Fly Me Back

I think that you are mistaken
these are not things you should see
just look around at all this heartache
and tell me if this is where you wanna be.

-- Brenda Weiler, This Voice

*

Harry Potter : Fly Me Back

Chapter Six : Things Not Meant To Be Heard

"Is he asleep?"

"Not

anymore. You know, there's such a thing as a whisper, Hermione."

"Sorry."

. . . . .

"What time is it?"

"Late -- a little after three."

"Ugh! Has everyone else gone to bed?"

"Your mother is still waiting for your dad to get back, so Bill's sitting up with her in their room. Ginny finally fell asleep an hour ago. I saw Neville wandering around on my way down here, but his eyes were still shut so I just steered him back to bed. The last I checked, Professor Lupin and Molly are still up. They actually started playing chess after Snape left and the meeting was over. I couldn't believe it. She's got a concussion and a broken leg and he still isn't fully recovered, but there they are, playing chess in the middle of the night. I thought Madam Pomfrey was going to have a fit. She threatened to force a sleeping draught down both their throats if they weren't asleep in the next hour."

"Something tells me that isn't a battle that she's going to win."

"Probably not . . . So how is he, really?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know? You've been sitting in here with him for almost three hours, Ron. How could you not know?"

"We didn't say anything. He pretty much went right to sleep. Mum put this potion that Madam Pomfrey's been working on in the hot chocolate. It's a combination of a Sleeping Potion and a Dreamless Sleep Potion that can be added to liquids. Mum thought he'd be up all night if she didn't do something. Not that I blame him. If I'd had a night like his, I wouldn't want to go to sleep either . . . I can't believe he's really dead. I mean, I never liked the guy, none of us did. I hated how mean he was to Harry. You weren't with that time that Fred, George, and I busted him out of the house. The crackpot had put bars on his windows! But still, he's Harry's uncle. I never wanted the guy dead."

"I know."

. . . . .

"What a night . . . "

"Yeah . . . You really didn't say anything? You haven't seen each other in how many weeks and after everything he's been through, you didn't say anything?"

"Leave it alone, Hermione . . . Why don't you go on up to bed? I'll get you if he needs you."

"I'm staying."

"That stuff Mum put in his drink was pretty strong. He'll be sleeping through the night."

"I want to be here when he wakes up. Move over."

"Hermione, there isn't enough room on this bed for three of us."

"Then you should probably find a way to get comfortable on the floor."

"I don't think so."

"Ron . . . "

"Fine. Come here."

. . . . .

"You could share that blanket, you know."

"I was getting there . . . Take it easy. You'll wake him."

"Sorry . . . Oh, Harry . . . Ron, he even looks sad in his sleep."

"Go to sleep, Hermione."

"I'm only saying . . . "

"I know . . . Let's just go to sleep. If he needs to talk, he'll talk. Give him a chance to breathe. The next few days are going to be long enough for all of us."

"Ron?"

"Yeah?"

"He still has his glasses on."

"Just leave them. If anything happens, you can fix them in the morning."

"Ron?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think he's okay?"

"I already told you, he didn't say -- "

"I'm asking you what you

think, Ron."

"What I think? I think you should be quiet and go to sleep before you wake up the entire house."

"Ron . . . "

"Good night, Hermione."

"But Ron . . . "

"'Night, Hermione."

"Good night."

. . . . .

A good two hours later, Harry woke up remembering that he'd heard scatterings of a conversation. He couldn't make himself open his eyes to see if maybe he'd dreamed the entire thing, but he listened to the soft girl-cute snore mingling with the familiar long, sighing breaths at the end of the bed and knew that he'd really heard them. Careful not to disturb the bed in any way, Harry looked around to the end and smiled. Ron was still there, as Harry had known he would be. At some point in the night (was it three that he'd heard, or was it imagined?) Hermione had joined him and was now curled into a small bushy haired ball next to him, her head in Ron's lap. The blanket had long since fallen off the both of them, and considering how dark and hidden the house was, it was a might too cold to be sleeping without anything over them.

Knowing that he couldn't leave them like that, especially for all they were doing, Harry slowly drew his legs up so that he could pull the blanket off himself without moving it near the end of the bed. Instead of even trying to sit up, he rolled himself off the edge of the bed. He stopped half way off when Hermione's shoulders moved a little to find a more comfortable position. He sat there, frozen, half-on and half-off the bed, not daring to breathe, even with the pain of his knee digging into the hard floor. She finally resettled herself, but not before she kicked the quilt all the way to the floor.

When he was able to finish getting off the bed, he sleepily bent over and picked up the quilt, shaking it out slightly to get the bunching and twists out of it. He put the end of it on the bed and flung it up into the air again so that the far end would catch on the other side of the bed and he'd be able to stretch it out. As he pulled the blanket up, he was careful to watch the sleeping faces of his best friends in all the world, hoping that they wouldn't be disturbed by the movement of the blanket on them. He even tucked the corners in around Hermione, who was starting to look more than just a little chilled in her nightshirt. He picked her discarded robe up off the floor and draped it over her as well and hoped that she would be warm enough to stop her shivering. It wasn't until he moved to the other side of the bed to pull the quilt in around Ron that either of them woke up.

Thick and sleepy, Ron's eyes fought their heaviness to half-open and half-heartedly looked around for signs of trouble. "What? Harry?"

Harry struggled through his own sleepiness to smile at his best friend, putting a finger to his lips. "Shh . . . You'll wake Hermione."

"Harry?" Ron asked again, foggy and confused. Dutifully he raised his free hand to tiredly rub his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose to clear his head. He glanced back up at Harry, his eyes still only half-opened and too tired to try for any further. He gnarled his throat and softly asked, "What happened? You okay?"

"Yeah. Go back to sleep."

Ron closed his eyes, raised his eyebrows, and took in a long deep breath through his nose. He held it for a minute then blinked a few times before agreeing to what was really never even a decision. "Okay."

Harry started to turn away, but Ron's groggy but sincere voice caught him back again. "I'm here, you know."

"I know. Good night, Ron."

"'Night, Harry."

Not even a full second later, Ron was back out and probably wouldn't even remember that he had been awake in the first place. Harry waited for a minute to make sure that Ron was truly out before he reached over and pulled the corner of the blanket over Ron's shoulder. When he was sure his pair of best friends was comfortable, he crawled back into bed and tugged the blankets up around himself, hoping that he too would be back to sleep so easily.

Sleep, it seemed, was not on the agenda, however.

It wasn't that he wasn't trying. On the contrary, he did everything that he did every other night when he couldn't sleep. He rolled onto his side for a moment, rolled completely over once, and burrowed his cheek into the softness of his pillow. Snuggle, snuggle, burrow, snuggle. It wasn't his four poster in Gryffindor Tower or his mountain of pillows that came with it, but this particular pillow was just soft enough to curl around the back of his head and to the tip of his nose with cozy safety. The moon was still sinking away on the other side of the house so the room was dark enough that if he wanted, he could have slept with his eyes open and not noticed a difference. He closed his eyes and listened into the night, matching the intake and release of his breath with the synchronized sleeping sighs of the pair at the end of the bed. As comfy and relaxed as he was, he should have been asleep in no time.

He waited patiently. He didn't need to have heard Ron mention that Mrs Weasley had put a little potion into his hot chocolate to know that something hadn't been right about it. He knew he would have been tossing and turning all night long if she hadn't. So he waited. All he had to do was wait a little longer to let it go back to doing its job now that he was no longer interrupting it so rudely. All he had to do was wait . . . And wait . . . And wait some more . . .

Five minutes later, he decided that he needed to keep himself occupied while he waited and got to wondering what it was that had woken him in the first place and now had him more awake than he wanted to be. He didn't think he'd had any dreams. If he had, he would have remembered. He remembered hearing Ron and Hermione when she had come in, but he didn't really have any memories of anything else. His scar wasn't hurting any more than the rest of his head, so he must not have had any dreams along that line, either. Whatever it was, he had been waiting an awfully long time to fall back to sleep and pretty soon he was going to run out of theories to think about. And the thing was, the theories were all he had the option of thinking about at the moment because if he thought about anything else, he wasn't going to be falling asleep at all.

Six minutes later, he was still awake. He was still wondering what it was that he had awakened for in the first place. And now he was wondering what he was still doing awake. He wasn't falling asleep. He was still waiting. And there was nothing to do but lie there and wait. And wait. The ceiling would be nice if he could see it. He couldn't really see anything, except the outline of Ron and his sleep-tousled hair. And Hermione's toes peeking out from under the blanket because she could never sleep with her feet covered. Ron's bed was on the other side of the room, looking cold and lonely compared to his own at the moment. There was a desk in the corner of the room that he knew neither he nor Ron had ever used, and the frame where the portrait of Sirius's great-great-grandfather hung, when Phineas Nigellus was actually present in it. The oil paint wizard spent most of his time in his portrait in Dumbledore's office, seeing as how he had been a Hogwarts Headmaster and the entire line of the school's headmasters had portraits there which were obligated to the current headmaster and his needs.

Seven minutes later, he saw a shadow just before that frame's resident returned to it from visiting his other home in Dumbledore's office. The canvas seemed to stretch outward as if there were a head behind it, craning its neck and looking about. As soon as Harry saw the movement, he rolled over onto his side away from that wall in the hope that Phineas wouldn't see him or know that he was awake. The last thing Harry needed at the moment was to have Phineas telling Dumbledore that he wasn't sleeping. That wouldn't lead to him being alone anymore. He still just wanted to be alone -- alone with Ron and Hermione, of course, but alone.

He rolled over too late, though, and the voice of Phineas Nigellus called out to him with an evilly delighted cheerfulness, "Trouble sleeping, Potter?"

Harry sat up and pulled himself out of bed, dashing over to the portrait as quietly as he could and still get there before the man could say anything else. "Would you be quiet? You're going to wake Ron and Hermione!"

"They are not my concern at the moment," the portrait answered pointedly.

"And I am?"

"Not exactly," said Phineas in the same tired, bored voice that he used whenever Dumbledore sent him on missions back to Sirius's house. There was never a doubt in Harry's mind that the former head of Slytherin house would have gladly declined if it weren't for the obligations of all the headmasters. Aside from being former head of Slytherin House, Phineas was, after all, a member of House Black, a family from which very few wizards found true escape and most embraced its ideals. That he would now, as a guide to a headmaster such as Dumbledore, have to help a cause that he would surely fight against if he were corporeal was truly an insult and he wasn't going to let anyone get any enjoyment out of it. He was there, though, and he was going to have to do his job.

"Then what do you want?"

"A full flat and a voluptuous witch to go with it painted into this frame to save me from an eternity of boredom, but we cannot always get what we want, now, can we?"

Harry crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes at the portrait, partially from not being able to see very well in the dark, but mostly just because he was annoyed at having to answer to the man at all. He had been trying to sleep and even if his efforts weren't going very well, he was still trying. And waiting, but that was beside the point. Being interrupted by the portrait of a man who was famous for being the most unpopular headmaster in Hogwarts history was only delaying the waiting even more. "If you are here to do nothing but harass me, you can just clear off."

"Honestly, I do not know where you learned your manners, Potter, but considering how highly Dumbledore has always spoken of you and your family, I would have thought you would know how to address a former headmaster of Hogwarts. Respect, Potter. Even that great-great-grandson of mine knew how to speak to me, whether he claimed relationship to me or not."

"Right, sorry. Clear off, Sir."

Harry turned on his heel and was about to stalk away, but the portrait of Phineas Nigellus called him back with what was probably intended to be a shout that would wake the sleeping pair on the bed for Harry's insolence. "And where do you think you are going, Potter?"

