Harry Potter 1. If You Like Harry

Authors' Note: Yes. Two authors. That was not a typo. We are grammar goddesses, thanks very much. Tierfal and Eltea here, bringing you the fruits of our combined efforts.

Anyway, we can't promise that you'll be happy with this fic, but we can promise you three things:

1. Tonks's and Lupin's relationship exists. A lot. No, really. A lot. And they kind of become more important than Harry. Because we like them better.

2. Harry will be mercilessly lampooned. A lot. (see above)

3. There will be **NO CAMPING**.

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Chapter One

If You Like Harry the Character, Stop Reading Now

_Once upon a time, there were two girls who were very disappointed with __Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows__. It all began when Lupin showed up at Grimmauld Place and offered to help the main - shall we say, "favored" - characters._

"_Yay!" the two girls cried. "The best character J.K. Rowling ever managed to create will do something interesting!"_

_But it was not to be._

_Instead, Rowling, that cruel mistress of all that is Harry Potter, squandered Lupin and refused to explore the depths of his character and of his life. God. What's wrong with that woman?_

_Anyway, the two girls, being of the outrage-leading-to-action inclination, decided to chop off the miserable story there and explore what might instead have been._

_Which brings us to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Lupin sitting at the kitchen table at 12 Grimmauld Place. (And if at any point you feel like flaming us for flagrantly mocking Harry, we refer you to the title of this chapter.)_

"So." Lupin broke the brief silence that had settled over the table, leaning forward slightly and trapping Harry's eyes with his own. "Do you want my help? I promise to trust you implicitly, to trust that your knowledge of the mission will guide you in making the right decisions, and to aid and protect you whenever I can. Shall I join you?"

Harry was about to open his mouth and speak - about to question, to doubt, to probe and poke and search out the vulnerabilities of the man sitting calmly across the table from him, watching him serenely, but Hermione spoke before he could find the words.

"But…" she began. "But - your wife… you can't just leave her. Marrying her was a promise, and, important as the mission is, she deserves your loyalty as much as Harry and Dumbledore do."

Lupin smiled a small, sad smile. "The woman I married," he responded slowly, "is endlessly brave and intelligent. She knows I'm here. She knows why. And she knows that sometimes, the world has to come first, whether we like it or not."

Ron scratched the side of his nose. He muttered something.

After a momentary pause - GEDDIT?? PAWS??? - Lupin prompted, "Sorry?"

Shrugging, Ron's wandering fingers sought his scalp, disappearing beneath his unruly hair. "What I said was, if she's so brave and intelligent, why doncha just bring her along?"

Everyone stared at him for a few long seconds, and Ron's ears reddened. "Whachu staring at, anyway?" he mumbled.

"Ronald Weasley," Hermione said slowly, "you are a complete and utter idi—"

"Genius!" Lupin whispered.

Hermione transferred her disbelieving gaze to his face instead. "You're going to bring a pregnant woman on the most dangerous quest in the history of the wizarding world?" she demanded, her voice squeaking a little.

Lupin was looking past her, at the wall, where tiny green flowers were emblazoned on slightly off-white wallpaper. There was a new smile on his lips now, a dreamy one. It would have been obvious to anyone who had ever actually been in love, ever actually found himself drowning in the swelling tide of his own depth of feeling, that Remus Lupin was thinking about his wife. He didn't answer Hermione's question.

"Well," Ron pointed out nervously, as if afraid both of breaking the silence and of further censure from Hermione, "I mean, she _is _an Auror… and a whatchamacallit - with the appearance-changing and all. If she's only a few months pregnant and feels up to it, she'd probably be a really useful person to have along…"

Harry looked ready to nail him like you'd nail a brightly-dressed Quidditch player swooping low over a Muggle shooting range, but Lupin spoke first.

"All right, then," he said briskly. "Shall I bring her back here? Is there anything you think we'll need, or any messages you'd like me to deliver to the rest of the Order?"

Harry watched him for a moment - watched the smile on his lips, the little sparks of happiness in his eyes, the new energy and vigor that seemed to have animated him at the prospect of bringing his wife. Then he sighed.

"You can't just—"

But Hermione interrupted.

"Anything you think will be useful on what might be a long journey. I already have most of what we'll need, but I'm sure your judgement will be good. And tell Ron's parents not to worry; we'll be careful."

Harry shot a brief glare in her direction, but Lupin had already jumped to his feet, smiling.

"Of course. I'll go now - I won't be long; see you three soon."

The silence was dull and uncomfortable as the door was drawn quietly closed behind him. Harry stared in disbelief at Ron and Hermione. They had formed opinions of their own. Perhaps that wasn't quite so unusual in and of itself, but they were _sticking_ to them like glue - like bloody _tree_ sap. Like bloody - bloody - bloody _blood_. And all the while they knew that he distinctly disapproved of the whole idea. How could they possibly contradict him that way? Surely they knew how good his instincts for all manners of peril were! Surely they should have trusted him blindly to know what was best, despite the fact that he'd never read Hermione's books or lived immersed in the wizarding world like Ron!

Then Harry realized that the silence wasn't actually dull or uncomfortable for anyone but him, because Hermione jumped up and started trying to collect things she thought would be useful, and Ron started chewing on his lip and jotting things down on a spare piece of parchment. Harry wanted to know what he was writing, but he didn't have a very good angle, and he kind of didn't want to move. He was a bit occupied with slouching sullenly.

"I don't know why," he began after a few moments, "you two just decided to give him the go-ahead without so much as asking me. I thought we were supposed to be working _together_, not against each other. I thought you trusted me. I thought—"

"Oh, come on, Harry," Hermione finally snapped. "Ron was right; she's an Auror, and she'll be really helpful to have along. I know you don't like the idea of bringing anybody else on the quest, but you told _us_ about the Horcruxes, right? I'm sure Dumbledore would've trusted the two of them just as much as he trusted the two of us, and frankly, we need all the help we can get." She went silent, returning to her work, and Harry stared at her, dumbfounded, before turning his imploring gaze to Ron, who shrugged helplessly and a little guiltily.

"Sorry, mate…"

Harry shook his head in wonder, considering the idea of launching into another lecture, but just then, the door opened and closed again, and footsteps rang through the hall.

Tonks's hair was mostly straight and hung just past her shoulders, but it was as bright a shade of pink as ever. She was dressed plainly and practically, her pregnancy was not yet showing, and she looked radiantly happy. Lupin, who had an arm around her waist and a small bag in the other hand, was smiling at her and looking as if years had fallen from his face.

"So what's the bloody death we're leaping into this time?" Tonks inquired cheerfully, tossing herself into a chair at the table and knocking the one next to it to the floor. "Whoops," she said.

Even as she started to lean towards it with an arm outstretched, Lupin got there first, righted the chair, smiled adoringly at the woman who had disturbed it, and sat in the rescued piece of furniture. On top of the table, they clasped hands, twenty fingers tight around each other, looking as if nothing in the world could tear them apart.

