Severus trudged through the soggy grass to his garden, checking the progress, studying leaves, dragging it on as long as possible. "Taking up Herbology?" she finally asked.

"Herbology and Potions are codependent," he said. "We're unobserved here."

"I know," she basically sneered at him. "I checked."

"The Potter move...it was risky."

"Come to read me the riot act, have you?"

"No, I've come to deliver a message from Dumbledore. He thanks you for your information and asks that you refrain from taking any further actions of that nature."

"I wouldn't have taken the action in the first place if I had any way to contact him."

Every once in a while, Severus suspected that the Order held meetings without him in attendance in which Dumbledore got up and proposed a mission. Once everyone refused it, the Headmaster merely shrugged and said, "Well, then. I'll just ask Severus to do it."

"He discourages any further activity on your part."

"Oh he does, does he?" she asked, a tough statement that was utterly ruined by the fact that she was dressed like a six-year-old. "Tell me Snape, could you have gotten information from a guarded prisoner that nobody's supposed to know about?"

No, he couldn't have. "That isn't the point."

"Then what is the point?"

He'd taken far more than he would usually take from a teenage girl. Standing, he towered over her. "The point is that your position is far too vulnerable. If the Dark Lord found out about any of your activities, he would very soon thereafter learn everything you know. And you know far too much already. Aside from that, the Dark Lord might very well choose to learn everything you know for no other reason than his own whim."

Thera Castelar stared back at him, unmoving. "The same could be said for you."

"Unlike you," Severus said, pulling out the small vial he had worn on a chain around his neck since the Dark Lord's resurrection, "this would actually work on me."

She glanced at it, amused. "A magical cyanide capsule? What makes you think you'd have a chance to down it before they got it away from you?"

"It's Instant Death Potion, not cyanide. And they can't get it away from me," Severus answered smoothly, tucking the chain back underneath his robes. "The chain is unbreakable and if I speak the incantation, it administers itself."

"Way to cover your bases. So Dumbledore doesn't trust me, then."

"It is too large a risk to too many people for you to go driving off into the night and calling up Potter to pass on information."

She actually stood up on her tiptoes to get closer to his face. "Give me a better way, then. Forgive my trespasses onto the hallowed ground of Harry Potter's bloody sanctum, but the content of the message did revolve around the end of the world. Or would you rather have found that out a few months down the line? Say...five minutes after he did it?"

"If I give you a better way to communicate with Dumbledore," Severus said through gritted teeth, "then I give him not only proof against you, but a device to use against us."

"Make a better device, then," she said coldly, folding her arms.

"There's no way to do that, not when he can control you. Under his influence, you're a mindless weapon, and any method I gave you of contacting us would only endanger us. The closer you are to the Order, the closer he is to the Order."

"So Draco and I should just sit on our arses and see how things pan out? Is that it?"

"The best thing you can do for yourself is not give him any reason to doubt your unwavering loyalty. Or are you entirely blind to the purpose of today's little exercise?"

"Don't worry. I'm fully aware of what his plans are for me."

They shared a glance, and Severus saw that she was telling the truth. If only he'd had that kind of foresight at her age, to be able to see beyond the next step all the way down into the darkness to which it led. It would have saved him a hell of a lot of trouble. Unfortunately, neither she nor Draco had the ability to alter their present course.

"Then you understand why we must discourage further actions on your part."

She looked at him for a long moment. "Discouragement noted," she said evenly, giving him the uncomfortable impression that she knew the true purpose of his visit and was going to make him state it anyway. "Dumbledore and I had a deal, though. Information for protection. How am I supposed to hold up my end of the deal?"

"The deal is off."

Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. "So that's it then? He's throwing me to the wolves?"

Severus rolled his eyes. Bloody melodramatic teenagers. "If the Dark Lord wins, Dumbledore won't be able to do anything for you anyway. Even if Potter wins, he won't be able to do very much. The deal was made before we knew anything about the spell."

"Rebus sic standibus," she said, looking thoughtful.

Severus studied her. "Where on earth did you learn that?"

"As a child, if you wander around aimlessly in the middle of a school day, people get suspicious. If you're sitting in a library, however, people simply assume you're home-schooled. Want me to list the countries of the United Nations in alphabetical order?"

"No, thank you," he said flatly.

She looked at him. "This doesn't apply to Draco, does it?"

"Of course it does."

"So he won't be meeting with Professor Wellbourne any longer?"

How enjoyable the summer usually was, largely because he didn't have to deal with this sort of silliness. "Hogwarts is safe. Draco will be going back soon. It's different."