"For a walk," Harry muttered to the portrait. He glanced at Ron and Hermione to see that the painting hadn't awakened them before turning back to the portrait. With a gentler voice that he hoped would be enough of an apology to soothe the old wizard, Harry said, "Leave them alone, please. I am going for a walk. You don't have to stay here."

"You'll find, Potter, that I must. I have my orders," replied Phineas, obviously still annoyed with having to babysit for Dumbledore again.

"Fine, stay. But be quiet. Go to sleep or something."

"Is that not what you are supposed to be doing?"

Harry didn't bother to answer the portrait. He saw Hermione stir again and wasn't about to talk anymore if it would risk her waking up. Instead -- stopping only to pick his t-shirt up off the floor and shrug it over his head -- he made his way over to his trunk, which had been brought up and placed in the corner near the door, next to his broomstick and Hedwig's cage. If a portrait that didn't care about him in the least was making this much fuss over him being awake in the middle of the night, then surely anyone in the house who cared about him at all was going to create a scene if they caught him up and about. The only way he was going to be able to walk out his wait for sleep was with his invisibility cloak.

He found the silver bundle about half way through his search and was surprised to find himself sad that he'd found it. Now that he'd gone through all of the effort to find it and had actually found it, he couldn't very well give up and just go back to bed. Sleep would just have to wait a little bit longer. The bed was cold and far from welcoming, and while the cloak didn't serve any thermal purposes, it was much more welcoming. It was his father's, after all. Harry didn't have any memories of his parents excepting how they had died facing Voldemort, a knowledge that came to him only through the torturous weapon the Azkaban dementors wielded over the mind. He didn't remember his father's hugs and kisses. He didn't remember the first time his father took him for a ride on his broomstick -- Sirius had told him about that. He had no memory of his dad holding him over the candles of his first (and only) birthday cake so that they could blow the candles out together -- Remus had told him about that. But he did have his father's cloak. He knew what it felt like on his skin and the absolute wonderment he felt every time he wore it. He knew that his father had disappeared under it many times, just as he had. It wasn't perfect, but it was something that they had shared and that, to Harry, was about the closest thing he was going to get to a hug. And it was a good hug.

Harry held a hand over the bundle, and even though he knew it was rather silly, he muttered to himself, "Hi, Dad." He pulled the cloak out and threw it lovingly over his shoulders without any further thought. He pulled the hood low over his head so that his face was well hidden. Satisfied that he was truly not going to make it back to sleep even if he laid back down, he nodded as he shut the lid of his trunk and stood up. He walked over to the bed to check on Ron and Hermione one last time, reaching out to pull the blankets just a little bit snugger around them before he left.

There was an adoring smile on his face as he gazed down at them. He was dreadfully tempted to wake them so that they could join him. Exploring dark hallways in the middle of the night was something that they always did together. Still, as peaceful as they looked curled up on the end of the bed, he knew that this was one time he was going to have to have his adventure -- for lack of a better word -- alone.

Alone didn't seem like such a good thing once he was facing the room's only doorknob by himself. He'd had enough problems with doorknobs that night, and, as always, they had brought nothing but misery and disappointment (the ones that were still attached to their doors, anyway). He didn't even have his wand to use to open the door for him. He heard Phineas Nigellus chuckling from across the room while Harry reached his hand back and forth for the knob, unable to actually put his hand on it. The louder Phineas laughed, the harder it was to grasp it. Oh yeah, words couldn't describe how much he hated doorknobs.

Harry could at least be grateful that this one was a rather high placed doorknob. When the Order had taken over the house, one of the cleaning projects Sirius had created for "Operation Human Habitation Upgrade" was to relocate all of the doorknobs to the bedrooms out of Kreacher's reach. Kreacher was the Black family's house-elf who had two ambitions in life, to protect all things Black from the traitorous Sirius's touch and to have his head mounted on the wall alongside his predecessors. Sirius had offered on several occasions to oblige the house-elf in his second wish, especially after catching Kreacher in many rooms in which he really didn't belong, spying on the Order. The offers were always declined and the doorknobs eventually raised out of reach.

Since Kreacher couldn't lay his dirtied hands all over it, the doorknob didn't feel so bad as it could have when Harry finally got his hand on it. It was cold, though, very cold. It was hard and square and cold and just as scary as any other doorknob he had ever faced. It opened easier than some, though. It didn't creak, and once it was opened it didn't reveal anything other than a darkened hallway. No monsters, no ghosts, no Kreacher, no imaginary godfathers. It could have been a whole lot worse.

The blackened hallways of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black didn't offer him much consolation. Every other floorboard was rotting and had not problem letting any and all pedestrians know it was by streaking an awful noise like possessed chalk for all to hear. Each time one creaked, Harry wondered if that was going to be the one to alert a light sleeper or nosy portrait to his presence. The stairway he tiptoed his way down wasn't much better. The rickety banister was in no way going to be his coconspirator, either. He felt it move outward with his every step, groaning in rubbery agony from the mere pressure of his fingertips.

It wasn't until he froze mid-step at the loudest CREAK at the bottom of the stair that he realized that he didn't have the slightest idea where he was going or what he was looking for. He squinted around into the darkness, first in the direction of the kitchen (he was still in no way hungry), then toward the room Ron had dubbed the Not For a Hundred Galleons room. Harry had never been in it, but Ron had told him about it and had made Harry promise to never go in it. After his eyes did a little closer investigation and, seeing that the Meeting Room was the only room that had an open door besides the kitchen, it became his default choice for late night walkabout.

When Harry got to the door it wasn't open enough for him to slip easily through. He hesitated for a moment, but upon hearing a soft, feminine giggle that peaked his curiosity, he excruciatingly slowly pushed the door open further, careful to keep his invisible hand concealed. Once he was safely inside undetected, he debated with the door, trying to decide if it was worth the risk to leave it as it was and possibly be discovered out of bed or the other risk of making a noise with the effort of closing it again to be discovered out of bed. Either way, he really didn't want to be caught.

Another light hearted laugh distracted Harry away from the decision and pulled his attention to the to center of the room. Well, actually, it was more like the other side of the house. No matter how many times he'd been in it, Harry still couldn't get over its overwhelming size. He'd been a little too distracted to appreciate it earlier, but now it caught his breath in nervous awe. The room, which the Order used for their meetings and such as well as the house's occupants' common room, was actually the length of three rooms put together and almost as high with its tremendous ceilings. Three fireplaces lined the walls on either side, along with a seventh on the farthest end. It was in the middle of the room, at the second and fourth fireplaces, that a long mahogany table sat horizontally across the room, dividing it in two. Under normal circumstances, it perfectly served its purpose for both conducting meetings and feeding the meetings' attendants. Tonight -- this morning? -- only a corner of it was needed, but it served its purpose just the same.

Harry spotted the source of the laughter he'd heard at the right hand side of the table where two figures were illuminated in flame, perched poring over a chess board and its crumpled field of captured pieces. He watched them laughing at one another and whatever it was that they were saying. As funny as their conversation appeared to be, Harry couldn't help but notice as he watched that the pair controlling the destruction on the board looked just as run down as the pieces themselves.

He didn't know Molly other than from the few minutes of conversation he'd had with her earlier that night, but he was guessing that she didn't normally look quite so tired. Granted, they were all tired but there was a certain achiness to her body language that suggested that her posture -- or lack thereof -- came from more than just the events of the evening. She looked like someone who had lived a lot more than her few years should have allowed. Based on what she and Lupin had said about her being a first year when they were in their seventh, she couldn't have been more than thirty-one or thirty-two, but he would have thought that she was the same age as them if he had seen her on the street.

Lupin didn't exactly look like his thirty-eight years, though, either. Every time Harry saw him, he was sure that his father's best friend had sprouted more grey hairs than the time before. Lupin had a good excuse for looking so tired, though. Going through the transformation from quiet, thoughtful teacher and wizard to fully grown, fully dark, fully monstrous werewolf was bound to take a tremendous toll on the man's body and force him to age before his time. His eyelids were sagging around the corners, directing any observer's line of sight to follow them down to the puffy purplish black bags under the eyes. To be quite honest, it looked like Lupin hadn't slept in two months. Then again, when Harry counted back two months to try to figure out what could possibly be keeping Lupin that awake at night to make him look so worn down, he quickly found the answer, shoved it back down in his consciousness, and told himself that Remus Lupin was the picture of near-forty health.

Still, no matter how tired and worn they both looked, they were laughing and talking like it was the best night of their lives. That, or they were both just too sleep deprived to know the difference.

Harry heard Lupin laugh as he shook his head at something she said, which she told him wasn't funny enough to evoke that kind of laughter. "It is five o'clock in the morning, Molly. Anything is funny at this point," Lupin chuckled.

"Getting tired in your old age, Moony?"

Lupin regarded her like a lunatic for a moment before he pulled out his wand and pointed it at the demolished chess pieces between them. With another laugh he commanded them back into ordered solid pieces for another game. "Reparo! . . . Fine, one more. But then you have to go to bed, young lady. I've kept you up long beyond your bed time."

"Yeah, okay, Dad."

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing," she said and quickly turned her attention to the coffee cup and saucer in front of her.

The two of them burst out laughing in sleepy sillies as she lifted the cup to her lips. She tried to take a sip, but her teeth ran right into the rim of the cup, making a loud noise that sent Lupin laughing at her even harder. By the time he was about done laughing, she was laughing at him and ended up choking on whatever was in her cup as it went down the wrong pipe. This, naturally, sent him laughing again. It was all Harry could do to keep from laughing himself at just how goofy they were both acting in their lack of sleep. He suddenly wondered if that was what it looked like whenever he and Ron got into the same situation. His own lack of sleep forgotten, Harry wandered over to the table and reclined back into the chair by the fire so that he could see them both while they attempted to play another game.

His chance to listen in on the conversation was almost blown, though. As he lowered himself into the leather chair, his sweaty hands slipped on the cool leather, making a stuttering noise as his palms moved. Lupin immediately looked around, hushing Molly as he searched for the source of the sound where it appeared that nothing could have made the noise. Harry held his breath to keep from making any more noise when Lupin's eyes seemed to look right into his, even though Harry knew that the invisibility cloak was drawn completely over his face and the rest of his body.

"Shh . . . "

"What?"

Lupin raised his hand to shush her and continued to look around for something, listening carefully into the surrounding darkness before he shook his head. He smiled sternly at her and said pointedly, "Be careful. The last thing we need is Madam Pomfrey waking up to hear us. Somehow, some way, it will be my fault that you're up and awake when you promised her that you would be sleeping by now."

"Of course it would be your fault. Poppy loves me more than she loves you."

"I see your logic hasn't improved over the years. You're still doing that 'new' math."

Molly glowered playfully at Lupin and grumped, "Make your move, Old Man."

"I'm going to remember you said that," Lupin threatened with a smile.

There was a long silence then that made Harry wonder if they were ever going to say anything again. They eyed each other, the board, each other, the board. It was almost a full five minutes later that there was even another sound from either of them. Harry looked at Molly when a croak escaped her throat, an absolutely disgusted cringe on her face as she pulled her cup away from her lips. She shivered off the taste of whatever she was drinking before she took another sip of it. The cup clinked hard against the saucer when she set them down on the table, her head jerking slightly in sour distaste. She cringed and emitted a series of Ech! and Blech! chokes until the shaking stopped. When it did, she peered over the table at Lupin and asked, "Remus, I adore you. Really, I do. But you aren't getting any younger -- are you going to make a move or what?"

Lupin raised an eyebrow as he looked over the chess board between them. His eyes ran over the board, more than likely predicting and counting their moves until one of them checkmated the other. He didn't lift his eyes from the board until he was finished responding, "Not until you tell me when you started drinking coffee. Your mother is probably banging on her coffin door as we speak over the thought that her only daughter would put coffee into her body."