"Well," Hermione said. "It's a bit of a long story." She smiled fondly at the knot of digits on the table. And then she told that story, from beginning to middle - to now, to the present, to where they sat at the kitchen table at 12 Grimmauld Place. Occasionally Ron had to interject something, and he would bounce in his seat for a moment before his input would burst out of his mouth, and when it was accepted with everything else, a fleeting, mile-wide grin would leap to his face. Hermione would pat him on the arm distractedly before regaining the thread of the tale, and all the while, Harry sat, watching their faces. Hermione's was calm and pleasant, though it faltered at the parts that were still dubious, still unsure, still cowing and cryptic. Ron's was obliging; he nodded, he muttered his acquiescence frequently. Tonks's was pensive but optimistic; she, too, nodded at all the right times and winced when it was appropriate. As the story went on and dug its grave deeper in the fertile soil, it was the thoughtfulness that dominated her bright, pretty face. She extracted a hand from the coil of them on the table, and her rosy hair obediently lengthened so that she could twist a section of it in her fingers. Lupin's face was solemn and slightly less hopeful, etched with a sculptor's serving of doubts, but when they gouged deepest, he would glance down at Tonks's hand clasped securely between his, and love would smooth the lines from his face again effortlessly.

When Hermione had finally finished, finally told the whole story and described the challenge that faced them, she paused for a deep breath and cast a surreptitious glance at Harry. He was scowling. She swallowed, and a brief, uncomfortable silence ensued.

"Well!" Tonks put in brightly, shattering that silence as easily as she did household objects, "that's not too bad - at least we know what we're looking for!" Hermione cast her a grateful look, Ron a hopeful one, and her husband one filled so deeply with adoration that nobody would have been surprised to see flowers bloom into being in the air around their faces like the end of a cheesy cartoon. Harry, for his part, continued to scowl.

Remus retrieved his pack from the floor and set it among the mess on the table. "How's progress coming?" he inquired.

Hermione brushed some hair behind her ear and folded her hands primly, primed to go into Explanation Mode. "I've been combing the house a little, looking for things that might help us - you know, magical artifacts and the like. Mundungus Fletcher already raided the place once - at least once - though, unfortunately, which is why we sent - Oh!" Her eyes light up, and her hand flew over her mouth.

"What?" Ron demanded, looking as though he'd received a jolt of electricity to his tailbone. "What's wrong?"

Instead of revealing some dire difficulty, however, Hermione laughed. "Kreacher! We sent Kreacher to get Mundungus Fletcher! I'd forgotten entirely!"

"I hadn't," Harry lied.

"Guess he should be getting back one of these days," Ron commented, sounding less than convinced himself.

Remus stood. "If you don't mind," he said, somewhat quietly, "I'd like to take a bit of a look around." He smiled, a little weakly. "It helps a little, you know. The reminders."

Tonks looked like she'd been sentenced to death. She stood as well, accepting the concerned hand he offered.

"Yeah, go ahead," Harry conceded. Likely Kreacher wouldn't respond as well to a werewolf anyway, if the tardy House Elf ever decided to come back.

Anxiety and other, heavier things swirled in Remus Lupin's chest as he mounted the stairs. He'd looked before, of course; he'd been over every inch after Sirius had… gone. He'd memorized 12 Grimmauld Place down to the last handle on the last dresser drawer.

The walls were untouched, courtesy of Sirius's unshakable conviction that his parents should not be able to alter his decorations. Remus had known every piece that he would see there, but he smiled anyway. Or he did until he saw the floor, which was swathed in papers and torn books like a tidal wave of parchment had washed over the carpet. Carefully he picked his way through the rubble of Sirius's life until he found the picture clinging adamantly to the wallpaper.

And then there they were again. He remembered the day that picture had been taken. James and Sirius had been shooting scrambled eggs at each other across the table with their spoons at breakfast that morning, and a dripping glob of their chosen projectile had splashed into Remus's orange juice. If you looked really closely and squinted hard - as Remus Lupin was doing now - you could just see the little orange juice stain on the collar of his white shirt. Oh, how they'd laughed. Peter had fallen out of his chair. Remus Lupin closed his eyes, but the image might as well have been branded into his eyelids. _Peter… _he thought. _Peter, why?_

"Remus?" she said then, his angel, his one dream, his fondest and wildest fantasy, here, real, true, the only person he had ever dared to love as much as he had loved the stupid boys in that picture.

"We were so naïve," he whispered, his faint, nostalgic smile tainted with the bitterness of knowing better now.

She put her arms around his shoulders. He felt small, frail, vulnerable - and entirely allowed to be those things. Only in her embrace did he feel that way - feel that it was safe to be breakable. It was after one impossible close shave or another that she had thrown her arms around him the first time, in relief, in giddiness, in desperate happiness, because she had needed someone to hold onto to keep her knees from giving way. And it was then that he had known, as his astonished joy had doubled and tripled and exploded exponentially, as he had caught the scent of her unpredictable, mutable hair, that he had realized that he couldn't deny it to himself anymore.

She was his savior.

No, he'd been unable to deny it to himself - but that didn't mean he hadn't tried. Didn't mean he hadn't denied it to everyone else who'd ever dared to suspect. Didn't mean he hadn't denied it to her - his worst offense. Guilt prickled somewhere deep inside him every time he thought about it, thought about the pain he'd put her though for the sake of keeping up his hopeless denial. Angels shouldn't be made to feel pain.

It was the very night Dumbledore had died - the same night that, earlier, he had pushed her away once more, this time in front of their friends and colleagues. When he'd returned home late that night, beaten, exhausted, and miserable, it had been to find her perched on a flat rock, her legs crossed, watching the stars serenely. Used to tears and frustration and obstinacy, he'd approached cautiously, searching for a source of this newfound calm.

"Hello," she'd greeted him without removing her gaze from whichever of the distant, twinkling infernos had caught her eye. "I've been expecting you."

He wanted to sound stern, but he wasn't quite sure whether to use her first name or her last. In the end, he settled on neither.

"You have to leave," he told her quietly.

"I thought you'd say that," she replied.

Her calm was frightening him, maddening him. Something was wrong.

"_Dora._" The nickname slipped out; he'd been thinking about her parents, but there was no time for pointless apologies, so he plunged on. "Tonight is the full moon. It rises just after four in the morning, and it's two-thirty now."

"I know."

"Well - well, then leave!" he stammered, a little thrown by her nonchalance, feeling the frustration that comes from constant worry. "You'll be in great danger if you stay! Do you _want_ to get bitten?"

As soon as she turned her eyes on him - those dark, tormented eyes, shimmering in the dim starlight - he regretted ever having asked it, because he knew it was true.

"If you don't want me as a human," she began calmly, "maybe I'll have a hope of a chance if I'm a—"

"_No!_" He shook faintly, putting a hand to his head, which was aching now. There had been too much - too much to deal with today; not this, not now. "There's no question of my allowing you to do that. I won't—"

"WHY NOT?" she screamed suddenly. She was on her feet, tears streaming from her eyes, and he was terrified - of her, for her, of his own feelings and doubts. "You're hurting me more _this_ way than you ever could like _that!_ I - God, Remus, I - I _love_ you!"