"Yes, I suppose it is. Tell Dumbledore that I received his message. Then tell him to go take a long walk off a short pier over shark-infested waters while wearing a pound of raw meat strapped to his body. And when he's done with that, tell him to go fuck himself."

Severus glared at her. "Rebus sic standibus, Castelar. He has to do what's best for the Order. The Death Eaters don't trust you. It's too risky."

"Well, I have to what's best for me," she said, her features hard. "And in the service of that, so far as I'm concerned ...exitus acta probat."

She turned away and walked back to the castle. Severus looked over his plants, smiling a little to himself. It was the motto of Slytherin house. The ends justify the means.

It took him a few minutes to track down Fox at Arabella Figg's house. She and Gautham were in the backyard playing croquet.

"Forgive the interruption," he said, his eyes on her. "May I speak to you for a moment?"

"Sure," she said, tossing her mallet into the grass, fixing Gautham with a glare. "I've got a layout of the entire backyard burned into my mind. Don't even think about cheating."

"Like you didn't move anything when I went to the bathroom," Gautham scoffed.

Fox led him into the kitchen and shut the door. "What is it?"

Severus paused for a moment, wondering what he was truly getting himself into. He probably didn't know. Even having been around the block several times in his lifetime, he probably still couldn't imagine how this one single decision might change his life.

"Does The Cardinal's offer still stand?"

"Counter-offer," Fox corrected.

"Counter-offer," Severus bit out. "Does it still stand?"

"Assuming The Cardinal has changed his mind, yes."

"If it pleases him to extend his counter-offer," he said, "tell him that I accept."

She surveyed him. "Severus, can I give you some advice?"

"Am I in need of any?"

"Possibly. Don't accept the offer."

He felt his face tighten. "Why not? Can I get a better one?"

"Not from The Cardinal, you can't. But his organization doesn't view the world the same way you do. He has little patience for torn loyalties."

"When it comes to the Dark Lord and Dumbledore, my loyalties are anything but torn."

"I wasn't talking about them."

Severus closed his eyes for a moment. It was a lot more difficult to sell his soul the second time than it had been the first time. He hadn't been betraying anyone then. And he supposed he wasn't really betraying anyone now...at least no more than Dumbledore had betrayed Thera Castelar by calling off their arrangement. In a war, one did what one must do in order to win. Exitus acta probat.

"I am his to command."

"Whose?"

"The Cardinal's," he clarified, annoyed.

"Just checking."

*******

When Bill Weasley stumbled out of the fireplace into the kitchen of Number Twelve, Remus recognized the look on his face immediately. It was the frantic expression of a man for whom the implications of his life-altering decision have finally sunk in. Remus ought to know. Seventeen years ago, he'd seen that exact same look on James' face, right before his friend grabbed him by the shoulders and choked, "I can't be a father! I'm too young and stupid to be somebody's father!"

Bill's reaction was slightly different. He sank into a chair, gripped the table and looked up at Remus with eyes as wide as saucers. "I've made a terrible mistake," he whispered.

Figuring he might as well stick with a tried-and-true remedy, Remus put down his sandwich and poured Bill a healthy dose of brandy. Bill stared at the glass. "I can't," he said desperately. "I'm on my lunch break. Plus I told Tonks that if she couldn't drink, I wouldn't, either." Picking up the drink, he quickly drained it.

"What were we thinking?" he asked the empty glass. "Why didn't somebody stop us?"

"I tried, actually, but..."

"There has to be a way to reverse it," Bill said, not appearing to have heard him. "What's magic good for, if you can't do that? We'll just sort of freeze the baby in time for a few years, until we're ready. I'm sure there's a spell for that somewhere."

Remus poured Bill another drink. "I wouldn't suggest that to Tonks, if I were you."

"She'll understand. She's got to. How on earth can she be so bloody calm about this?" Bill did away with his second drink. "Nothing fazes her. She's all, 'hey look, I gained five more pounds,' and 'come over here and feel this, the baby's kicking' and whatnot."

Remus shrugged. "Tonks is Tonks. What can you do?"

"Lock up anything breakable." He sank forward until his head was resting on the table. "I don't know the first bloody thing about being a father."

"You have six younger siblings. Didn't that teach you anything?"

"Yeah," he said mournfully. "If threats don't work, bribes will. What am I going to do?"

"You'll be fine," Remus said bracingly, patting him on the shoulder. "Think of all the idiots who raise kids. If they can do it, you certainly can."

Bill took a deep breath and let it out. "It's a girl. Did Tonks tell you?"