"You obviously mistake me for my mother's child," she said with an air of utmost civility and propriety. "I may have always done as my mother wanted and presented myself as a lady . . . " A devilish grin quickly replaced the proper one and she added, "But I was my father's baby girl in all the ways that mattered. I wanted too much to be just like my big brother. He was a lot more fun to be around." A goofy smile turned her already round cheeks into bright red balls of amusement. "He had the cutest friends . . . "

"Oh, stop," Lupin groaned melodramatically. "You'll make me blush."

"Fine." Her grin went even more wicked as she sing-songed, "Fine . . . fine . . . fine . . . Give a mate a compliment and he tosses it back like yesterday's rubbish. That's just fine . . . "

"Get over it."

Molly wiped the smile from her face and replaced it with obviously feigned hurt. She didn't say anything for a moment, pouting and watching Lupin while he watched her like he was waiting patiently for what he was fairly certain she was going to say next. He moved his pawn and sat back into his chair, hands laced happily on his chest. She didn't even look down at the board as she countered his move and then sat back into her chair, mirroring him. They grinned wickedly at one another, waiting each other out. Finally, when Harry didn't think he could stand the silent contest any longer, Molly broke down.

"So you're looking old."

To Harry's surprise, Lupin broke out in a crazy grin that he thought he'd only seen on the man's face when Sirius was around and they were up to their usual antics. That, or when they got to talking about his father. Lupin was usually so even and calm that to see him so obviously happy was a nice change for Harry. He almost had to reach up and cover his mouth to keep from laughing out loud over the sight of the two perfectly grown wizards slinging insults at one another like first years.

"Look who's talking," said Lupin. "Are those crow's feet I see around your eyes?"

"Says the man with the -- how many grey hairs is that? Does your addle brain need a calculator to keep track of a number that high?"

Lupin leaned forward, pinching his eyes at her face and wagging his index finger in the direction of the center of her forehead. "Is that . . . Yeah, that's a wrinkle I see in the middle of your forehead."

"You're squinting, Moony. Need glasses?"

"Says the girl who had bifocals at thirteen . . . "

The witch suddenly seemed to switch from joking mode to a look of absolute horror. Her lip bunched up under her nose in distaste. "He told you about that?"

"There's very little that he didn't tell us," taunted Lupin. "The things I knew about you . . . You're terribly lucky that I had at least some control over the two of them or every one of your little girl secrets would have circulated the hallowed halls of Hogwarts in a matter of seconds."

"All right, all right, all right," Molly groaned in concession. She reached for her coffee again, and after a sour-faced swig, waved him off. "I give up. For now. I'm wounded. Give me a break."

Harry knew that Molly made the comment as a joke, but he couldn't stop the tightness in the back of his throat that threatened to cut off all air to his lungs. Joking or not, she was wounded (and she wasn't the only one). His eyes bulged toward her leg, which was sitting propped up on a pillow on a chair on the opposite side of the table. His view was a little obscured of it, but from what he could see it was back to being in a straight line. There were still signs of the injury, though, including how the length of her leg was one very long, very quickly darkening bruise. He suddenly noticed how all of her body movements had been from the waist up and that her eyes pinched every now and then with a quick intake of breath if she even moved her leg a little. Madam Pomfrey had been able to close up the gash that had been on the side of her head as well, but the area around where it had been was also darkly discolored. He could only hope that the pain that came with it wasn't as bad as he guessed it probably was. The pain in his own head grew again, realizing that she was hurting because of him.

A lot

of people were hurting tonight because of him.

"How's your head," Lupin asked Molly, pulling Harry's attention back above the table top to the wounded pair. Even though the man appeared to be completely serious, there was a bit of a teasing tone in his voice as he asked her, "Any permanent damage?"

"Very funny," Molly groaned and reached down with both hands to readjust the position of her leg. "There's a headache, but I've had worse. This leg is going to bother me for a few days, though. Don't say anything, all right? The last thing I need right now is anyone making a fuss. Harry needs the attention right now, not me. But yeah, there will be no marathons in my immediate future, for sure." She looked at him with a motherly tone and emphatically added, "Speaking of being wounded, there will be no marathons for you either. Are you going to tell me why you're limping like a geezer, or do I have to start asking around?"

"Rough moon last month," he said simply. "We kept Snape so busy with Order business that he didn't have time to make the Wolfsbane Potion, and seeing as how my potion brewing skills have not improved with time (despite assurances that they would), I spent the night of the last moon out and about with no one to keep me company but myself."

"Oh, Moony," muttered Molly for both herself and Harry. It wasn't all that difficult to figure out why the wolf had been alone and Harry couldn't help but feel worse for it.

"Don't," Lupin shook his head, begging her (and the invisible Harry) not to feel badly about what being the wolf had done to his human body in a few not-so-short hours. He smiled at her and gave her a pointed look to make sure she understood him. "Molly, you weren't told about me so that you could feel guilt or pity or anything of the sort. We haven't been children playing games at Hogwarts for many years. Regrettably, we are adults with responsibilities and wars to fight. I understood that before and I understand that now. If they were still here, I wouldn't be allowing them to feel guilty about it and I certainly am not going to accept it from you. It was a minor incident and I won't have you making anything more out of it than it was."

"All the same, I am going with you this month."

"No, you aren't."

"Yes, I am."

"No, you aren't."

"Why not? James and Sirius didn't show me how to do the transformation just for the fun of it, you know. Their exact words were, 'It's your turn to take care of him. We're counting on you to take care of him for us.' Now, I will never be as talented as the two of them, but they pointed me in the right direction so that I can do it and this is one thing that I can do well. Things aren't going to be getting any easier for Snape, and you know it. So either we have to find a way to make you a better potion brewer, or you're just going to have to accept a little company from me. You're too valuable, Remus. The Order needs you in one piece and not running like a funny little old man." She winked at him with an adoring smile. When Lupin didn't say anything, she went on trying to convince him that the wolf having a playmate wasn't such a bad idea. "You and I both know that I am not exactly tickled with the idea that I am back in this country in the first place. You have to at least allow me to have a little fun to make it better. Please? I have to go up to Hogwarts this week anyway, so you can go with me and we'll get you up to the Shrieking Shack for the night. It's been far too long since you and I played in the Forbidden Forest. Besides, Dumbledore could probably use the reinforcement of the haunted house rumor anyway."

"Do you realize how dangerous it is?" He looked darkly into her eyes, his own glazed with guilt. "We could have killed each other! We all thought we were so clever when what we really were was incredibly arrogant. It was a foolish thing that we did, and there was nothing fun about it."

"Which is why they did it, so that it would be fun, for you, instead of incredibly painful and destructive," she said, reminding him of the contradiction in his own logic. "It was fun, and not just for you. The only time Sirius got out of the house the entire time he was trapped here since he escaped Azkaban was with you on the night of the full moon. You cannot tell me that you didn't enjoy having him back and able to keep the wolf occupied. You cannot tell me that it wasn't the very best time of your life to have them there. Look, I'm not saying that it isn't dangerous and arrogant and whatever other excuse you have to throw at me. The thing is, Moony, you of all people should remember the reason behind what they did."

He did, and there was a light in his eyes whenever he thought about it, but he still wasn't about to give in so easily and flat out told her, "They were arrogant little idiots who couldn't resist the temptation to get themselves into some terrific magic and big secrets."

"They didn't want to see their best friend in so much pain any more," Molly countered gently. "Whatever other motive they might have had, whatever delusions of grandeur that Sirius and James had plugging up their swollen heads, whatever the case, they did it to be with you when you were at your worst. You know that. As crazy, as moronic as the entire idea was, it was because they loved you, Remus. They didn't come right out and say 'I love you', because that wasn't their way, but they didn't really have to. Everyone knew you loved each other. I know you know that, too."

"I do. Still, to this day, I cannot believe that I, that they . . . "

"And I feel the same way, too, Moony. You are the only brother I have left. Let me do this for you. Please."

Lupin suddenly looked very uncomfortable squirming in his seat and tried to chase away the subject. "We aren't having this discussion any more tonight. You have a concussion -- you don't know what you're saying."

"Of course I know what I'm saying. Don't even think you can pull that card on me. I'm not a little girl anymore, Moony, and I'm certainly not your little Marauder Mascot, either. I don't fall for the same mind tricks that the four of you used to use on me anymore."

"All the same, we are not talking about this."

"Yes, we are."

"No, we aren't."

Together, the pair went back to staring at one another and the half a minute that passed was nearly unbearable for Harry. They once again fell into a contemplative silence as they waited each other out. Harry had always felt that it was next to impossible to win an argument with Professor Lupin, but he was starting to think that Molly was just as difficult a person to disagree with once she set her mind on something. He watched them watch each other and thought that maybe he knew what his father's best friend's answer was going to be, but before he knew it, he'd actually missed them somehow (physically? psychically?) conveying the answer to each other because Lupin glanced back down at the chess board and moved his castle again to make a direct attack on her knight.

"So you started drinking coffee when now?"

And just like that, their debate over the plans for the next full moon was ended. Harry wasn't sure what the outcome was, but it was quite obvious that it was over. Lupin gloated slightly over the shattered pieces of Molly's broken knight while she glowered at him with renewed vigor.

"Channeling my brother, are you?"

"Sadly, it wouldn't have taken him this long to get the answer to such a simple question."

"It's been a long fifteen years, Moony," Molly replied seriously while she moved one of her pawns to capture one of his. She didn't look at him as she added quietly, "There are no simple questions."

"True enough," Lupin admitted. He moved his bishop and folded his hands in front of him on the table top before going on. "And yes, I'm channeling your brother. Someone has to. You've been away for far too long if you think you can get away from us that easily."

"A lot changes in fifteen years," she reminded him again. "Like Alastor. The last time I saw him, he still had two eyes and a lot more of his nose. And Dumbledore didn't look anywhere near this tired." She looked away sadly into the fire for a while, apparently thinking about something serious, but then suddenly snapped herself out of her stare. A bright smile lit up the room as she folded her arms over each other, rested them on the table's edge, and snuggled her chin into the crook of her wrist. "Like Harry . . . The last time I saw him, he was barely walking without tumbling head first into every table in the house. And now there's a full grown man in front of us."

"Fifteen years can do that to a child," said Lupin with a grin.

She was still smiling almost nostalgically up at Lupin when she admitted, "It was scary seeing him tonight -- and I don't mean because of everything that was going on around us, either. Don't get me wrong, that was almost fun -- I said 'almost' -- but to see him for the first time since . . . It was like -- well, you must know what I mean?"

"It's like seeing a ghost."

"But not." She went on while he kept silently encouraging her with a knowing smile which told Harry that Lupin knew exactly what it was that she meant. "When we were there, behind the table and working out strategy to get him out of there, it was hard to remember that it wasn't James that we were working with and that we didn't have that unspoken sort of code and communication that we all had together." There was a certain measure of sadness in her voice as she acknowledged the difference that made Harry almost wish for a moment that he was his father, just so that he could make Remus and Molly happy for a few minutes, to give them that piece of his father back to them. He didn't have time to imagine what it would be like, though, because she went on and he didn't want to miss whatever she was going to say next. "He was certainly eager, though, wasn't he? I think that if we had given him half the opportunity, he would have taken on the entire mess of them on his own. He looked awfully sore with you for telling him that he was under orders from Dumbledore to run away and stay out of the trouble."

Lupin reinforced her thought in a way that Harry never would have expected to hear himself described. "Harry has always been in a rush to grow up, ever since I met him. The harder we try to let him just be his own age, the harder he tries to prove himself to us. Did Sirius tell you that he can produce a fully corporeal Patronus?"