And she sat down on the rock, buried her face in her hands, and sobbed the same innocent, heartbroken sobs of an infant who has lost her teddy bear.

And before he knew what he'd thought, before he knew that he'd moved, before he knew what he'd done, he was at her side, and his knees had rebelled and set themselves in the damp, dewy grass, and his arms had rebelled and wrapped themselves tightly around her shaking frame, and his face had rebelled and buried itself in the sweet redolence of her wonderful hair.

"What," he whispered hopelessly, "did I ever do to deserve you?"

In leaden arms he had collected her, held her to his heaving chest, and gathered himself carefully to his feet. She had become a lovely child in his arms, her weight dwindling as her physical form tapered and thinned - considerate even now, even after he'd tried to back away and ended up hurting her again. And people said _she_ was clumsy.

A little face with tiny, delicate ears had been buried in his shirt, soaking it. Considerate, yes; endlessly kind to his enervated body - and endlessly brutal to his enervated mind.

_So young, _he thought, over and over, with every jolting struggle of a step_. So young. So young, and so lovely, and so new. So innocent. So perfect. Perfect beyond measure. _

So carefully he had set her down on the lumpy couch and collapsed onto it next to her. When he had found the strength to open his eyes, she was herself again, smiling at him tentatively, wiping impatiently at tears with a dark blue handkerchief emblazoned with silver stars.

"Can I make you some tea?" she asked.

He didn't know where his newfound energy had originated, but it was there.

That was a lie. He knew the source, with more certainty than he had ever known anything in his life.

And with the love welling like tears within him and overflowing warm and boundless, he had leaned forward and kissed her.

It was with that same impossible depth of feeling that she kissed him now.

Being close to her was always like being caught in a ray of sunshine - warm, lovely, and safe. He wrapped one arm around her waist and slid the other hand into her hair, her beautiful, soft, original hair, and enfolded the pair of them in sweet forgetfulness. There was no darkness; there was no quest; there were no stupid teenagers to look after. There was only him, and his wife, and the tiny, mysterious little life that would soon make them a family. He wasn't old; he wasn't broken; he wasn't sick and despised and ostracized by the world - he was warm, and safe, and loved, and he was in love with the woman he was kissing.

She was just slipping her arms around his neck and pushing herself up on her toes a little - she was just an inch or two shorter than him, and she'd always shunned heels like a disease - when they heard a throat being cleared impatiently behind them.

Blushing, they broke apart, untangling themselves, pulling themselves back to reality, returning from their dreamworld to a dark, dreary room in a dark, dreary house, where a teenaged boy stood watching them with raised eyebrows.

"While you were _busy_," he told them, putting a slight reprimanding emphasis on the word, "we got some news."

Remus bit his lip, hard, hating the awkwardness, hating himself - familiar territory, to say the least - and looked at the wreckage of the floor.

Tonks wasn't so cowed. "What news is that?" she asked brightly.

The majority of the weight of the awkwardness landed heavily on Harry's shoulders. He blinked. After a moment's pause, he recovered. "Kreacher's back. He has Mundungus. And Umbridge's got the locket."

"Dolores Umbridge?" Lupin and Tonks repeated in impeccable synchronism. It would have been cause to share a quick, secret smile if Harry Potter hadn't been marching out of the room already with that same all-important, purposeful stride.

"Yeah," he confirmed airily. "We've got to get into the ministry and stuff."

He disappeared down the stairs, and Lupin watched him go a little sadly, almost a little hurt - that is, until his wife threw a friendly arm around his shoulders.

"What's wrong?" she inquired cheerfully. It took someone who knew her as well as he did to hear the note of worry and concern beneath the cheeriness.

"Nothing," he replied, managing to muster up a smile for her. He could have smiled for her with both of his arms cut off. She returned the smile and opened her mouth to say something, but it was replaced by a shriek as she slipped on the last stair before the landing. He managed to catch her, supporting her face-up in his arms like the cover of every cheesy romance novel ever written, and she grinned and leaned up to kiss him.

"My knight in shining armor," she proclaimed happily as she righted herself. "Thanks, hon."

Her husband smiled in return, letting her lace her fingers through his and pull him down the rest of the stairs and into the kitchen. What had he been sad about a moment ago? He was a knight in shining armor, soon to be a father, and he was holding hands with an angel.


	2. Pius Thicknesse and Morning Sickness

Chapter Two

Pius Thicknesse and Morning Sickness

A cheerful house-elf was bustling around the kitchen preparing a meal, and the trio of teenagers was lounging around the table. Kreacher looked up as Tonks and Lupin entered.

"Adults," he noted, sounding as if he wasn't sure what to conclude. The elf considered. He glanced sidelong at Harry Potter, who nodded like a gracious king. Then the elf thrust a tea tray at them, one laden with cups full of steaming tea. "It'll warm you right up," the suddenly obliging house-elf averred.

Thanking him, each of them accepted a teacup and joined the others at the table. Tonks managed to keep her chair upright, though it was a close thing.

Harry sipped tea and wiped condensation from the steam from the lenses of his glasses. What to do now? Sure, they had two adults contributing, but what direction were they to take? Morosely he looked into the bottom of the teacup. Still they had nothing. They had less than nothing. They had no locket, no Horcrux, no golden opportunity. They had a brick wall.

"So," Tonks began brightly. "We need to get into the Ministry, right? And then get to Umbridge's office, knock her out, and take the locket?"

Harry shrugged. "Guess so. I was thinking I could use Polyjuice Potion and turn myself into—"

She cut him off with a burst of laughter. "Don't be ridiculous. I can turn into anyone who exists - and anyone who doesn't - _without _having to steal their hair, and I know the Ministry better than you, since I've been working there for years. So what d'you want me to do?"

Harry looked highly uncomfortable and somewhat displeased with the idea of surrendering the mission to another, but once glance at Hermione's face told him that it would be pointless to argue.

"I was thinking," he replied meekly, "someone important. So I - you - could just walk up to Umbridge's office and ask to meet with her privately—"

"That was my idea!" Ron put in. Harry glared at him.

"—and then Stun her and take the locket," he finished. "We assume she'll either have it with her or somewhere in the room."

"That's brilliant!" Tonks replied happily. "Who shall I be? Maybe Dawlish or Proudfoot? Or - " Her eyes lit up even more, if that was possible. "Ooh, how about _Thicknesse_? I've always fancied dressing up as the Minister and ordering people around!"

"Now, let's not get carried away," Hermione warned, sounding worried.

"Oh, don't be silly," the other woman replied, waving her hand. "I know what I'm doing. Watch this."

She closed her eyes, as if trying to do a difficult math problem in her head, and her features quickly melted into those of a tough-looking old man. Harry frowned, Ron and Hermione looked impressed, and Lupin looked a little disconcerted.

Pius Thicknesse grinned happily at Lupin. It was a rather unnatural thing to watch. "Did something die in your tea, sweetheart?" he asked pleasantly in a voice that was undeniably Tonks's.