A giddy, fluttering sort of emotion arose in Remus' chest. My goddaughter. He imagined coming over to visit - bearing gifts, naturally - and being bowled over by a little red-haired moppet shrieking, "Uncle Remus!" And then he'd toss her up in the air and she'd laugh and laugh...Remus shook his head. Don't get ahead of yourself. The child wasn't even born yet, and he was already half in love with her.

"No, she didn't tell me," Remus said, his voice thick. He cleared his throat. "So do you know what you're going to name her yet?"

Bill raised his head, his eyes unfocused, a sappy, sad, wavering grin on his face. Whether it was induced by brandy or paternal awe, he couldn't tell. "We haven't decided for sure, but I thought we might name her Charlotte. After...after Charlie, you know?"

The fluttering returned, making Remus swallow several times until the moistness in his eyes abated. "It's a lovely name. I think he'd be very proud."

The redhead looked down, wiping his eyes. "Well, we wanted something feminine, but I didn't want to name her anything too common - being a Bill and all - and for obvious reasons, Tonks didn't want to name her anything too strange, and it just...it seems appropriate. I don't know that Tonks'll actually stand for anybody calling her Charlie, but I guess the thought's still there."

"That's what really matters."

Bill sighed. "I'm going to have a daughter. Someday she's going to start dating. Dating Boys. Boys like we used to be. Horny little toerags with only one thing on their minds."

"Well, you have some time to prepare for that. If it can be prepared for, which I doubt."

"It's just...daughters are a lot more complicated. Especially since there's a chance she might be a metamorphmagus. Tonks said her parents didn't even know what she really looked like until she was five or six and learned how to control it. Before that, she tended to reflect the features of whoever was nearby. It's hard to imagine picking up my daughter and noticing that she has my nose...like literally."

"That would be pretty frightening," Remus admitted. "There's a small chance of her being one, though. It's very rare."

"I know. I didn't mean to come barreling in here like that. It's just a tad overwhelming sometimes, the idea of this poor, defenseless child in the hands of Tonks and me."

"If you don't mind me asking, what exactly are Tonks and you?"

Bill smiled ruefully. "Hell if I know. I barely see her now that she works nights."

"Do you love her?"

"Sure. I just don't know that I love her love her. Perhaps I ought to sort that out."

"That would be...a good idea," Remus said, trying not to laugh.

Bill stood up, his face looking older than it ever had before. "Thanks for listening, Remus. And for not laughing your arse off at me."

"I'm holding it in until after you leave."

"Fair enough," Bill mumbled, flooing back to reality.

Not ten seconds later, Vivian flooed in, looking harried. "I'm the most disorganized person on the face of the planet," she announced, breezing by him to stomp up the stairs. She returned a few seconds later with a thick folder full of parchments, scowling. "I'm going to get organized if it kills me."

Having heard this before, Remus simply nodded.

"I am. I'm a grown woman. I'm too old to be losing things all the time and I'm too young to be able to blame it on memory loss. I mean it this time. Organized."

"I'll believe it when I see it," he said mildly.

"I've never been this busy in the summertime. Research, research, Draco Malfoy, research, research..." She paused at the fireplace, turning back around. "Harry, Ron and Ginny are coming this afternoon, if you want to join us."

Remus shook his head. "I can't. Mum's birthday is tomorrow. I'm shopping with Dad."

"Well, say hello for me," she said, coming over to give him a quick kiss.

"We're taking her out to dinner tomorrow night. Do you want to come?"

Vivian looked wary. "Muggle restaurant or magical?"

Having been raised with a magical father and a Muggle mother, Remus had always felt comfortable in both worlds. Vivian had not, and did not. As far as he knew, she'd never even been in a Muggle restaurant.

"Muggle," he answered.

"Definitely not. I'll do something stupid or out of place and ruin the whole night."

"No, you won't," he assured her. "Just do what I do. We used to see Muggle films all the time and you never did anything embarrassing."

She crossed her arms. "You missed my first encounter with a Muggle hand-dryer."

"What's so difficult about a hand-dryer? You press the button and air comes out."

"Yes, but then it stopped all of a sudden, even though my hands were still wet. So I pressed the button again and the air came out, but then it stopped again. I thought I must've done something wrong and broken it, so I was trying to get it off the wall to see if I could fix it and one of the employees came in and thought I was trying to steal it..."

If she said anything after that, Remus couldn't hear it above his own laughter. "They're...on...a...timer..." he gasped. "They're...supposed...to...stop..."