"You have got to be joking."

"I am quite serious. When Sirius escaped Azkaban, the Ministry had dementors stationed all around Hogwarts." On her confused expression, he quickly explained with a wave of his hand. "Based on the things he was muttering in his sleep, the Ministry felt that Sirius was going to try to attack Harry at school. Seeing as how everyone believed that he had been the one to betray Lily and James and Harry, they all felt that he was going to come after Harry to finish the job. Anyway, he'd had a few experiences with the dementors and finally asked me to show him a way to counter them. It took a while, but he still got it down faster than I've ever seen anyone pick up the Patronus Charm. It was Harry's Patronus that chased the dementors off Sirius and kept them from kissing him the night Sirius told us the truth."

"You taught him to produce a true Patronus," she said, mostly to herself, shaking her head in proudly amazed disbelief. "I -- Wow. He really is James's, isn't he?"

Lupin chuckled with an air of nostalgic admission. "He is. He's just as naturally talented, maybe even more so, if that is even possible. And bright, too, even though his marks don't exactly show it. Show him how to do something once and he can probably do it for you, even the most difficult magics, but getting him to write his lessons or take a test is chore. He would probably do better in class if Hermione -- the girl that was sitting with us in the kitchen who didn't have the red hair -- if she would stop getting him out of the jams that he gets himself into and make him actually concentrate on doing his homework. But he's bright all the same. He's a quick study and can do many things that most grown wizards can't. When it came to Defense Against the Dark Arts, he was the best student I had. But then, he's the best at a lot of things that he does. He's the Gryffindor Seeker, you know."

"Are you kidding me?" Molly rolled her eyes with an annoyed, loving beam. "He was the youngest Seeker in a century as a first year and had caught every Snitch . . . Sirius wouldn't shut his trap about it. It was sort of amusing, actually. The day that Dumbledore sent Padfoot knocking on my door for a safe place to hide, I didn't know what to think at first. I think we probably just stared at one another for an hour before we actually managed to say anything. But then, once we got started . . . I think we sat up for the next two nights talking about things, as much as his mind could handle anyway, considering how out of touch he was with actually carrying on a conversation. He couldn't stop bragging about Harry, though, like the boy was his own son. But then, he always did talk about Harry like that from the day he was born. I swear, that boy was going to grow up with two fathers and two uncles instead of one father and three uncles. Sirius was so attached. We all were . . . But anyway, Sirius couldn't wait to tell me about watching Harry play Quidditch. He said it was like watching James play, but better."

"It is. I'll see if I can come so that we can watch the first match-up of the year together. It would be worth the trip just to see your face as you watch him. He really is incredible. Can you believe Minerva made him Seeker after he had only his first flying lesson?"

As Harry listened to them, it was quickly becoming apparent that this was the strangest conversation that he had ever not been a part of. He realized that they were talking about him, but at the same time, he knew he couldn't be this person that they were talking about. He knew that he looked like his dad. He'd seen pictures. But the rest of it, the facts were right, but not. They really thought he was just like his dad?

"The first lesson?"

"The first," Lupin repeated. "He had never touched a broomstick before for anything other than cleaning his aunt and uncle's kitchen floor, but as soon as that broom popped up from the ground and into his hand, it was like it belonged there. He has James's reflexes, too. To see him up there playing is just . . . "

"Scary?"

"Yeah."

"Then James and Lily would have been proud?"

"They would. He's everything they wanted for him. He's bright and talented, eager and brave. He is very, very brave, much braver than anyone his age should have to be. He's a bit quiet, but that I think is a response to having everyone know who he is. He was never even told he was a wizard until Hagrid came hunting him down to deliver his Hogwarts letter. He had no idea who he was or why people knew his name. People knew all about him, though, and they didn't bother to hide it. I'm sure that was probably fun for a few days, but he seems to shrug off attention whenever he can now. He's popular in that everyone knows him, but he doesn't have a lot of friends. He isn't popular the way James was, but I think he's actually better off. He has some very good friends, though, like Frank Longbottom's -- you remember Frank and his wife Alice -- their boy Neville and some of the other boys in Gryffindor. They don't come anywhere near close to Ron and Hermione, though. You never saw three children so devoted to one another as those three."

Molly raised an eyebrow at Lupin with a kindly reminder. "Except for the four of you."

Lupin's expression went completely black, which Harry couldn't quite understand until his former teacher muttered, "What we thought was the four of us."

The witch nodded solemnly with a sympathetic "Hmm." She pulled her head out from her snuggled position on the table's edge and took another choking sip of the coffee in her cup, which had to be cold by now and made her sour expression even more sour. After a second sip she asked, "Does he know? Does Harry know the story?"

"The highlights, the lowlights -- Not a whole lot of the in-between, though. The night that we sorted everything out in the Shrieking Shack we told him about the reason behind how the three of them became Animagi to keep the wolf occupied and how close the four of us were because of it. Sirius told us about changing the plan at the last minute and making Peter the Secret Keeper. He told us about going to Peter's house that night and finding him missing, finding James and Lily dead, and following Peter to where he was captured by the Ministry after Peter's little show. We tried since that night to every now and then to tell him stories about his parents, but it wasn't anything that Sirius or I was going to bring up and Harry doesn't ask. He does once in a while, but not very often."

"But he knows how much they loved him? Does he know how much they adored every single move he made and all of the . . . "

"He knows," Lupin said confidently then with a sigh and raised eyebrows corrected himself. "At least, I hope he knows. I haven't been doing my job if he doesn't."

Harry wasn't sure, but he thought for the second time that night that Lupin was looking right at him. He felt himself press back against the high leather back of the chair, drawing his cloak around him just a little tighter. He almost wished that his father's invisibility cloak also had shrinking capabilities as well. He felt a little guilty, knowing that he was invading a conversation that he was in no way supposed to hear. At the same time, he had no power to pull himself away. Something told him that he didn't want to, that there was too much to be learned if he stayed.

"Does he know about the rest of it? Does he understand how -- " Molly's voice trailed off with a very sudden jerk of her head that looked almost painful. She turned away and stared into the fire, her eyes taking on a blank glaze as if she were trying to hide her thoughts.

Lupin, it seemed, wasn't about to let her get away with the silence. "What?" he asked her softly, sounding as if he already knew the answer anyway. He laid a steadying hand on her suddenly quivering shoulder and tried to encourage her to say whatever it was that she was thinking. "Molliver, it's me . . . "

"I just can't believe that-that -- I can't believe that we are actually sitting here talking about Peter having done these things. The person I remember was so sweet and soft spoken and just this rolie polie little man who adored the three of you and followed you around like a little puppy dog, even when you were out of school and grown. He was gentle and loving and he was just so-so -- so Peter. You couldn't help but want to protect him with everything you had. No matter how many times I try to think about it, I cannot put his face on the wizard that blew up all those Muggles. I can't picture sweet little Peter deliberately, knowingly passing information along to Death Eaters and . . . Knowing full well that Voldemort was going to ask him about James and Lily and . . . That he would still take on the Fidelius Charm, even though he knew and -- It's as if we are talking about two different people. I don't understand it. I just don't get it."

Lupin sank back into the chair and folded his hands in his lap. He gazed down at them and studied his knuckles, watching the dirtied creases grow deep then thin as he bent his thumbs back and forth, back and forth. His voice was hard and cold when he spoke again to explain, "He said he was scared."

"We were all scared!" Incredulous, she stared a hole into Remus's eyes and out through the back of his prematurely greying head. She was even a bit snappish with Lupin as she said in a lower voice, "You can't tell me you weren't scared."

"I was, but for all of us," he admitted. "I was scared for you, not knowing what would happen to you if something went wrong and none of us were left. You were still so young . . . We all were, but you weren't even of age yet. And I was terrified for Harry for the same reason, even more so for him since he wasn't even a year old yet. I was terrified for Lily, knowing how scared I was for James and Sirius and because of all of the chances they took every single second of every day and how it must have driven her absolutely around the twist to know what they were up to. She never complained, but you could see it. She was scared. So was James. I don't think Sirius was scared enough, at least for himself, but then, he never has been. He was frightened for the rest of us, though. He told me that one night. He told me that he never stopped being afraid for us. I wasn't as worried about Peter, though. I still don't know why. I suppose that is where we all made our mistake. We thought we could protect him and didn't even think twice about whether or not we would be able to. And we just assumed that everyone understood it the way that we did. Peter wasn't the one anyone would think to corrupt because we would never think that he could be corrupted. But that's an arrogance of youth, I suppose, to have that kind of faith in your friends . . . If I had known then . . . But I suppose that with all the deaths and knowing that he was somewhat responsible for some of them, the longer he waited, the harder it probably was to come to us."

Molly shook her head angrily. "What did he think you would do to him if he told you? Hmm? I don't understand how, when the three of you had protected him from everything else under the sun, how he could think that you wouldn't do the same for him then. He was one of you. He would have been safe. Of course, you would have had to lock Padfoot away for a week before he cooled down long enough not to kill Peter for being so god awful stupid, but even he would have calmed down and-and -- Remus, you would have found a way. How could he not think that you would find a way?"

"Apparently we don't understand the power Voldemort has," said Lupin with the slightest hint of sarcasm. "That's what he told us that night when the affair was sorted out in the Shrieking Shack, anyway." Lupin looked up at her, his face scarier than Harry had ever seen it. "He didn't want to die, he said."

"No one wants to die," Molly countered bitterly. "But you cannot tell me that if it had been you or Sirius under those circumstances that you would have betrayed them. You would have fought like mad and probably gone through a great deal of unspeakable tortures, but you would have done it. You would have died to keep them safe."

"I would. Sirius would. We told him he should have. Apparently, he didn't agree."

Molly looked sadly back at the fire. "I thought Peter loved them that much, too. I thought he loved all of you that much. I don't . . . Remus, I mourned him."

"We all did," Lupin said and gazed at her with utmost sympathy, boring a stare into her until she looked back at him and saw the shared expression on his face. It was obvious that he'd had all those same thoughts on many, many occasions and had had plenty of time to think about them. His eyes burned dark still, angry, when his thought process melted right over his face. "Sirius did, too, for different reasons, of course, but he did. He knew Peter was alive, but he knew that Peter, our Peter, was still lost to us regardless."

"He must have been just devastated," Molly whispered, the realization of the burden Sirius had carried alone for twelve years manifesting in angry tears that she was obviously willing very hard not to fall.

"He was, but he got over it. He just spent twelve years being angry. When he got out, all he could think about was actually getting to commit the murder he'd been imprisoned for. You should have seen him that night. It was hard to hold him back. Twelve years is a long time to harbor that kind of anger and hatred."

"I still don't understand why you stopped him. You should have let him kill Peter."

"I was going to help," Lupin said defensively. "We stood there, together, we said our goodbyes, and we were about to kill him. We even tried to talk Harry into it. But Harry wouldn't let us. He said that he couldn't imagine James wanting us to become murderers over the likes of Peter. If Harry hadn't stopped us, I think we both would have enjoyed sending Peter straight to Hell where he belongs. As it was . . . "

"Then Harry is a much more forgiving person than I because I don't think I could care less about what James would have wanted. Peter did this to all of us. He took everything away from all of us. Harry deserved to grow up with parents and his godfather and surrogate uncles and everyone else in this world who loves him. He took twelve years from Sirius that . . . " Molly stopped and took in a deep breath to calm herself. Her shoulders quivered just a little harder, but now it seemed to be much more from anger than sadness. "He gave Sirius twelve years in that awful place that he had to just sit there knowing the whole time that Peter had been the one to betray us all. And knowing that everyone thought it was him, that Harry thought it was him, that you and me and everyone here in this house including Dumbledore thought it was him -- it must have been horrible."