Lupin managed a weak smile. "Er," he said.

Pius Thicknesse patted Lupin on the arm, which was even stranger. "I suppose I'll have to work on the voice, won't I? Maybe I'll just cough a bit and tell everyone I have a dreadful cold, and that if they don't get out of my way, I'll have them fired on the spot."

Lupin's smile gained a bit of strength. He seemed to be recovering. A deep swig of hot tea put a little more color back into his face.

Pius Thicknesse clung to his arm as he looked thoughtfully into space, considering. "And we'll have to get him some new clothes, certainly," she noted. She glanced down at hers. "Yes, this is a bit off the mark. Hmm, how's this?" She cleared her throat, nodded to herself slowly once, and then narrowed her eyes at Lupin and spoke in a low, scratchy voice. "Out of the way. Get out of the _way_, I tell you!"

Lupin's color fled again. He smiled a little. "That's… eerily convincing…" he managed to say.

Pius Thicknesse smiled back at him, then grinned across the table at the others before thundering happily, "Out of my way, peasants! Move, scum!"

Hermione frowned slightly. "Could we _please _try to take this a little more seriously?"

"Oh, come on," Ron said, smiling a bit nervously. "She's just having a little fun. I'm sure she'll do fine during the actual thing."

"As am I," Lupin added with a small but sincere smile. "I have great faith that she'll astound us all with her brilliance."

"Oh, Remus," the frightening old man gushed lovingly. "You're too much." And unthinkingly, Pius Thicknesse leaned over and kissed Remus Lupin.

"AUGH!" cried Ron.

"AUGH!" echoed Lupin, jerking away instinctively.

Pius Thicknesse giggled and blushed. This was only slightly less disconcerting. "Sorry, dear," he said. "I forgot."

Ron was catching up on the breaths he'd missed while screaming in horror.

Promptly, Pius Thicknesse's features slipped and slid back into Tonks's, and then Remus Lupin quite contentedly kissed the bridge of her nose. "Well," he commented, looking at her with that same soft, glowing light in eyes that defied age, "if we need a distraction in the Ministry building, I think that'll do nicely."

Harry swirled his tea in his cup and tried to figure out how to make himself indispensable so that he would be able to oversee the work done at the Ministry. Surely they needed him. Surely no one else would improvise as well or demonstrate such reckless heroism in the heart of danger. Surely!

"So." Hermione's brisk voice broke effortlessly into his thoughts. "We can fit two under the invisibility cloak. Who's going with Tonks?"

Instantly, there was an air of palpable tension in the room as everyone sought each other's eyes. Then, before Harry could modestly suggest that he might be a useful person to bring along, Lupin spoke.

"Not Harry. The Ministry's going crazy trying to hunt him down, and sending him strolling in there would be about as safe as sending him out to look for Death Eaters. I think Hermione and I should go."

"Seconded," Tonks put in before Harry could interject.

Hermione and Ron nodded their approval as well, and, once again, Harry found himself looking bewilderedly around at a group of faces that were all set with the resolve of a decision he didn't like.

_God_, that was annoying.

"Are - are you sure?" he started. "I mean, I - know - all - kinds of… useful things…"

The small frown line between Lupin's eyebrows betrayed his concern again. The man's emotions were transparent. "It really just isn't safe, Harry. I know you want to put yourself in the position of danger and make sure that everything goes smoothly with less risk to everyone else, but handing you to them would be suicidal. And genocidal, considering - it'd be the end of everything, of the resistance, and we'd be done for. Of the three of you, Hermione's the least likely to be recognized, and the most likely to remember something that we'll need in a pinch, no offense." He shot a quick, fond smile at Hermione, who returned the expression. "She's got volumes in that head of hers. You're braver than just about anyone I've ever met, Harry, but this is first of all reconnaissance. Stealth. Disguise. It isn't pure courage that we need, but cunning."

Harry could see the headlines now. _Nobodies Return with Horcrux to Great Glory, While Boy Who Lived - Chosen One - Boy Who's Supposed to be Leader of the Resistance - Sits at Home and Twiddles Thumbs, Drinking House Elf's Surprisingly Good Tea_.

He tried to think of something cutting to say - something that would make them realize just how weak their plan was, and just how wrong things would go without him - but he couldn't, so he shut his mouth and glowered.

"It's getting late," Hermione pointed out. "We ought to get some sleep."

"All right," Harry agreed grudgingly. He wanted to sit up and brood, but he could do that just as well in Sirius's room. He considered the sleeping arrangements - Ron had been sleeping in Regulus's room, Hermione in the master bedroom.

"Why don't you," he suggested to her, "share with Tonks, and Remus can share Ron's room—"

"Wait," Hermione interrupted. "Why split them up? They're married, they can share."

"Oh," Harry replied. "Oh, yeah."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "'Oh, yeah.' Either one of you two can give them your room and share with the other, or one of us three can sleep on the couch."

"I'll do it," Ron volunteered generously, but Harry shook his head with the air of an insulted martyr.

"_I'll_ sleep on the couch," he announced. "If anyone's going to have to suffer those lumpy, unfriendly cushions, it'll be me."

Hermione looked confused. "I thought that couch was pretty comfortable, actually."

"Yeah," Ron said, "and the bed's a little short for me." He blushed a bit, self-consciously, and glanced down at his feet as if he might start shrinking his legs at the ankles and bring himself down closer to normal height. "I'd… kinda like the couch, tell you the truth."

Harry blinked.

Lupin smiled. "Sounds like that's settled, then. Wonderful."

Kreacher came up with a lovely dinner, even on the short notice, and denied the gushing gratitude of all, claiming the feat a mere trifle. It wasn't too long later that Tonks was yawning, and then Lupin was catching up his bag and ushering her up towards the room he knew had belonged to Regulus Black.

He urged her sit down first of all, and she smiled more and more fondly as he rushed around, providing her with a toothbrush and a bag of toiletries from his pack and collecting some blankets and pillows for Ron to use downstairs when the need arose. That was the thing with Remus. Everyone else came first, and anyone alive was good enough for his trust.

Her smile faded a little as she realized that that wasn't true - everyone could earn Remus Lupin's trust but for one person: himself. It terrified her to see it in his eyes sometimes, to see the deep, practiced, ingrained self-loathing there. She tried so hard to soothe it out, to kiss it away, to profess again and again with all the truthfulness in the world that she loved him more than mere words could say, but it stayed there. He hated himself sometimes, when he stopped to think about it. The most wonderful man in the world was disgusted with what he was.

It was a joke, a cruel jest, a paradox, a lie. Could that possibly be true? Why? How? Who had done it, what abomination of a human being had told him that there was something wrong with him? She'd kill the culprit. She'd wring the transgressor's worthless little neck. She would.

"Dora?" His voice broke into her bloody thoughts, and she glanced up to see him smiling down at her. She smiled back.

"Ready to go to bed?" he asked kindly. "We should rest up for tomorrow."