She glared at him. "Information that would have been rather useful to know before I encountered one. Anyway, that's why I missed half of Chariots of Fire."

Remus couldn't stop laughing. "What did you tell the woman when she caught you?"

"The truth. But she looked at me like I was mad, so of course I got all flustered and asked her why anybody would even want to steal a hand-dryer, because you can't fit it in your purse without shrinking it, and that would mean using magic in a Muggle establishment and Merlin knows what kind of trouble you'd get into then."

He shook his head, wiping tears from his eyes. "I'm surprised she didn't kick you out."

"She did," Vivian said, looking guilty. "I went to the back door and snuck back in."

Still catching his breath, Remus sent her an apologetic smile. "I promise I'll look after you this time, okay? Mum and Dad both want to see you."

She was visibly torn. "I'll think about it."

"Fine. Just let me know soon so I can make the reservations."

Vivian left and Remus cleaned up his lunch, still chuckling to himself a little bit. His father was waiting for him outside when he arrived at his parents' house, holding a small stack of parchments with an odd look on his face.

"Is something wrong?" he asked carefully.

His father handed him the parchments. "This came for you a few minutes ago."

Remus recognized the Ministry seal immediately and his stomach tightened. What on earth could they want with him now?

Dear Citizen Remus John Lupin,

Following recent action by the Wizard's Council, Cornelius Lysander Fudge has been removed from the office of Minister. In accordance with Electoral Statute 1647 Section 11.4, which requires a general election to be held within thirty days of the death, removal or resignation of the Minister of Magic, the Wizard's Council has scheduled a general election to be held on August 12, 1997.

In accordance with Electoral Statute 1647 Section 11.6, the Wizard's Council is required to submit to the citizenry a list of no less than five and no more than eight candidates for the post of Minister of Magic within seven days of the death, removal or resignation of the Minister of Magic. All candidates for Minister of Magic must meet the eligibility requirements described in Electoral Statute 975 Section 2. If you do not receive this list in a timely manner, please contact the Magical Electoral Council via owl post. (We do not accept inquiries via floo.)

Please remember that it is not only the right, but the democratic responsibility of each citizen to participate in general elections. Attached to this parchment, you will find information regarding voting procedure, along with a ballot to be used...

"There must be some mistake," Remus decided, studying the parchment. He wasn't a citizen; he was a werewolf. He couldn't vote. And yet the letter had his name on it.

"You don't suppose...they've changed the law, do you?" his father asked tentatively.

Remus snorted. "I doubt it. Even if they have, we would've heard something. Public outcry, most likely. I wonder why it came to you?"

His father shrugged. "We always got things for you from the Werewolf Registry when we were at the old house. I suppose they updated your address when they updated ours."

"Maybe. It's odd, though. I'll ask Arthur to look into it."

"If it's a mistake, it's a rather fortunate one, don't you think?" his father asked, smiling.

"I said I'd ask him to look into it, not correct it," Remus said dryly.

*******

Thera opened the door to her bedroom, pushing past him into the hallway. "We're going driving," she said, striding off. She was apparently in a snit.

Rolling his eyes, Draco followed her out to the car, gleaming in the moonlight.

Reaching under her seat, she pulled out a map and glanced at it for a few moments. "There's a road that goes along the ocean not far from here. I've been meaning to try it out." Tossing the map back on the floor, she started the car.

Blaring, nonsensical noise immediately filled the interior. "I think it's broken!" Draco shouted, putting his hands over his ears.

Shaking her head, Thera turned a knob and the blaring retreated a little bit. Not nearly enough for his liking, but at least he didn't have to plug his ears. She pressed a button and the stereo machine popped out one of the silver disks that Muggles used to play music and replaced it with another one. She put the car in gear and took off.

"We're not gonna take it!

No! We ain't gonna take it!

We're not gonna take it anymore!"

"Brilliant lyrics!" he yelled over the music. "Truly moving!"

In response, she leaned over and turned the volume up. Draco immediately reached to turn it back down only to have Thera swerve the car, throwing him against the door.

"Fucking psycho!" he shouted, pulling on his harness thingy so he could remain stable.

"Try to touch it again and I'll rip your arm off!" she shouted back. Draco had imagined the drive's purpose had been to talk. Apparently it wasn't.

He folded his arms over his chest and stared out the window, seething. He didn't care how exciting it was to ride in the Ferrari. The thrill was lost when the driver was a bitch.