Lupin seemed startled by something, but he chuckled softly to himself. He peered into the far corner of the room as if seeing something or someone that no one else could see. He was still looking into the dusty old arm chair smiling a strange smile when he said, "Actually, he laughed about it. He laughed quite hard, in fact. He told me that he just pretended that he was back in this house again. The dementors had already had his mother screaming at him in his head anyway. He said that he felt that he was right back at home amongst the other murderers."

"I can't believe you think that's funny." Molly huffed something of a combination of guilt and disgust, Harry could not be sure which. But when she spoke, her voice was full of nothing but self-loathing and anger that Harry couldn't imagine seeing from this person that he had already assumed was so gentle and loving. "We left him in there, Remus. We left him in there for twelve years with those monsters. We didn't even try to talk to him, to get him out."

"Yes, but we also thought he did it, didn't we?"

"No, I was told he did," she corrected him hotly. "There's a difference. I wasn't exactly very well informed, now, was I? All I was told was that Voldemort was after my family and that all I needed to know was that my brother was taking care of me. Any time Dumbledore came to the house, you lot sent me to my room. And then, one night in the middle of the night, James, Lily, and Sirius showed up at school to drag me out to the Shack and tell me that they were going into hiding and that I might not see them for a few years. A few years, Remus. That was the first time anyone had even thought to tell me anything about there being a spy in the ranks or what have you. James and Sirius told me about being Animagi and where I could learn to do it so that I could take care of you while they were gone or if anything should happen to them. They actually thought that they were going to be gone, out of our lives for a few years, and all they were going to give me was a quick talking-to in the middle of the night before they left. I didn't get a say in it at all. Then, a week later Professor McGonagall was walking me out of the Great Hall during breakfast to tell me that James, Lily, and Peter were all dead, that Sirius was responsible for all of it, and that you were nowhere to be found and that based on what had happened I should probably assume the worst about you as well. I got the rest of the story that day from every other student at school who got letters from their families telling them that Voldemort was gone and so was my family. So when you finally came to see me, I didn't have any other story to believe. And since you believed it . . . God, Remus, I didn't even try to ask him."

Lupin cocked an eyebrow at her, insinuating that she was being almost silly and childish. "And what were you going to do? March up to the gates of Azkaban and demand to see the Muggle Murderer?"

"Something. I don't know. I just can't -- we believed it, Moony. We -- the people that he left this godforsaken house and family for, the people he was most devoted to and chose as his family, the people that he loved and trusted above all others in this world -- we believed it. How could we believe it?"

"We all believed a lot of things, didn't we," he asked with a matter of fact tone in his voice that told both Molly and Harry that he was just sick with some thought that neither of them knew about.

Molly asked the question that Harry obviously could not. "What do you mean?"

"You were too young and at school most of the time -- hey, that's what your parents wanted! They made Dumbledore, James, Lily, and the rest of us swear to keep you out of it for as long as possible. Either way, you were too young at the time and you have to know that it was hard to know what to believe. That's the Death Eater's greatest weapon, I suppose, to make you doubt even the people you've loved most of your life. Even before that night, Sirius thought I was the spy, I thought he was the spy, James refused to think any of us the spy, and nobody thought to even consider that Peter was the spy."

"You thought it was Padfoot? Before Halloween happened? You never told me that. How could you think it -- "

"He's Sirius," said Lupin plainly. "He's the strong one, the one who would be the most able to wield any power that Voldemort would pass onto him. That, among many other things at the time, and a simple process of elimination. The information of the nature that was being passed along could only have been going through one of a very select group of us. After your parents were murdered, we made it a point to keep information regarding both the Order and the small group of us only between us. Any meetings or discussions that we had were always held in Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts and the only people in attendance were those who were directly involved in what was being discussed or the four of us, Lily, and Dumbledore. But then that second attack came on James and Lily the night after Harry's birthday and by that time there was absolutely no denying that someone on the inside was passing the information along."

"It had to be one of the three of you or Dumbledore."

"Exactly. It was obvious that James and Lily weren't the ones doing it considering that they were the ones that were being attacked. Dumbledore was the one in charge of the entire thing and would never have betrayed any of us for any reason, and I knew for sure that I wasn't the traitor . . . "

When Lupin trailed off from the obvious next thought, Molly went ahead and finished the process for him. "And since the idea of Peter being the spy was completely ludicrous just because he was Peter, Sirius was the only one left."

Lupin countered from the other side of the story, Sirius's side. "And as far as Sirius was concerned, with Peter being exempt from the entire suspicion ring because, again, Peter was Peter, that left only myself and Dumbledore, so naturally, he assumed it was me."

Molly sighed, still very much unsatisfied with Lupin's explanation for how friends of their worth could so easily forget that they were friends, brothers even, and suspect one another. "It sounds simple to put it that way, but I still don't get that you couldn't talk to each other. I don't understand how you could have just let things go and never even talk about it. Had you just talked . . . "

"Hindsight is a terrific tool to have. It's just too bad that you can't have it when you need it," said Lupin.

Neither one of them said anything for a while, leaving each other to their own thoughts. Harry felt just awful for them, and when Molly sniffled back a matched set of tears, he felt even worse. His heart went out to her as she seethed, "I hate him."

"I know."

"I hate him for betraying all of you. I hate him for taking all of our lives away."

His throat obviously clutched, Lupin softly croaked, "I know. Believe me, I know."

"No, seriously, I really hate him, Remus. I didn't know I was even capable of such hate. I didn't even hate Sirius this much when I thought it was him that had done this. It being Peter makes it all that much more . . . "

"I know."

"Do you know what the worst part is?"

"Hmm?"

Molly studied her hands for a moment before she looked back up at Lupin with her eyes completely ablaze with angered passion. "I still love him. I still love the Peter that I knew, the Peter who used to bring me bags of treats every time you went on a Hogsmead trip, the Peter that made it to St Mungo's even before I did the day that Harry was born because he loved James and Lily that much. I love the Peter that was able to sit there and just listen to each and every one of us without any judgement. I still love the Peter that held my hand for six straight hours the day that my grandmother died and James wasn't there to do it. I miss the real Peter . . . I hate him, Remus. I really, really hate him."

"But we still love him," Lupin grumped, unhappy that he was making such an admission himself, probably for both himself and Sirius as well.

"Yeah," Molly sighed and wiped away a hot tear from her eye that was going to fall if she didn't do something about it. She was still obviously very angry, but she looked like she wanted to get back to talking about it without crying. She ran her tongue over her teeth behind angrily pursed lips and asked, "What does Harry think about all of this?"

"I don't think he does," Lupin mused, slightly surprised at the sentiment. "I think that right now it's all just like reading a history. There isn't a lot of personal attachment to it because he didn't know us. He didn't know James or Lily and he didn't know what we were all going through. He cares, of course. He cares about what it did to Sirius and myself, but I don't think he will ever really understand the implications of it. I think it's probably better that way. It probably hurts a lot less for him than it does for us. Well, maybe not better or worse, but it's different."

"Still, I wish he could have known them. You shouldn't have to answer questions like a walking history book. He should have been able to grow up with his parents and grandparents and you and Sirius and all of us who loved him. He should have known what it was like to be loved and happy and wanted. If none of this had happened, he would have known all of that and more. Even with the little bit of time that I got with Sirius once he escaped . . . I wish Harry could have known him the way he was, when he could smile without thinking about doing it." She looked at Lupin for a second, studying his expression before she asked, "You noticed it, too, didn't you?"

"He was different," Lupin admitted. There was a sly smile on his face that Harry had to wonder if Molly also recognized as Lupin's sign that he was about to steer the subject with a jibe. "I think prison deflated that ego of his a little bit."

"His head was almost head size," Molly joked back. "You know, I loved him. I loved him with all my heart, but yeah, the ego was a bit much to handle some days."

"You were too young to have actually been there, but do you remember the time that he tried to take five different girls on a date all at once during one of our Hogsmead weekends? He had the three of us covering for him in different shops while he bounced from girl to girl. He would have pulled it off, too, if two of them hadn't been friends of Lily's. She was still angry with Prongs for getting her caught in the crossfire of one of our prank wars with a couple of Hufflepuffs and wasn't about to let any of us get away with anything. The five of them caught up to him the next day and all hexed him at once. He spent the next two days in the hospital wing while Madam Pomfrey tried to figure out how to remove -- "

"Ech! Do not tell me," Molly cut him off and appeared rather disgusted from just imagining the damage that five scorned women could do to a man in Sirius's predicament. "All I remember is that Mum and Dad got McGonagall's letter and argued for ten minutes who they were going to punish first -- Sirius for being so stupid or James for being so stupid as to let Sirius be so stupid. Dad, of course, thought it was hilarious, but Mum went completely thermal. She threatened to lock them both up for the summer in separate rooms. She cooled down after a week, but she never resisted the temptation to start reading off the letters she had gotten every time she felt like lecturing them for the current one. I think I still have that letter. I have most of the others. I would have to look."

Lupin laughed at the idea. "Now that would be a trip down Amnesia Lane! There has to be a letter for at least one of every three things we got ourselves into."

"When James and I were cleaning out what was left of the house, we found two boxes full. We hadn't really decided what we were going to do with them when . . . " She stopped herself and took in a sharp breath. Again her face did that thing where it went dark and angry for the slightest of seconds before she recovered and put on a charming smile once again to put herself back on track. "When I got the letter from Hagrid a few years ago, the one telling us all that Harry had no idea who he was or where he came from and that he wanted pictures of James and Lily to put a book together for him, I went digging through what I had left. I found the letters and a few other things Mum had saved. You remember what a pack rat the woman was. My mother, when we were little, started for each of us a book that she wrote in all the time telling us stories about the crazy things that we did as children and stories about her and Dad, our grandparents, things like that. That way, if anything ever happened to them, we'd still have that history there. James and Lily had just started one for Harry when they went into hiding, and, well . . . She obviously didn't get to finish it. I couldn't exactly do that for Harry in terms of how he was growing up and whatnot, but I started pulling together everything about James that I could to make a book for Harry about his dad. I told him everything about James that I could think of. I told him about Mum and Dad and what it was like growing up with them. Pretty soon, though, the book wasn't enough and I put together an entire box. The letters from school were some of the first things to go in there. And I put in the picture of the four of you at your last Hogwarts Halloween feast. There is an entire box devoted to just the four of you and the things you got yourselves into. You were such a big part of James's life that there was no way that I could just write it all down in one page. You were too important for that . . . Anyway, I brought the box with me, actually, so that you can help me go through it to see if there is anything that I need to add. I thought you might want to jot down a few stories into the book for him or something."

"I'd like that," said Lupin.

Harry was sitting straight up in the chair again, and even though he couldn't tell her he hoped she knew he'd like that, too.

"I was thinking about giving it to him for Christmas, if you think you'll have the time to help me out for a while," Molly suggested.

There was a smile on Lupin's face that Harry couldn't quite figure as he turned to gaze in the direction of the fire, stopping briefly on Harry's chair again. "I think he'll like that. I have a feeling Christmas isn't going to be much fun around here this year. The more we can all cheer each other up, the better. I . . . I really think he'll enjoy that. Of course you realize that by doing that, you are going to be raising a few questions for him."

Harry wondered and Molly asked, "Such as?"

"Such as how you got your hands on all of that information in the first place."

Harry bit back a Hey, yeah! Instead of revealing his presence with the yell, his head whipped curiously on a suddenly much more mysterious Molly.

A slightly disappointed tone colored Molly's voice as she argued, "I have no plans of letting him know that the boxes are from me. I was going to put Sirius's name on them. Or yours, I hadn't really decided yet."

"Or you could just tell him who you are," Lupin suggested. "I still don't understand why you won't."