"Agreed," she replied cheerfully, taking the hand up he offered and tossing herself onto the old twin bed, which she surveyed critically. "Hm… going to be a little crowded. Lucky we have no personal space." She squirmed under the blanket and lifted it for him to climb in, and then the two curled up happily together. That was one of the things she loved about him - that he didn't mind falling asleep cuddled up with another warm body. There was something almost a little lupine (heh heh - she'd always found that to be a funny coincidence) about it, but that was all right. She thought he'd been labeled into the wrong part of the canid family - sure, he was a wolf once a month (and it might be worth noting that she was a harpy once a month - she didn't take PMS so well). But most of the time he was a puppy.

She drew in close to him, her cheek against his chest, his arms around her, and closed her eyes. It was safe here. It was right. If anyone had tried to pull her free, tried to extricate her from here, from her heaven, her haven, her home, she would have bitten their bloody head off and feasted on their kidneys for dessert. Blindly, her eyes rendered unnecessary by practice and by memorization, she raised a hand and followed Remus's hairline with her fingertips until she reached his jaw. She felt it shift as he smiled. His lips brushed her forehead.

"I love you, Remus," she murmured.

"As I love you," he returned.

God, she loved his voice.

It was utterly contentedly, in the midst of a shrine to Slytherin, in the arms of the one man in the world who could do anything, who could hold the sky and plant the stars, who could wring the oceans dry, who could mend wounds with a kiss and alter climates with the warmth of his laugh, that she fell asleep.

The next morning, at eight-o-clock exactly, Harry Potter climbed the stairs and rapped impatiently on the door. After a moment, it opened to show Lupin's harried and slightly drawn face.

"Yes?"

"It's time," Harry told him with the air of one ordering a man to the gallows.

"She's not ready yet," Lupin told him simply. "We'll be down in half an hour or so."

"Half an hour?" Harry looked aghast. Clearly, these people knew nothing about planning, nothing about infiltration, nothing about - about _anything. _"That's too long. We have to leave as soon as possible."

"My wife," Lupin replied, sounding a little annoyed now, "isn't feeling well, but she should recover shortly. I'll let you know when she's ready to go."

"But we have to go _now_," Harry burst out impatiently. "The Minister needs to arrive early, or else people will be suspicious!"

"The Minister," he was told, in an increasingly angry tone of voice, "has morning sickness. If you'd like her to be sick in an elevator or pass out on Umbridge's floor, then by all means, I'll bring her downstairs now. Otherwise, show a little patience and give her a few minutes' rest."

The door shut in Harry's face.

"_MORNING SICKNESS_," he was repeating to Ron and Hermione, his fingers clenched in his hair, trying to pull it out - to little success. "Our whole brilliant plan has to be thrown because the woman's got _MORNING SICKNESS_—"

"You're being a little melodramatic, mate," Ron commented, taking a fourth helping of pancakes from Kreacher.

"And," Hermione put in, sipping primly at her orange juice and offering the house-elf a smile as he offered to refill her glass, "the plan, which isn't really ours, though it is brilliant, will work just as well _tomorrow_ morning, if you really want."

"No!" Harry protested. Why didn't they get it? Why couldn't they process the information? Why did they have to make everything _soooo haaaard_? Why was the whole world set against him? What had he _done_ to deserve this _injustice_? "We have to go _now_! Today! Five minutes ago! It's endlessly important, I know it is! My scar—"

"Is psychosomatic," Hermione reported calmly.

Ron shrugged. "I've got a scar on my arse that looks a little bit like an asterisk. It kind of hurts sometimes. Whaddyu think that means?"

"I think it means you're an idiot!" Harry cried. "Come _on_, you guys, you promised to help me no matter what! Let's go break into the Ministry with Polyjuice, like we were going to do before these brilliant-plan-wrecking, contingency-prepared, well-organized, far-too-sensible adults showed up!"

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "You're not going to shut up until we go with you, are you?"

"NO!" Harry confirmed.

Hermione and Ron exchanged a look and sighed in synchronism.

"Guess we've got no choice but to go and try to survive, then," Ron remarked morosely. Hermione nodded sadly.

"So come on, then," Harry insisted.

He dragged them out the door.

Meanwhile, up in Regulus's room, a rather pale and wan-looking Tonks was propped up on a stack of pillows with her husband sitting by her side, holding her hand and stroking her hair rhythmically and soothingly. It wasn't its usual bright pink - this morning, it had faded to a somewhat colorless brown. She made an attempt at her usual cheery voice.

"Well, as much fun as it would be to wander around as Thicknesse telling everyone I was pregnant…"

Lupin gave a dry laugh.

"I'm all right, dear," she told him, closing her eyes and allowing herself a deep breath. "It'll pass soon. It always does."

"Molly told me that freshly-cut lemons might help," he replied softly. "Do you want me to go check if Kreacher has any?"

She screwed up her face a little. "I don't have to eat them, do I?" she inquired weakly, but with a spark of her usual humor.

"No," he promised with a small smile. "Just smell them. I'll be right back." He kissed the fingers of the hand he was holding, then released it and disappeared.

Three minutes later, he was back, two halves of a lemon in his hands and a grim look on his face.

"They're gone."

Tonks sat up a little, forcing her eyes open. "What d'you mean?" she asked, worried.

Wearily, Remus Lupin shook his head, and Nymphadora Tonks's heart twisted. "I mean that they're gone," he said again, sitting down next to her carefully and placing half of a lemon into her hand, which was limp and listless as she committed all of her energy to searching his face with a desperation born of impossibly sincere adoration. "I think they must have decided that they couldn't afford to wait for us and gone running off to see what they could do to expedite the process."

"You mean _Harry_ did," Tonks muttered.

Lupin raised his eyebrows. "He's a good boy—"

"He's got no patience," she interrupted. He took in a breath to sigh, and she paused and closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Remus," she reneged then. "I've got no excuse for talking like that."

Lupin kissed her forehead. "You've got millions of perfectly good excuses, should you choose to employ them." He smiled and guided a few strands of plain brown hair behind her ear. "And I'd be perfectly willing to listen to all of them."

She smiled, and the section of hair he'd touched glowed a little pinker.

"Well," she remarked, "I suppose we can only hope that Harry's so-far amazing propensities for improvisation and luck will carry him through this. At least he's got his friends with him; they're sensible kids." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly but not discontentedly. "I guess all we can do is wait and hope for the best."

Lupin smiled again, a little more strongly this time. "I suppose so." He looked off into space a moment, then nodded to the decapitated lemon in her hands. "Going to try it?"

His wife eyed the fruit suspiciously. "I'm supposed to just… sniff it? Like I'm getting high on paint fumes?"

He smiled once more. "As long as it's close to your face, it shouldn't matter. Here." He took it gently and set it on the blanket, near her chin, and she closed her eyes gratefully.

"Thanks. I think, if I'm not expected to go rushing off to steal any lockets, that I might just get a little more sleep."

Her husband needlessly fixed the pink lock of her hair, and it glowed a little brighter.

"Of course," he said softly. "I'll be right here."