Thera took a ramp that curled around, then turned left, and they were riding along the cliffs above the ocean. She sped up, flying around the curves, accelerating down the short straightaways, and Draco had to admit that it was pretty exhilarating, loud bad music notwithstanding. The cliffs rising up on one side and the sheer drop down to the ocean on the other and the fact that there was a road they had to follow and a little box they had to strap themselves into - it all seemed more dangerous than riding a broom. And...it was becoming a lot more dangerous by the minute.

"Is that really a good idea!?" he asked loudly as she sped up even more.

"You have no sense of adventure, Malfoy," Thera said, taking a curve so quickly that the back end of the car slid out. She recovered, speeding back up again.

"Aren't you going a bit too fast?" he asked as the back end slid out once more and a nervous flutter began in his stomach. It was a long way down.

"Even if I put this thing in the ocean, we'd still survive. Stop worrying."

Draco cleared his throat as the nervous flutter blossomed into fear. "Yes, I realize we'd live through it, but do you really think that's a good justification for actually doing it?"

"Why not? Maybe we'd get really lucky and it would kill us."

He glanced over at her and his mouth went dry. She looked perfectly calm. Serene, even. The fear had now reached panic level. "Would you mind letting me out of this bloody thing before you drive it off a cliff?"

"See? No sense of adventure. Anyway, it's you and me, baby. We're stuck in this thing together. What have we got to lose?" Swinging around a curve and down a straightaway, Thera sped up, a small smile crawling across her face. At the end of the straightaway was a hairpin curve, and there was no way on this earth they were going to make it around the thing at their current speed.

"Stop the fucking car!" he yelled.

She didn't answer, but her smile grew. Draco fumbled with the button for his harness, thinking wildly that he could jump out and maybe not come out of this too badly, and his hand brushed against the lever. The parking brake. There was another brake too - it was the middle pedal. Thera had told him how the pedals worked with the gears...not that it made any sense at all. Seizing the lever with one hand, he yanked it up as hard as he could while he used the other to grab Thera's leg and jam it down on the brake pedal - or what he really hoped was the brake pedal.

There was an awful grinding sound and the car jolted. The tires screeched and he was thrown forward against his harness. Automatically, he braced his hands in front of him. Thera did the same. The car finally came to a stop, and they were both thrown backwards as it shuddered and settled.

Dazed, Draco looked out the front window. He could see nothing but sky. He didn't know how close they were to the edge of the cliff and didn't particularly want to find out. The bloody loud music was still playing. Thera reached over and turned it off.

Fear fled. Rage replaced it. "Are you fucking nuts!?" he screamed.

Thera didn't show any indication that she'd heard him. This only seemed to fuel the fire.

"If you want to go driving off of cliffs, then be my fucking guest, but do it on your own fucking time when I'm not in the fucking car, would you?!"

"I'm sorry," Thera said.

"Sorry?! You're sorry?! You almost sent me hurtling into the Atlantic in a bloody Muggle automobile and you're sorry?! You psychotic, demented..."

He trailed off when Thera started laughing. It started off slowly, but got out of control pretty fast, until she was gasping for breath, collapsed over the steering wheel with tears running down her face. Leaning his head back, Draco gritted his teeth, and closed his eyes in frustration, putting a placeholder on his rant so he could pick up where he'd left off when she finished with her little episode. Thera began punctuating her laughter with thunks - probably her hitting the steering wheel out of hilarity or insanity or whatever she was going with at the moment. The thunks began coming faster, and then...

Draco wasn't entirely sure how it happened, or how else to describe it, but at that point, Thera basically just freaked the fuck out.

His head snapped to her with the first scream - nearly a veela-level shriek, considering the small compartment - and his jaw dropped open.

Draco had seen Thera in a rage before, when his father had figured out how to break into her house. He'd seen people lose it, too, like when Red had found out about the spell and she'd yelled at him and cried and beat her fists against his chest.

This was something completely different. In both of those situations, there had still been a modicum of control displayed, a line that didn't get crossed. Thera was across the line.

Lunging forward, she began attacking the car, screaming wordless nonsense, pounding her fists into the dashboard as hard as she could. Hard enough to create imprints of her knuckles in the thing. Pieces of plastic from the air vents went flying and he could hear her feet kicking the underside for all she was worth.

Draco could only watch, struck completely dumb. He had a feeling this wasn't the best time to remind her of his presence, or to give her something new to punch.

It seemed to go on forever without showing any sign of stopping. Then Thera turned and punched out the driver's side window. Abruptly, she stopped screaming and sat back in the seat, panting, her face wet. Draco remained quiet and unmoving as her breath slowed down. She reached up to wipe off her face and he looked away, feeling his stomach lurch warningly. Her hands were bloody, especially the one she'd put through the window.