"I've already told you, Remus, that boy has enough going on in his life right now. He has had too many people come into his life to be taken away from him. He had you and Padfoot and already, just when he was finally back in our lives, Sirius has been taken from us, again. I won't put Harry through that again. I promise, if we all make it through this alive, I'll tell him then."

"Has it occurred to you that maybe he needs your support now, not when it's all over?"

Molly gave a joking wiggle of her toes on her no longer broken but still bruised leg. The movement made her wince in pain, but her point was well-made. "He has my support now, too, just in a completely unrelated sense."

"For him maybe, but not for you. You adored him just as much as the rest of us and you need a family as much as he does."

"He has a family -- you. And I have you, too. But he doesn't need me to complicate his life. Yes, we were family once, but . . . That was a lifetime ago. I went to Romania to forget about all of this and I never had any intentions of coming back. I will always love Harry. He's a piece of James and for that I am eternally grateful, but I have no right whatsoever to come back into his life as a stranger now. If it will make this war in the least bit easier for him, I can keep a secret. You of all people know that I can keep a secret."

Pointedly, Lupin told her, "I'm just not so sure that this is a secret that needs to be kept."

"Moony, if there is one thing that having you and Sirius in our lives has taught me, it is that while you cannot choose your relatives, you can choose your family. I'm not family to him -- blood does not make me family. I never got to be an aunt. An aunt spoils you rotten and teaches you all of the things that your parents never wanted you to learn so that it can be a secret just between the two of you. But too much time has passed and it was taken away from us by forces beyond our control. I got over it a long time ago and as far as I'm concerned, it isn't anything that he's going to have to get over because he isn't going to know. My relationship with Harry ends with the fact that his father and I share parentage."

"It doesn't have to be that way."

"No, it probably doesn't, but that is the way it's going to be. I do not want him to know, Remus. I want you to promise me right here, right now that you aren't going to tell him. I mean it, Moony. I don't care how good your intentions may be. I do not want Harry to know that I am his aunt. I can't be that person any more. That part of my life died with my brother. He's happy not knowing and I am not going to spoil that for him. Now promise me."

Lupin looked sweetly at her, like just saying the right thing was going to make her change her mind. "Molliver . . . "

"Don't you 'Molliver' me. I mean it. Promise me, Moony."

"Fine. I promise you that I will not tell Harry that you are his aunt. I won't even tell him that you are related, should he ask. But that means that you have to promise me that if, as you said, you both survive this war, you will tell him and give him the chance to get to know you."

"He will get to know me," she said with a cheerfully conciliatory smirk. "I'm going to be his teacher this year. There isn't going to be a whole lot of escaping me."

Lupin, however, wasn't buying it, which the crossed arms over his chest would testify. "Promise."

"Fine." Molly's eyes burst open wildly as she moaned emphatically, "Okay, I promise. Happy?"

"Thank you," Lupin nodded, signalling the end of their verbal battle. A tiredly amused grin stretched over his young features as he jibed, "So you started drinking coffee when?"

"Moony . . . "

"It isn't my fault that you haven't answered me yet."

"And I'm not going to, so you can just forget about it. Make a move."

Without looking at the chess board, Lupin ordered his knight into motion and continued to question Molly at the same time. "Knight to H3. And no, I won't forget about it."

"Yes, you will. Remus, I am tired, I am snappish, and if you do not get off that topic fairly soon, I am going to be violent as well. You will not be getting an answer and I am done having this conversation."

"This is me, Molly. You should know better than to think that I am going to let something that was supposed to be a joke go unanswered when it clearly isn't a joke to you. Now what is going on? When did you start drinking coffee?"

While Harry was more than just a little curious about the answer himself -- it really did seem like such a simple question -- he wasn't about to get it because all three of them nearly jumped ten feet high when a CREAK from the door into the room announced the arrival of another person to the conversation. He wanted to get up and see who it was, but any movement he made that wasn't perfectly calculated was going to give away his presence. The last thing he wanted to do if he was to get anything else out of Lupin or Molly was to make any noise whatsoever. All he could do was wait to see if the person said anything or happened to come into view. He didn't have to wait too long for that to happen either. Seconds later a rather tired looking Bill escorted an even more tired looking Mr Weasley into the room and to the long meeting table where Lupin and Molly sat. Harry had to fight not to reveal himself when he saw how worn out Mr Weasley looked, but Lupin took care of expressing his feelings for him.

"I don't mean to offend, but you look terrible, Arthur."

"Between us, I feel terrible," Mr Weasley said wryly, even with the smile on his face and the hand protecting his unattended ribs. "Just don't tell my wife. She'll be beside herself with worry if she thinks it worse than it is. I'll be fine after I've seen Madam Pomfrey. She can tell you that I've seen worse. Now, more importantly, how is Harry?"

Mr Weasley looked at Bill, who looked at Molly, who looked at Lupin, who looked at an invisible Harry before looking toward the door where yet another person was coming in to join in their pre-dawn festivities. Harry, seeing the look from Lupin, feverishly wished that he were capable of being invisible, forgetting that he actually was at the moment.

"Ah, Alastor, you're still up, too, I see," Lupin said by way of greeting and looked back to where Invisible Harry sat (sweating quite nervously at the thought of discovery) with what Harry maybe thought was a big hint to get out of the chair before anyone sat on him and found him out.

He really hoped he was interpreting that look in the wrong way. If Lupin really did know he was there, then that meant that Moody knew as well. Moody's eye could see through invisibility cloaks just as easily as it could see through walls and the back of his head. If Lupin knew that he was up, he had to have known for quite a while and would probably cover for him with all of the others in the room, but the chances of Moody letting him slip out of the room unnoticed were almost slim to none.

Moody clomped across the room, dragging his wooden leg a little bit more than he was used to seeing from the man. "I wanted to wait up for Arthur," the Auror grumbled. "If you weren't back by seven, I was going to come after you to find out what happened. Are you all right?"

Mr Weasley nodded and pushed his glasses up on his nose tiredly. "I was just telling them, I'm fine. I'm more concerned about Harry right now than I am about myself. Is he all right?"

Lupin spoke up first, before Moody had the chance to reveal Harry's presence in the room. "He's all right. Molly -- your Molly -- put one of Poppy's concoctions in his hot chocolate to help him sleep."

Moody and Lupin exchanged glances then both looked at Harry's chair. Moody's magical eye popped open at him while the normal one narrowed with warning. Harry mouthed Please to him, to which Moody gave him a look that told him he was about to be the luckiest wizard in the house and dripped to the others, "It should have knocked him out for the night."

While Mr Weasley pushed his glasses up on his nose with his entire hand so that he could rub at his tired eyes in the process he asked, "And you didn't run into any trouble on the way here?"

Bill spoke up with a yawn, "N-n-n-o-o-o-o-ah -- er -- no troubles. He was a little upset when he realized that we were still here in this house, but once Madam Pomfrey checked him out, we sat in the kitchen for over an hour and he was talking and such with the rest of us. Mum kept the questions away from him, though. We told them as much as we could during the meeting, but Dumbledore is going to want to talk to Harry some time soon."

Mr Weasley yawned as well before he was able to muse, "I expect he will. We have no way of knowing exactly what happened in his backyard until we talk to him. If I could give him a few days, I would, but I'm sure Dumbledore is going to want him first thing in the morning."

Moody must have seen Harry squirming in his seat at the mention of himself and what had happened earlier, so he quickly asked, "What happened after we left? Dumbledore took out of here like a bat out of hell when we told him what happened, but we didn't get any details from him. We could hear Fudge all the way outside yelling at you."

"I still don't have a job, if that's what you're asking," said Mr Weasley.

"Well, Arthur, look at it this way -- at least you can sleep in in the morning," Molly said sunnily.

"Something tells me that that isn't going to make my wife feel any better," Mr Weasley grumped. He looked to Bill, who was cringing at the mention of his mother. "How did your mother take it?"

"She's been waiting up for you the entire night. And I think it would be a good idea if no one mentioned Percy to her ever again." Bill rolled his eyes as he brought up his estranged brother, but he went on with somewhat reassuring words for his father. "But, Mum did say that she didn't see any other way out of it and she was proud of you for taking up for the rest of us that way. She would rather it hadn't cost you your job, especially since the Order needs you to be there, but we'll make do, she said. She's really worried, though. You should talk to her."

Mr Weasley looked up at the clock on the mantle and sighed heavily at the hour. He was obviously too tired to think straight anymore, but there was also a marked determination about him that was forcing him to trudge on until he'd taken care of everything he needed to take care of. "We'd better bring her down then. Let's get as many people together as we can at this hour. I'm tired and would prefer to only have to go over this the once while all the details are fresh. I want to get some sleep before we collect Harry's aunt and cousin."

Moody immediately volunteered to send for Dumbledore and the other members of the Order who were up at Hogwarts. He gave Harry one last look with his magical eye through the cloak and said, "We should all be getting some sleep before then." Of course, what he really meant was, You had better be in your bed by the time I get back, Potter, and don't think I won't see you!

Lupin reached over and shook Molly, who had once again nestled herself into her folded arms on the table. "Can you stay awake any longer for this, Molliver, or do you want me to walk you up to your room?"

Molly closed her eyes and left them closed, although she raised her eyebrows at him and took in a long breath through her nose. She was half asleep in her chair as it was, the concussion and the long trip from Romania finally catching up to her. She still didn't open her eyes as she reached her hand over and put it on top of his, patting it with a flop. "You know how I feel about you, Moony, but I'd trade you right now for a warm bed and a Sleeping Draught."

Lupin chuckled and scraped his chair back to allow himself room to get out. To the others he said, "I'll be right back."

"Bring Molly back down with you, will you," Mr Weasley requested. "Let the other children sleep, but the twins should probably be down here for this too. I want to talk to them before Harry gets up. I want to make this transition of his aunt and cousin as smooth as possible for him."

"And we need to talk about the boy's wand, as well," Moody growled from across the room as he reached in to hold the door for Lupin and Molly.

"Agreed," Lupin nodded. He helped an exhausted Molly out of her chair and slung her arm around his shoulders with a grunt. "I shall return."

As the two of them made their way out the door, the Weasleys called their Good Night's to Molly. When they thought they were alone, Mr Weasley sank back into his chair a little bit, pulled of his glasses, and rubbed tiredly at his eyes. He yawned a few times and finally, with a big gulping sigh turned his attention back to his eldest son. "How is your head?"

"How is yours?"

"Bill . . . "

"I'm fine, Dad."

"You're sure?"

Bill raised his arms over his head to stretch sleepily. "I'm sure."

"Your mother must be a wreck."

"She is, but Dad, we all know that that isn't going to change until this is all over. The family is far too tied up in this war to give her a chance to breathe. She'll be okay, though," Bill told his father reassuringly. "The woman raised seven children, Dad. She's going to be just fine."

"I suppose you're right," said Mr Weasley. "What about Harry? Are you sure he's all right?"

Bill shrugged and screwed up his face in indecision. "I don't know. He didn't really say a whole lot of anything when we were talking. He asked a few questions about who Molly was, and he asked about his aunt and cousin, about where they were. We told him, vaguely anyway, that we were moving to a new safehouse soon. Fred and George told him a little bit about what happened before they came to get us and what was going on. They told us a lot more detail after Harry went up to bed, though. They said they didn't want to put too much on Harry. They said they'd tell him more about it when he was ready to hear it. He stayed pretty quiet, though. I think he probably had a headache, though, too. Madam Pomfrey said he probably had a slight concussion."

"She looked him over, though?"