	3. Cookies, Ice Cream, and Compromises

Chapter Three

Cookies, Ice Cream, and Compromises

When Harry, Ron, and Hermione returned with an irate Ministry official hanging off of Hermione's arm and shouting obscenities almost at random, upon stumbling into the kitchen, they discovered Lupin, Tonks, and Kreacher sitting at the table having tea. There was a lovely spread of little cookies with icing and sprinkles. Kreacher had just jammed one into his mouth whole.

"_You bloody kids are going to bloody get the bloody riot act read out on your bloody arses with bloody canes!_" the Ministry man was howling.

"If there's one thing I can't stand," Hermione said, "it's mixed metaphors. _Stupefy_."

The Ministry official collapsed onto the floor.

"Yeah, I hate those, too," Ron remarked, nudging at the body with the toe of the rather large shoe that encompassed his foot.

"Well," Harry reported loftily, "we've done it." He held a small golden locket aloft as if it was the Olympic torch. It rotated a little at the end of its chain and very dramatically caught the light and glinted. The whole thing looked a little contrived.

"At the cost of sending the whole Ministry into a tizzy, smashing a few priceless works of art, alerting the front-government to our continued activity, and breaking a small encyclopedia's worth of rules," Hermione muttered.

"What is it with you and rules?" Harry demanded.

"They're there for a _reason_!" Hermione shot back. "I mean, _Don't go into the Forbidden Forest_ - well, gee, maybe because there's gigantic, man-eating SPIDERS out there. _Don't wander the halls of Hogwarts too late at night_ - well, maybe that's because there's gigantic, man-eating SNAKES in the walls and any serial killer intent on doing so can bust right in. _Don't smash up the Ministry just to add drama to your self-aggrandizing so-called 'quest'_ - well, maybe—"

"We get it, okay?" Harry snapped.

Hermione stormed over to the table, downed three cookies, and emptied a cup of tea. She swallowed, composed herself, and turned to Harry. "Good," she said.

"So," Tonks put in brightly, "how do we destroy it?"

Hermione turned to her. "It'll be difficult. There are only a few things that can destroy Horcruxes - basilisk venom, fiendfyre - nothing that you can just find around the house."

"I think," Harry put in suddenly, "that we should go to Godric's Hollow."

Four pairs of eyes turned to him.

"Why in the _world _do we need to go to Godric's Hollow?" Hermione demanded.

"I want to see my parents' graves!" Harry replied defensively. "And besides, all that stuff about Dumbledore… I'd like to talk to Bathilda Bagshot…"

"Harry," Hermione began impatiently, "do you think Dumbledore would have wanted you to abandon the quest he gave you - a quest on which the fate of the _world _rests - to go disprove a load of nonsense that some stupid journalist wrote about him?"

The worry line had reappeared between Lupin's eyebrows. It was a frequent tenant. "I think," he said slowly, "that we should focus on destroying this Horcrux first. After all we went through to get it… seems like we should complete what we began."

"Well, first," Ron remarked, scratching his chin contemplatively and regarding the Ministry man on the floor, "maybe we should wipe this guy's memory. Y'know. So he doesn't know where we're situated and all."

Lupin's worry line deepened as he stood. "Agreed," he said. He approached the recumbent form on the floor, knelt, drew his wand, took a deep breath, and uttered a few incantations of some complexity, guiding his wand like a symphony conductor. When he stood again, there was a ghost of a smile on his face. "That should do it. I suppose you should leave him somewhere far from here for when he wakes up, however."

"Like in the alley next to a pub," Tonks suggested innocently, blowing delicately on her tea. "When he comes to, he'll have little choice but to assume that he and his blokes got a little rowdy during lunch break and got themselves hammered beyond recollection."

The ghost of a smile was back on Lupin's face, a little more strongly this time.

"Excellent idea. I'll do the honors." He put an arm under the man's back and attempted to lift him up. Immediately, his wife jumped to her feet (knocking over her chair in the process) and went to help.

"It's all right," Lupin assured her, panting slightly under the man's weight. "I can handle him; I'd rather have at least one of us here to guard the house." His tone betrayed the fear that, if left alone, the teenagers would run off again. Harry scoffed silently to himself. Would that be so much of a problem, if they returned with another Horcrux?

"I'll help," Ron volunteered gallantly, crossing the room to support the man's other side.

"What, I'm just supposed to stay here with the _women_?" Harry demanded.

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me, Harry Potter, but what exactly are you insinuating? Are you saying that girls—"

Tonks took another sip of tea and tuned them out, smiling. _Well, _she thought to herself as she idly let her gaze drift from the two bickering teenagers to a little spider making its way across the wall, _I guess it can't hurt to get some practice babysitting._

"_Ginny_ wouldn't be so absurd," Harry was declaring.

"Oh, _please_," Hermione retorted. "I know Ginny better than _you_ do. You've just elevated her onto some sort of pedestal, thinking she's some sort of goddess or whatever—"

"You don't understand!" he cried indignantly, the back of a hand to his forehead. "You don't know anything about me!"

Tonks refilled Kreacher's teacup and then her own.

"Think you could give me the cookie recipe?" she inquired.

Kreacher grinned. "Kreacher would," he replied with a hint of mischief, "were he not so mortified at the idea of the slightly unstable Mrs. Lupin in a room full of breakable objects with sharp tools in her hands."

Tonks laughed.

By this time, though, Harry was screaming on the ground, so she decided it was time to intervene.

"All right, you two," she began, practicing her Stern Mother voice.

"Just ignore him," Hermione advised. "He's only throwing a tantrum."

"I am _not _throwing a tantrum!" Harry cried, sitting up indignantly. "My scar was burning, and I was having a vision of Vol—"

"Would you shut your piehole for fifteen seconds?" Hermione interrupted. Then she turned to Tonks and whispered, "Don't encourage him."

"_I was having a vision!_" Harry insisted. "He was looking for something, and it had been stolen, and…"

"Done!" Ron announced triumphantly, reentering the kitchen with Lupin in his wake. "I even found an empty bottle in the dumpster and shoved it into his hand, it was brill—"

"IS ANYONE EVEN LISTENING TO ME?!" Harry yelled. "MY SCAR WAS BURNING, AND I WAS HAVING A VISION!"

"Perhaps we should listen to him," Lupin suggested worriedly.

"Everyone hates me," Harry whimpered, mustering up some dry sobs.

"That's because you're having drug hallucinations and you call them visions!" Hermione rejoined mercilessly.

Being more patient and less cynical, Lupin knelt next to Harry. "What did you see?" he asked kindly, perhaps more kindly than the boy deserved, depending on whom you were to ask.

Harry rubbed his eyes, then his scar, then his ear. Lupin blinked. "It itched," Harry explained of the lattermost. Lupin blinked again. "Anyway," Harry segued neatly, "Volde—MMMPH."

"Last time," Lupin said softly, removing his hand from over Harry's big mouth, "he put a Taboo on the name. Should any of us say it, we may expose ourselves very clearly to his watchers. And that, I don't think I have to tell you, would be very unwise."