And then, calm as you please, she repaired the window, started the car, backed up and drove back down the mountain highway as if nothing had happened.

Silence reigned. Draco sent her sidelong glances, but he couldn't bring himself to say anything. What was he supposed to say, anyway? 'Lose your mind often?'

Thera pulled into the carriage house and got out of the car, walking off as if he wasn't even there, and Draco decided that he'd had quite enough of the drama queen bullshit for one night. Stalking after her, he grabbed her arm and spun her around.

She threw him off. "Go away, Draco. You have no idea what I'm willing to do to you."

Actually, he did. "You can't go in there like this."

"I'm fine," she said, smiling nastily. "Don't worry about me. I'm bloody wonderful."

Draco gritted his teeth. "Look at your fucking hands, Thera."

She did, blinking at them as if surprised. Then she calmly pulled a shard of glass from between two of her knuckles and tossed it aside. Draco swallowed, nauseated.

"I'll have one of the house elves clean them up," she said, shoving them into her pockets.

"Would you like to explain to me what that was all about, back there?"

"Everybody loses it every once in a while," she shrugged. His anger surged.

"This isn't a joke," he hissed, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her.

"I know it isn't," she hissed back, shoving him away. "Dumbledore cut me off."

Draco blinked at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Snape came by earlier. I asked him for a better way to pass on information, and he said they couldn't give us one, not without endangering the welfare of the congregation of St. Dumbledore's. What pisses me off is that he's right. What really, really pisses me off is that..." She let out a long sigh. "What the fuck am I supposed to do, then?"

Draco felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach. Talk about a double-cross. He honestly wouldn't have expected it from Dumbledore. "Don't you mean we?"

"No. You're still useful. He'll keep you around. I wouldn't trust him to lift a finger to help you out when the shit hits the fan, though."

"I don't," he said flatly. "So what are you going to do?"

"Dumbledore isn't the only game in town," she pointed out.

"Oh, Merlin," Draco said, disgusted. "You mean the Ministry?"

"I don't know. We'll see." She turned to go back inside.

Draco let out a breath. "Thera." She paused. "Please tell me that you didn't just try to drown us in a high end sports car because Dumbledore told you where to stick it."

She turned back to look at him. The moonlight painting her skin pale white, her eyes and hair deep black. She looked like a banshee, like a harbinger of death. A trickle of unease went up his spine, and Draco shoved the thoughts aside.

"No. I just wanted to see if I had the balls to do it."

"Congratulations," Draco sneered. "You do."

"No, I don't," she said, looking chagrined. "My foot was already on the brake."

"Well, at least you aren't entirely fucking insane, then."

She smiled a little. "Maybe, maybe not. But I am afraid of heights."

*******

Vivian's eyes followed Remus as he paced in front of her. His face was flushed with excitement, his eyes glassy. He looked happier than she'd seen him in a long time.

"Arthur said that it's all gone," he said, waving an arm. "Everything. They didn't just accidentally remove my name from the Werewolf Registry and put it on the list of citizens. There's no mention of lycanthropy in my file at all. There's no record of me in any agency having anything to do with dark creatures. Even the report from when I was bitten is gone. As far as the Ministry is concerned, I'm your normal, average citizen."

He crouched down in front of her and grabbed her shoulders, trying to get to match his enthusiasm. Vivian honestly wished she could. She liked to see him happy, but all the same...there was something very suspicious about all of this.

"Do you realize what this means? I can get a job. Any job. I can own property. I can legally adopt Harry...or I could if there were any chance of getting the paperwork filed before his birthday." He shook her gently, looking nearly manic. "We could get married, Vivian," he said, as if in awe of the concept.

Oh, Merlin. She had to stop this. She had to burst his bubble, though it might kill her to do it. It was a huge, giddy bubble, and it was riding on top of a lifetime of being shunned and degraded and treated like a monster and a criminal for something he couldn't change. "Someone did this purposefully, then?" she asked, her mouth dry.

"I guess so," he shrugged, still grinning at her.

"But...don't you wonder who it was?

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully for a split second before he shook his head, dismissing the thought. "I don't know, but whoever it was, I could kiss them."

Vivian took his hands in her own, putting them in her lap, staring down at them, trying to think. Many people had access to the files he'd mentioned, but not many had the ability to alter them in any way. It seemed unlikely that it had been somebody who worked with the Werewolf Registry or on the Electoral Council, because they wouldn't have had the power to alter both sets of records. And only somebody who worked high up in Magical Law Enforcement would have the clearance to alter Remus' Ministry file to remove all evidence of him being a werewolf. Her head snapped up.