"Yeah. She gave him something for the pain from the effects of the -- did you know she hit him with the Electricus Curse? I couldn't believe it. I thought he was supposed to be protected in that house. But then Dumbledore said something about when You-Know-Who took Harry's blood and was able to touch him that maybe it took that protection away from the house, too. Dumbledore didn't know for sure why they were able to attack him at the house, either, but he put Snape to work in his dungeons to come up with some potion or something that they can use."

Mr Weasley sighed sadly. "That isn't going to do Mr Dursley any good, now, is it?"

Father and son regarded one another, tired, battled, and mutually understanding without words what Harry also knew. Things were getting worse, a lot worse, and pretty soon, none of them were going to be able to stop where all of this was eventually leading. And Harry knew what only he, Dumbledore, and Professor Trelawney knew, which was exactly where this was all going to go, and he wasn't ready to think about that. He wasn't ready to think about what Bill and Mr Weasley were continuing on about, either.

"Did you ever meet him," Mr Weasley asked his son. "Strange man. I still cannot understand how it is that he could leave Harry to your mother and I and -- knowing that he wasn't going to be seeing Harry for another year -- could let the boy leave without even saying Goodbye. And Harry acted as if he thought that was completely normal behavior. His uncle seemed like a . . . "

That was it. Harry didn't think he could take hearing anything else for one night. Mr Weasley was right -- he was going to have more than enough to deal with over the next few days. Between that and the new information that he had learned about who Molly was and what she was doing there, he was just exhausted with knowledge and conversation and everything else. He just wanted to go back to bed. Besides, if Moody came back down and caught him still sitting there, there was no telling if the Auror would expose his presence or not. The last thing he wanted was to make a commotion. They had all been through enough over him for one night. As much as he wanted to know what was going to be said when the Order congregated in a few minutes, it wasn't going to be worth the trouble it would cause. Bed was definitely sounding like the best plan.

There really were times when he wished that he didn't hear things that he wasn't supposed to. He wasn't entirely sure if this was going to be one of those times or not. Harry had the feeling that the way that Lupin and Molly had talked about Peter Pettigrew and their feelings about him was going to fester in his head for more than just a few nights. Although, to hear them talk about him, about how his parents would have felt about him was also something that was going to stick with him. It had been incredibly strange to hear people talk about him and how they really felt about him. Professor Lupin, if he thought about it, should have been his uncle. It was just a curious feeling to realize that. And, oh yeah, he had an aunt and she didn't know if she wanted to be in his life?

Yeah, this was one of those times when he wished he hadn't been listening in. He knew too much that he didn't want to know. Then again, a lot of it was things that he should have known a long time ago. Why was it that no one had thought to ever sit down and talk to him about those things?

He was of half a mind to track Lupin down upstairs and just plain ask him why he didn't know about Molly or Peter or any of the rest of it. Then he remembered how both Lupin and Moody had been trying (not very covertly) to remind him that he should be in bed and resting up for the days ahead. They were right, as much as he hated to admit it. He was tired and still wanted very much to be alone with his thoughts and everything else. It was only going to get worse, too, once Aunt Petunia and Dudley were there. He wasn't going to have a minute's peace once they arrived. Still, he knew he wasn't going to be able to sleep with those kinds of questions floating around his head, either.

He wanted to sleep. Really, he did. He wanted to sleep and dream and wake up in the morning refreshed and perfectly ready to handle what he was about to face. What he wanted more was the one thing that he knew he couldn't have. He wanted answers, and he wanted them from Sirius.

As he tromped up the stairs, Harry wondered if it was strange that the person he wanted answers about his parents from was his godfather instead of his father himself. He'd known Sirius, as much as anyone could probably know Sirius (with the exception of Lupin and the others). He never knew his father. Shouldn't he want to talk to his father about this stuff then? Either way, he needed to talk to one of them. When Harry stopped in front of the second bedroom door on the right at the top of the flight of stairs, the answer just presented itself in the form of a partially opened door.

Harry didn't know what it was that he expected, but Sirius's bedroom wasn't exactly it. It was somehow homey. Then again, Sirius had spent so much time on the run, living off rats and hiding in caves that his godfather would have needed a touch of home. On the wall next to the door, there was a wardrobe that looked like it had seen better days. There were scratches all up and down it and a corner was chipped off one of the doors. Harry thought he remembered Lupin and Sirius joking about the rough time they'd had getting it into the room and Sirius deciding to drop kick it from the top of the stair, but he wasn't sure if it was a true story or not. The image of the two of them trying to lug the wardrobe down the stairs brought a smile to his face, though. That would have been a sight to see.

On the opposite wall of the room, there was frame hanging on the wall, but only the frame. The canvas appeared to have been taken out of it a long time ago. It was a beautiful frame, though. A brass plate at the bottom told Harry exactly why the canvas was gone. Just above the date there were four initials, MWPP. Suddenly Harry didn't like that frame so much.

The rest of the room was modestly decorated. There were stains on the walls from where pictures and frames had been hanging for many years, protecting the walls from dirt and grime. But once they were removed, various shapes remained. There were a few more scratches on the wall as well. A battered old rocking chair rested in the corner, a tear in the faded fabric of the cushioned seat. A night table sat next to Sirius's bed, holding up a lamp and a picture frame. On closer examination, it turned out to be a picture of Sirius, Lupin, and his dad. Harry guessed that either Peter had taken the picture or the image of him had walked out from fear of the others once they learned of Peter's betrayal of them all.

Quilted and soft, Sirius's bed seemed to just beckon Harry to it. At first he didn't know if he should sit on it. It just seemed like it should be left alone because Sirius wasn't there. He just stood there and stared at it for a while until he was able to convince himself that wherever Sirius was, he was laughing so hard he couldn't stand up straight because he was being so silly. Sirius wouldn't care if Harry sat on his bed. His godfather might even be offended if he didn't.

So he sat on the edge of the bed first, maybe only half an inch and his palms actually on the bed. He pushed himself further onto it, inch by agonizingly slow inch until his knees were bent over the edge. Eventually he even turned onto the bed fully, careful to dust the bottoms of his socked feet off so that he wouldn't get any dirt on the quilt.

He liked the quilt. There was just something about it that made him feel warm. There were a few small holes in it that made him wonder if it had been packed away somewhere for a long time before Sirius had put it on his bed. There was also a long tear, horizontally across, in front of him that spewed greying stuffing and fringe. He played with the fringe for a while, fascinated by it. It was amazing what could fascinate in the pre-dawn when there was no where else to go.

Then, after a while, he muttered into the middle of the room, "This would be a lot more fun if you were here to talk to."

"You're supposed to be in bed, Harry."

Harry pulled on the raggedy edge of the torn quilted square and said emphatically, "I am in bed."

"Your bed, not mine."

"And you're supposed to be here, so I suppose we're both just going to have to live with disappointment," the boy responded, looking very slowly up at the man who he wanted to talk to more than any other, the man who could not be there regardless of how much he wished it. "I really need you to be here."

"I am here," said Sirius gently.

Harry leaned back against the headboard with a pout. He didn't mean to be childish or anything, but he wasn't in a mood to be toyed with either. He had a voice to match the pout as he said, "No, you aren't. This is just like every other time I've wished for you and ended up with just a quick chat with an imaginary you who eventually winds up walking out of the conversation anyway. I don't need that. I need you."

Sirius had a sad smile on his face that said he wanted more than anything to be able to make that wish come true, even though he knew that he couldn't. Harry didn't like that smile. He liked his godfather's response even less. "But that's the best you're going to get."

"What if I want more?"

"Then you're going to spend an awful lot of time being angry with me for something that I can't control."

"I want more."

"Look, Harry, you can sit there and be mad at me all you want. I won't stop you. But I am here. I might not be here in the capacity that you want me to be, but I'm here. You can still say anything you want to me. That isn't ever going to change, no matter where I am."

"But you're just here in my imagination. You're sitting there because I'm imagining you sitting there. Do you even realize that you have a haircut? If it was really you, wouldn't you have the same hair that you had when we were in the Department of Mysteries? Or do ghosts get haircuts?"

Sirius smiled a joking smile and barked a short laugh, Harry's favorite laugh in all the world. "Is this really what you dragged me out of bed before dawn to talk about -- my hair? Harry, don't get me wrong, you're my godson and I would do anything for you, but even dead people need their beauty sleep, you know?"

"Now you're just trying to make me laugh because you know I'm mad."

"It always worked on your dad."

Sirius's trick wasn't going to do the job, though. Harry refused to let it. He was too confused and too upset to let it. Instead he argued, "But it isn't really you because you're just in my head. I'm talking to myself. What I need is to be able to talk to you."

"Next best thing?"

Harry suddenly felt very cold like all the hope washed out of him as he answered, "I suppose you're going to have to be."

"All right, then. Ask me anything. I'll answer you the best I can."

"Was Professor Lupin right? Do you still love Wormtail?"

Sirius regarded his godson with a thoughtful twitch of his head, as if the answer were actually banging around inside his head, ping-ponging into the sides to try to get out. He sat quietly for almost a minute before he even opened his mouth to try to answer. His mouth closed again, but opened right back up, ready to form words. "Well, you certainly didn't pull any punches, did you? Hmm . . . I don't think I would call Peter that anymore. That was a name we gave him out of affection, something that the four of us could share and only us. That Voldemort has chosen to use it, it takes on a whole new meaning now. Peter and Wormtail are two different people. I still love Peter, the way I remember him, the way he used to be. The way you heard them talk about him downstairs, that he was sweet and had a way of drawing you to him to make you want to protect him, that's the way I want to remember him. I think Remus is right. We're always going to be connected by that secret, and by the affection we had for each other to achieve that secret."

"Do you think my parents still love him?"

"I think your parents, if they were here, would probably say the same thing. I can't say for certain, but I think your dad especially would feel that part of him would always have that affection for Peter, no matter what. We went through too much together to be able to look at it any other way." Sirius was quiet for a second then asked a question of his own. "It's a lot easier to think of them as two different people, isn't it? If you separate them into Good Peter and Bad Peter, you don't have to think of Bad Peter as having any connection to your life at all, except as the murdering coward who blew up your entire life without so much as a thought. If you let Good Peter be the one who we shared our lives with, the one we all cared about and would do anything for, you don't have to hate him at the same time as you hate the bad. This would all be a lot easier if we could do that, wouldn't it?"

"But I don't have the good memories to be able to do that," Harry said plainly. "So why can't I hate him as much as I want to?"

"Well, that's a silly question."

"How is that a silly question?"

"Dumbledore already gave you that answer a long time ago, Harry." Sirius smiled at him, proud and gentle, and reached his hand over to put it over Harry's shoulder. "It's because of your ability to love, Harry. You maybe can't love Peter since you never knew him, but your love for your Mum and Dad and me and Remus tells you that we wouldn't have loved him if he wasn't a good person at some point. And that seems to be enough for your heart. You have a good heart, Harry. Whether you believe it or not, it's serving you well."

"It doesn't feel like it."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know how much more of this I can handle," said Harry darkly.

Sadness clouded his godfather's face. Sirius obviously knew the answer to his next question, but he asked anyway. "My fault?"

"Mine. I'm the one that you came to that place for. It's my fault that -- "

"You know better than that, Harry. I think Dumbledore laid it out pretty well for you that morning in his office. You did what you thought you had to do and I did what I needed to do. You had no fault in my going along. I had a heart, too, you know. And, despite my rather transparent appearance these days, I know it served me well. Don't take that away from me by saying it was your fault."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"I know you didn't."

"I just don't think I can keep going through this."