Harry sighed deeply. "All right. In my vision, _he_ was trying to find something, but he saw that it had been stolen, and he was so, so angry that it felt… it felt like I was on fire - and there was this horrible twisting and tightening in my stomach, and I felt ill, and—"

"Try having a menstrual period, you wimp," Hermione was heard to mutter.

"—I think he knows we're after the Horcruxes," Harry concluded worriedly, seeking ever-giving wells of eternal wisdom in Lupin's eyes.

Remus Lupin pressed his lips together. "Then," he noted quietly, "we'll have to be even more careful what we do."

"Dumbledore left me Gryffindor's sword," Harry added, "because it's absorbed basilisk venom, so it'd be a good thing to use to destroy another one. That's how I got rid of the diary."

The line that had settled down for a long stay between Lupin's eyebrows deepened. "Where can we find the sword?"

Faces fell.

"Snape's got it," Ron explained miserably, kicking at the fringe of a rug. He didn't know his own strength, and it rolled back a considerable amount. Hastily he bent to arrange it on the floor nicely again.

"Well," Hermione began slowly, "he's supposed to, yes. But I think Dumbledore would have known that the Ministry wouldn't just let it pass to you. I mean, since when has he ever trusted them? He probably arranged his own means of getting it to Harry. Can anyone think of somewhere he might have left it where we'd be sure to find it?"

"I have an idea," Harry put in, sarcasm dripping from his lips and burning holes in the tablecloth - figuratively. "Can anyone think of a place that both Dumbledore and I have in common - maybe where both of us had relatives or friends? I dunno. Where would _you _hide the sword of Godric Gryffindor? Maybe in… _Godric's Hollow?_"

"Harry," Hermione replied impatiently, "I know you want to go find your parents' graves, but that is _exactly _what he'll be expecting you to do, and that's why it's exactly what we _can't_—"

"_I_," Harry interrupted, with that insulted martyr tone back in his voice, "am going to Godric's Hollow. If the four of you wish to remain here, that is your choice. Dumbledore did, after all, give this quest to _me._" And he rose from the table and left the room, pausing at the door to add, "If there are any changes of heart, I'll be leaving tomorrow morning."

"Arrogant git," muttered Ron.

"_What_ was that, Ronald… Middle-Name… Weasley?" Harry demanded imperiously.

"Bilius," Hermione supplied helpfully.

"I said, uh, good plan," Ron amended creatively.

Harry turned his nose in the air and flounced off.

Tonks rolled her eyes, which she had made an interesting shade of purple for the occasion.

"Like I said," Ron remarked.

Lupin rubbed at his temples with his fingertips. Incidentally, it was there that his hair was fastest going silver. He paced back and forth a little, and then he gave in, took a seat at the table, and took a bite out of another of Kreacher's masterpiece cookies. (The House Elf beamed happily at the new evidence of his culinary success.) He waved it distractedly in the air a little bit as he reasoned aloud. "If Harry goes alone, and it is a trap, we'll lose the last hope that the wizarding world has of a rallying point," he began slowly and almost cautiously. "If Harry goes and it _isn't_ a trap, then… we'll get the sword."

"And he'll never let us bloody forget it," Ron muttered. He did a passable falsetto that made his companions wonder whether he should join a choir. "_Oh, guys, look at how BRAVE I am. Look at my BEAUTIFUL sword. Dumbledore gave it to ME because he knows how BRAVE I am._"

"Mm," Lupin said, to avoid having to agree or disagree explicitly. "Well, I suppose… Whatever the case, it would be best if we went along. If it's a trap, there will be more of us to try to help. If it's a genuine lead, we… um…"

"Won't have to put up with Harry rubbing our faces in it," Hermione offered.

Lupin smiled faintly. "Yes. Thank you."

An hour later, they were eating another stupendous dinner of Kreacher's, and Harry was smirking like a cat let into an aviary.

"Knew you'd come around," he remarked airily.

Ron wondered bemusedly whether he ought to try dangling the Horcrux in front of Harry's face. The glare Hermione was giving him might have shattered it, and then they wouldn't have had to go to Godric's Hollow at all.

"Well," said Tonks, with her usual talent for breaking uncomfortable silences. "Do we know where we want to start looking?"

"I would like," Harry explained, as if he was doing them a favor by deigning to share his plans, "to start by finding my parents' graves. After that, I thought we might try Bathilda Bagshot - she was an old friend of Dumbledore's, and he might have left it with her. If she doesn't have it, I'll figure out what our next step will be then."

Ron's hand was halfway into his pocket for the Horcrux when Hermione was distracted by a request for the salt and had to set her glower to a lower voltage before passing it to Tonks so as not to harm her.

Kreacher had come up with ice cream by nine-thirty, and Lupin and Tonks retreated to the living room with some and sat down on Ron's new bed, which was, indeed, quite comfortable.

"Think this'll yield much of anything?" Tonks asked quietly, very deliberately poking at her dessert with her spoon.

Remus raked a hand through his hair. "I don't know. Even though I know we don't have much of a choice, I still feel as though we're grasping at straws here. Bathilda _might_ have the sword. It _might_ not be a trap - Godric's Hollow, the first place any self-respecting Gryffindor would want to go to pay homage. It seems too easy. I hate to put these kids in danger, but…" He was struggling now, and doing that desperate little head-shaking thing he did. "…we just don't have anything else to work with. It's excruciating."

Nymphadora Tonks laid her head on his shoulder and smiled utterly joyously. "You'll make such a wonderful father," she remarked softly.

He smiled back at her, abruptly, delightedly, and she leaned up a little to kiss his jaw.

"I mean it," she murmured, putting her head back on his shoulder. "I'm so glad I have you. I - I could never take care of a child on my own." She laughed quietly and a little ruefully. "I can barely take care of myself. But you - with you, I know it'll be okay. I know I'll be safe, and I know our child will be happy."

She smiled up at him, and, unable to find words to express the feelings bursting inside him, he leaned down and kissed her forehead. It was amazing, yet utterly unsurprising, that he could still remember their first meeting with such clarity. He'd been in this very house; it had been headquarters back then. It had been Dumbledore - hadn't it? - it must have been - who'd introduced them.

"_Oh, hello, Remus - this is Nymphadora Tonks; she's an Auror and a new ally. Nymphadora, this is Remus Lupin."_

And she'd insisted, as usual, on her surname, and she'd crossed the room to shake his hand and ended up tripping and falling into his arms.

Strange the hints that chance could throw.

It hadn't been long before he'd caught himself thinking about her in a moment of quiet. He'd been washing dishes, and he'd dropped one into the sink, spraying soapy water everywhere, and as he'd wiped the stinging suds from his eye with the back of his hand, he had reflected wryly that it was something Tonks would do.

It had all been downhill from there.

There was something about her that drew his eye, and he tried to pretend that it was the vibrant colors that she decided upon for her hair from time to time. He knew he was lying to himself, but it was better that way, wasn't it? Better to stay away, stay far away, and watch from a distance. Sink into the quagmire of unrequited love from a distance.