"Balder," she whispered.

He blinked at her. "Huh?"

Vivian stared at him, her mind still working. "He dropped the charges against you."

"Yes, I know."

"Only he couldn't have dropped the charges against you. You were subject to a law passed by the Wizard's Council regarding all werewolves. He couldn't supersede that by deciding that one lone werewolf wasn't subject to the law. He doesn't have that power. But he does have the power to alter official Ministry records. So he simply erased all evidence of you being a werewolf."

"Oh," he said, scratching his jaw thoughtfully. "Well, when I said I would kiss whoever changed the records, I never really thought it would be Balder."

"Remus," she said, taking his face in her hands. "Ministry records aside, people know you're a werewolf, and not all of them are willing to keep it a secret, and remind me to give Severus a swift kick in the shins for announcing it to his entire sodding house the next time I see him. I'm just saying that even though it's unlikely anybody will notice what happened, please don't go too far with this. Don't...flaunt it or anything."

He sent her a pouty face. "Does that mean I have to cancel the press conference?"

"I'm being serious," she said, releasing him and running her hands down her face. "I mean..." She waved a hand. "Oh, you know what I mean."

"I do know what you mean," he said, patting her on the thigh. "Believe me, I do. Considering I'll be tossed into Azkaban if anybody figures this out, don't you think the least of our worries should be the resulting dissolution of our marriage?"

"Stop it!" she cried, standing up, putting some distance between them. "I hate it when you talk like that. Marriages are public record. What if somebody notices?"

"Honestly, Vivian, who would go looking?" He stood slowly, his eyes on her, wide and watchful. "I'm not trying to push you into anything. I wouldn't do that. You don't have to give me a justification for saying no."

"It has nothing to do with that," she said weakly. "It's still a risk, Remus. I admit that the chances of somebody pawing through marriage records and figuring out what happened are slight, but there's still a chance. I just don't want you to do this because you think marriage matters to me one way or the other, because it doesn't."

"I know that," he said quietly. "Until a few minutes ago, it didn't matter to me, either, because I never thought it was possible. But now it is possible, and...it matters."

Vivian hugged her arms around herself, clenching her fists, because she knew that it did matter to him, and that even she probably didn't have any idea how much. In the face of Remus' opportunity to have everything he'd ever wanted, it was pretty damned hard to argue with him. All the same... "You and I will be you and I regardless of whether somebody's performed a bloody ceremony and stamped a bloody document, Remus. Don't jeopardize what you've been given on something as silly and meaningless as that."

"So far as I'm concerned, it's neither silly nor meaningless." He turned back to her, smiling wolfishly. "Of course, I'm not a veteran at it like you are." Vivian sent him a rare and well-deserved death glare, but his smile only grew larger as he walked over to her, retrieving her hands and squeezing them between his own. "Just let me do this, will you? Let me have one minor, fleeting moment of bravery in the face of a sharp-eyed clerk picking my name off of the Ministry marriage record."

"Fine, then," Vivian mumbled.

"No," Remus said, holding a hand up, suddenly serious. "I'm only ever going to do this once in my entire life, so I'm going to do it properly. Wait right here." Before she could say anything, he'd rushed out of the room. Vivian pressed her hand against her forehead, laughing a little. They were fifteen minutes late meeting his parents for his mother's birthday dinner, she only had half of her makeup done and he was about to propose.

He returned, looking very sly, his hands behind his back. "Remus..." she tried.

"Don't," he interrupted. "You get to say your piece in a moment. I've been preparing this speech for about twenty years, so just hear me out."

Taken aback, Vivian swallowed. "Go ahead, then."

"I know the exact moment when I fell in love with you," he began, a nostalgic light in his eyes. "Sirius and James had been ragging on me for weeks to get past the hand-holding and kissing and snogging in corners and actually do the deed with you."

She gaped at him. "You told your friends about that?"

"Sorry," he said, looking pained. "I probably should have left that part out."

"You only fell in love with me because I had sex with you?!" she asked, appalled.

"No, of course not," he said exasperatedly, pulling one hand from behind his back to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Perhaps I should just start over."

Vivian eyed him. "Maybe you should just skip the speech and do it. Your chances of getting a positive answer are plummeting dramatically."

"Listen," he sighed. "Anyway, you met me under the Quidditch bleachers, remember?"