Sirius squirmed a little bit on the bed, pulling his leg under him and facing Harry just a little more head on to make a point. He cocked one eyebrow at his godson and starkly pointed out, "First off, you aren't going through this. You haven't even started to go through this. Tonight you actually thought for a minute there that I was going to walk through the door because you won't even admit that I'm gone yet. You haven't begun to go through it yet. That's okay, Harry. Really, it is, but let's not deal with that right now. Why do you think you're going to have to go through it again? Remus is still here. The Weasleys are still here, Harry, and if you haven't noticed it, they love you like mad. You've heard Molly. You're another son to her and Arthur. And even though she can't really say it, McGonagall is just as fond of you. And if you even knew how much Dumbledore cared for you -- You're loved, Harry. They're all here for you and they aren't going anywhere."

"You can't guarantee that."

"Nobody can. I thought Peter, Remus, James, Lily, and I were going to all grow old together, chasing our grandchildren around on the Quidditch field like silly old codgers who really shouldn't be on broomsticks anymore. Maybe it was a crazy dream to have, considering the times that we were living in. Your dad and I were fighting off Death Eaters every other day, driving your mother mad, and wondering if this was the time that one of us wouldn't be home in time for dinner. People, friends, people we loved were dying around us every day because that's what our lives were. We were in the middle of a war, Harry. But I still had dreams. Your parents still had dreams. They wouldn't have brought you into the world when they did if they didn't still have dreams. They didn't have any more guarantees than the rest of us. They weren't going to stop living either. Neither can you. You can't let this war dictate your life. You have people in your life who need you to be with them, in the moment. Don't worry about the What Ifs, Harry. They'll kill you."

Harry chuckled and pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "I don't think I have ever heard you talk about it like that before."

Sirius smiled too, surprised at himself. "Well, your imagination is doing a terrific job of putting some of the pieces together. I wish you would have added a few pounds and maybe a little color to me, though. I look awfully sick."

"At least I cut your hair," Harry laughed. "And you still look better than you did when you got out of Azkaban."

"That you did, and for that I am grateful." They both laughed until Harry's died off and became quiet again. Sirius waited for a minute before he finally gave in and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Can I ask you something else?"

"You can ask. I can't promise you an answer, but you can at least ask."

Harry tried to keep the accusatory tone out of his voice as he said, "You never told me Dad had a sister."

"I never told you a lot of things. You never got around to asking me, now, did you?"

"That doesn't mean you couldn't have told me."

Sirius shrugged off both the answer and Harry's unhappy tone. "Probably not. But Harry, there were a lot of things that I also just assumed you knew, especially with Hermione around. I know she knows your family history better than you do. I thought you might have asked her. You have to remember, Harry, that everything that happened to us when we were younger seems like ancient history by now. It's hard to remember what is and isn't relevant."

"Molly isn't relevant?"

"Oh, she is. She's very relevant. Moony wouldn't have been doting on her all evening if she wasn't an important part of our lives. But you heard her, Harry. She left us and that part of her life behind her a long time ago. Who were we to say that she had to plunge back into her life here after all that time?"

Harry wasn't entirely sure how to answer that. He did want to know why she couldn't just come back and be a part of their lives again. Had things really been that bad for her when his parents had died that she absolutely could not be a part of things anymore? To Harry, it seemed like the most natural question. "Was she really that bad off?"

"She thought she was," Sirius said. "But Harry, I don't want you to think she's a bad person because she's trying so hard to stay out of your life. She lost just about everything when Voldemort murdered your family. Like the rest of us, she was a very different person then. Whether you understand them or not, she has her reasons."

Harry thought about that and remembered how Molly had talked about how Sirius had been different, too. She had said something about wishing that he could have known his parents and their tight circle of family as they had been then, before Peter had betrayed them. He looked into the haunted, Azkaban scarred eyes of his godfather and asked him, "Were you really that different? Were things really so different then that you and Lupin and everyone else can't be the same people you were then?"

"You're supposed to be in bed, Harry."

Harry was about to tell Sirius that they had already been through that, but he immediately realized that it wasn't his godfather's voice, but Lupin's. His eyes darted for the invisibility cloak on the bed but knew that it was too far out of reach to try for any last second cover-ups. Besides, if Lupin was speaking to him, he already saw him anyway. Afraid to see what kind of expression was on Lupin's face, Harry opted to stare at the end of the bed where Sirius had been and no longer was, listening a little longer to his father's only remaining best friend's voice before he figured out if he should face him or not.

When Harry didn't answer him right away, Lupin went on with yawning cheerfulness, "I take it that Poppy's little concoction needs some work yet. I can't blame Molly for trying, though. She worries so much about you." He waited again for Harry to say something, but when there was no answer, he asked, "You haven't started drinking coffee, too, have you?"

He knew it! Harry knew it -- he'd been caught somehow. Lupin knew he'd been downstairs and listening the entire time. It wasn't just him being paranoid that made him think Lupin had been looking right at him when he was sitting in the chair. Lupin knew -- the entire time, he knew. Still, Harry had to at least try to cover. He turned around and put on his best game face, the innocently confused face that Fred and George had made him work on for getting himself out of situations with Mr Filch. "Why would I drink coffee? Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Nevermind," said Lupin with a tone that said he didn't believe that face for one single second. But he waved off the question and asked another, which Harry wasn't entirely sure he wanted to answer. "Are you all right?"

"F-fine."

"Harry, you aren't fine. I just heard you have an entire conversation with Sirius. Don't get me wrong, I do it, too. There isn't a day that goes by where I don't think he's going to come waltzing through the house grumbling to me about one thing or another. But you were talking to him, which leads me to think that you needed him pretty badly, so don't tell me that you're fine. Tell me you're confused, tell me you're angry, upset, sad, whatever. You don't ever have to lie to me. And I'm not so worried about the fact that you were talking to Padfoot as I am about the content of the conversation."

"You were listening?"

"I think we've both heard a few things tonight that we weren't supposed to hear."

"How much did you hear," Harry groaned.

"How much did you hear?"

"I didn't hear anything." Harry tried one last time to get out of revealing to Lupin that he was right. "I have no idea what you're talking about it."

Lupin again gave him the face that told Harry he wasn't just caught. He was caught but good. His face was still gentle, though, almost like he didn't think that the late night out of bed infraction was anywhere near as bad as his attempt to lie about doing it. "That face, Harry -- you're going to have to work on it just a bit harder. Remind me to show you before you head back to school," Lupin said. "Mine was always more believable than either Prongs's or Padfoot's. So how much did you hear?"

Knowing full well that he was caught, Harry relaxed a little and asked, "How did you know I was there?"

"Your jeans. When Kingsley untangled you tonight from your uncle's cufflink, he ended up just breaking the fringe on your jeans. When you were sitting in the chair, the strings were sticking out from underneath your dad's cloak."

"Then why didn't you say anything about me being there?"

"I thought you might learn something if you could stay quiet enough. Did you learn anything?"

Harry scoffed crazily at Lupin. "Are you kidding me?"

There was a glint in Lupin's eyes that told Harry that the man knew exactly the shocking bit of news that Harry had learned, but he wasn't going to make it quite the deal just yet. Instead, Lupin went for the most inane bit of trivia that Harry had heard all night and did it with a matter of fact grin. "Well, I suppose that learning just how much your grandmother hated coffee could be quite a surprise."

Harry had actually forgotten about that part of the downstairs conversation and curiously asked, "Did she?"

Lupin chuckled. "Yes, she did. She hated it with a fiery passion. It drove her round the twist every time she had to serve it if there were people in her house which, unfortunately for her, was quite often. She just hated the stuff. She said she'd rather drink straight up poison if given the choice."

"What else did she hate? What did she like? I mean, it's just that I -- " Then, almost as a second thought, he also asked, "Um, Pro-R-Remus? What was her name? Was it Eliza, like Molly said in the kitchen?"

The man regarded Harry strangely. "Harry, you've never even -- well, I suppose, everyone knows everything about your parents. There have to be at least ten books about them in the library at Hogwarts, too. And with so much to tell, they probably don't think to tell you much about your grandparents, do they?" Lupin yawned again, and even though Harry was starting to look hungry for whatever knowledge Lupin could pass on to him, he was starting to get the feeling that he wasn't going to be getting it at the moment. "Tell you what, Harry. Tomorrow -- er -- tonight, we'll talk. Just you and me. I'll tell you anything you want to know, about your grandparents, about your parents, the four of us, your mum, whatever you want."

"What about Molly? Her too?"

"Except Molly. I made a promise, Harry. You heard me promise her that I wouldn't say anything."

"But technically, you didn't break that promise. I heard it all on my own." A light bulb in his head burst into sparks and popped out with the force of the realization he came to. "If you knew I was sitting there the whole time -- and you kept asking her those questions to get her to admit it . . . You wanted me to know!"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that suggestion." Lupin saw Harry about to interrupt and argue, so he quickly squashed any remaining hope Harry had of finding out any more information for the moment. "Ehh! Tonight, Harry. Now, I think I need to be getting back downstairs and you should be getting off to bed. People will worry if they find you out of bed."

Seeing the end of the discussion written all over Lupin's demeanor, Harry gave in, provided he could get the answer to one more question before he sent himself back to bed. He knew he wasn't going to be able to sleep if he didn't ask it. "Um -- Remus? Just one more question?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"Before? When you said you . . . Do you really think my parents would be proud of me?"

Lupin blinked in surprise at Harry like the answer should have been the most obvious answer in all the world and that Harry not knowing that was something he never would have expected. His expression softened, though, into something gentle and almost fatherly. He raised his head just a smidgen before lowering his chin to look pointedly at Harry. "Wherever James and Lily are right now Harry, they are beside themselves."

Harry curled his lips in on each other and bit down hard, not sure what he was going to say to that. All he could do was nod his thanks to his father's best friend. Better than that, he was the man that would have been his uncle. Uncle Moony. That was a little too weird to think of. He'd better keep that one to himself for the time being. It was a nice thought though.

One last bit of a question came into Harry's head as he pulled himself off Sirius's bed and pulled the quilt back tight up to the post to take out the wrinkles he'd left by sitting there. As he tugged, he asked, "Er -- Prof-Remus?"

"Hmm?"

"My grandmother's name was Eliza?"

Lupin had a dreamy look on his face as he nodded and added, "And she always smelled like strawberries. Mrs Potter was always in her garden when she wasn't chasing your dad around the house for one stunt or another. Now, it's time you got back to bed, Harry. The sun is already coming up and you've got a long day ahead."

"Good Night, P-Remus."

"You'll get used to it," Lupin laughed at Harry's repeated stuttering attempts to call him by his name instead of Professor. With a yawn, he ushered Harry out the door. "Good Night, Harry."

They closed the door to Sirius's room behind them and started toward separate ends of the hall, Harry toward his room and Lupin back to the stairway. For whatever reason, they both turned to look at one another at the same time from their ends and offered each other comforting smirks. Lupin nodded at Harry, who opened the doorknob without even taking the time to look at it and made his way back into his room.

"I certainly hope you found a new attitude during your walkabout, Potter."

Harry wasn't in the least bit surprised to find Phineas Nigellus still staring at the doorway as he closed the door behind him. He yawned half a response as he walked over to the bed and as he climbed in, he looked at the slumbering faces of his best friends. When he saw them, and thought about what it meant to him that they were sitting there, on the watch and waiting for him just in case, he was really stunned to hear Remus's description of them coming back to him in his head. They don't come anywhere near close to Ron and Hermione, though. You never saw three children so devoted to one another as those three. And then he heard Molly's response -- Except for the four of you -- and knew that she was right. It was then, watching the steady rise and fall of his best friends' chests, that he knew. He may never get to spend time with his father, and he may have lost Sirius, but he finally knew that he could at least understand them. And that was much better than never knowing them at all.

He smiled into what remained of the night and said, "You know, I think I did."

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If you've had half as much fun reading this chapter as I've had writing it, well then I've had twice as much fun writing it as you've had reading it. Thanks for reading!