"Yes, I remember," Vivian said irritably.

"And I'd decided that as much as I wanted to...er..."

She raised an eyebrow. "Get into my knickers?"

"Make love to you," he clarified, his expression beseeching, "I couldn't do anything like that without telling you the truth about myself. I was...honestly, I was scared to death, convinced that you'd never want to talk to me again, much less go out with me or actually do anything with me. I figured it was probably the last time we'd get to be together, and I just hoped that I'd be able to convince you not to tell the whole school."

"I never would have done that," she said faintly.

"Of course not. I know that now. But at that point, I didn't." Vivian nodded and he looked down, gathering his thoughts.

"So you came, and we sat and talked for awhile...about Arithmancy," he said, looking up at her. They shared a look. "Sweet Merlin, we were nerds. Anyway, I was on pins and needles the entire time, because as entertaining as it was to debate the possible holes in Tanner's Theory of Reversible Indices, I had this rather significant disclosure to make. Finally, the discussion wound down, and you were obviously waiting for me to make a move on you, so I just blurted it out. Do you remember what you did next?"

Vivian nodded, smiling a bit fondly at her former self, for whom everything and everybody was simply an interesting problem to solve. "I delivered a lengthy exposition on the history, psychology and science of lycanthropy."

"It was very informative," he said with false sincerity, causing her to laugh a little bit. Only Vivian Wellbourne at seventeen would have had the unique mix of knowledge and cluelessness required to deliver a lecture on being a werewolf to...a werewolf.

"I actually was trying to be sympathetic," she explained. "I was just socially inept."

"I didn't mind it," he said quickly. "I was actually kind of surprised, because you knew all of this stuff about werewolves, and yet you were still there, hanging out with one. And then you turned to me and said, 'Though I suppose it's a bit more personal for you, isn't it?' I agreed, obviously. And then..." he trailed off, laughing. "Oh, Merlin, to the end of my days, I'll never forget what you said next."

"I was there. I remember what I said. There's no need to..."

"Did you know that during adolescence, werewolves have unparalleled sexual stamina?"

Vivian clapped her hands over her face, groaning. "Oh, did you really have to do that? I was seventeen. I was the nerdiest nerd in Nerdland. I didn't know how to flirt."

"Don't be embarrassed about it," Remus said, trying to uncover her face with one hand while keeping the other behind his back. "I didn't tell you this to embarrass you."

Finally, she relented, looking at him dolefully. "Why did you tell me, then?"

"Because it was wonderful. I've lived twenty years with that memory in my head, and Quidditch stands and grass stains notwithstanding, it's one of the best memories I have."

Vivian swallowed, getting a little watery. "Alright, fine. Me, too."

She felt his fingers brush against her forehead, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I said that I knew the exact moment when I fell in love with you. Do you know what moment it was?"

Vivian shook her head, knowing what he was going to say, but playing along anyway.

"Exactly five seconds into your speech on lycanthropy," he said seriously, proving that even at the grand old age at thirty-whatever, it was still possible to be surprised by a man. He pulled her against him, kissing her firmly. Then he took a step back, finally revealing his other hand, which held a dark blue velvet box, complete with an ornate ring, obviously magical. The swirling gold filigree around it was mirrored in the respectably large diamond in the center, cut into the stone's very depths.

The design and workmanship marked it as ancient, and extremely valuable. "You just had this lying around somewhere?" Vivian asked, shocked.

Remus chuckled. "It's a family heirloom. My father bought my mother a regular Muggle engagement ring to avoid any possible complications, so this came to me. And now, I suppose, it comes to you. So...will you make an honest werewolf of me?"

Vivian let out a harsh breath, marveling at the tears that came with it, because...well, it's not as if it was a surprise or anything...and yet it kind of was. "Of course I will," she said, wiping her face. "You know that."

Whooping, he picked her up and spun her around. "Let's celebrate," he said, putting her back down, a very familiar glint in his eye.

"We're terribly late for meeting your parents, you know."

"I know," he said simply, unbuttoning her blouse. "I think we'll be forgiven, though. This is a much better present for Mum than the Michael Bolton CD I bought her."

"You bought a Michael Bolton CD? On purpose?"

"Yes," he said, sounding annoyed. "For my mother. Because she asked for it."

"Okay, she's officially not allowed to have any input on reception music."

Remus slid his hands under her blouse. "Vivian, I really don't want to talk about my mother right now, if you don't mind."

"What do you want to talk about, then?"

He nibbled her ear, making her shiver. "Why don't you give me that speech on lycanthropy again?"