Remus Lupin did most things from a distance.

All he'd ever wanted was not to hurt anyone. Not to endanger anyone. To live like a real human being without pushing any sacrificial lambs onto the altar of his own carelessness. He had to be cautious. He had to stay back. He had to keep a buffer zone there, between him and the defenseless, blissfully unknowing people of the world, because proximity was the end of everything. Distant friends that weren't afraid would suffice. They'd suffice just fine.

Sirius had been the only one left who had understood. The only one left who had had that power to withstand it, who could sit calmly by his side as he became a monster and clap his shoulder the next morning with a quip queued up behind his greeting. Sirius had been the last person around whom he'd felt safe to be everything he was, the ragged man and the rancorous monster both. And then he'd lost Sirius just as he'd lost James.

He had thought he would die.

That was when she'd taken his heart for good, swaddled it in kindness, and cradled it gently in her arms. On a few long, sleepless nights, they'd talked about Sirius.

"He was the black sheep of the family," she'd remarked, and then paused and smiled slightly. "No pun intended. Him and my mother. The rest of the family couldn't stand him - said he was a disgrace and all that. But he was her favorite cousin, and the only one who would ever come see us. After Azkaban, of course. Once I was rummaging around in the attic, and I found all these letters he'd written her, when they were kids - all about how much fun he was having at Hogwarts, with you and James and Peter, you know… About what great friends he had…" She'd paused, and then she'd looked at him with some mixture of apology and deep concern. "It came up a little, once - Azkaban. He said that the moment everything was all right was when he knew you'd found out the truth and forgiven him."

His throat had been too tight to allow for a reply.

"I'll get you some tea," she'd offered softly.

There was only a single china casualty before she returned. It had been the best damn tea of his life - maybe because he'd needed it so badly; maybe because she'd been the one to make it; maybe some combination of the two.

And then there had been that fateful night - that night which had seemed so terrible at the time and for which, in retrospect, he was so grateful.

She'd been crying - over her cousin, he'd guessed; she always tried so hard to hide her own grief in order to soothe his - and he'd sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulders without thinking. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Or so he'd thought.

When he'd tried to release her; he'd found that he couldn't - she was clinging to him too tightly. He glanced down at her a little desperately, uncomfortable with the closeness and his own thoughts, and she'd just looked up at him with those helpless, tear-filled eyes and whispered words that were to haunt him for months.

"Remus, I think I love you."

"You - you can't possibly - " he'd begun.

"Can't possibly what?" she prompted, acridly. "Can't possibly dev-v-value myself s-so much? Can't possibly s-s-sink so l-low? I know what the stupid people will say, Remus. Don't make me hear you say it, t-t-too."

"But - you - I - " There was a whirlwind in his brain, a hurricane, tearing the roofs off of the houses, ripping them down to their foundations, flattening street signs and leaving traffic lights dangling. Reducing his composure to rubble.

"I kn-know this isn't the way it's s-s-suppos-sed to go," she'd said, scraping tears away with her sleeve. "But it's kind of t-t-too l-late now."

"You - shouldn't…" he'd fought out.

"Shouldn't f-fall in l-love?" she'd supplied bitterly. "Y-yeah, f-f-freaks aren't s'posed to, are they?"

"You're not—" he'd started bewilderedly.

"You s-see this?" she'd demanded, taking a section of hair between two fingers. "Watch." Startled into obedience, he had. As Tonks frowned at her hair disapprovingly, it had faded from brown to an inky black, then sunk into silver, then risen into gold. Thence it went white, and then through every color imaginable, and she paused at periwinkle for it to wind itself into impossibly tight curls. She looked up at him, and as he met her eyes, they melted from brown to blue, then to an unsettling feline yellow, then to James's emerald green, then to the unfathomable stormy gray that had belonged so distinctly to Sirius. "You call that normal, Remus Lupin?" she'd inquired pointedly. "You call that regular? You think I care what bigots and fools will say about _you_?"

"It's different," he protested, strained, trying to distance himself from her surreptitiously in order to stress the platonic nature of his feelings - to her or to himself, he wasn't sure. He could barely think - she was so close, so close he could see the little teardrops caught in her eyelashes, feel her unsteady breathing on his face, glimpse the desperate hope in her pleading eyes. For a moment, something insane in him - probably the ghost of one of his old friends, it sounded like something Sirius would have suggested - urged him to lean down the few inches necessary and kiss her. Instead, he detached her gently from him and turned his head away.

"You… have a gift," he managed to say at last, his voice heavy. "A talent. Whereas I…" He paused again, then closed his eyes and forced himself to say it. "I… am a monster."

And before she could reply, he stood and left the room.

_You idiot, _Sirius's ghost reprimanded him as he tried to shut his mind to the forlorn sobs echoing down the hallway. _Now you've made her cry. You're in more dire need of help than I thought._

"Go away," Lupin told him.

The ghost of Sirius smirked.

_And let you break my cousin's heart? Nice try, my boy. Nice try._

"Shut up," Lupin muttered miserably.

He stopped in the middle of the hallway, torn. He couldn't leave her there, could he? But he didn't dare go back…

_Go back, you worthless—don't make me finish that,_ Sirius ordered.

"I can't," he mumbled. But, dragging his feet, he did. Wishing more than ever that Fenrir Greyback had just killed him on the spot, drunk his blood, and feasted on his flesh, he lingered in the doorway, looking at the dusty floorboards, shame and self-loathing gathering in him until he thought he might explode. It would have been a relief.

"I…" he started, hopelessly. What in the name of all that was holy could he _say_?

_Start out with the truth,_ Sirius urged, prodding him in the small of the back.

"I… cannot begin… to express how sorry I am," he managed, scuffling with every word. They kicked and scratched like little demons.

_Halfway-decent start,_ Sirius decided. _Keep going._

"I didn't mean to do… or say… anything that would hurt you," he went on, struggling harder. "That's the last thing I want. The absolute last. But I just… I'm not a good person to associate with, and I don't want you to have to find that out firsthand. I can't handle myself, and… the idea of trying to help someone else… I know I'm not strong enough for that. Not good enough. I hope… that… you can forgive me. For everything. For being what I am and doing what I've done."

She lifted puffy, dripping red eyes to his, and then, with another wracking sob, she flew across the room and threw her arms around his neck. He froze, stunned, as she wept into his shoulder, wanting to embrace her comfortingly but knowing it would only make things worse by giving her more hope. Never had he hated himself so desperately as he did now. _God_, why did it have to be like this? Why couldn't he—

_Say something, _hissed Sirius.

"I…" he began in a whisper. "I'm sorry. You are a very courageous young woman, and… and I hope with all my heart that you can find someone who deserves you."

In a moment of stupendous daring, he leaned forward and touched his lips to the top of her head, catching the mysterious fragrance of her hair. Where did it come from? A particular kind of shampoo, perhaps? Or some side effect of her abilities? But he couldn't think about that now. He wasn't supposed to be thinking about her beautiful hair and her innocent face and the hope in her eyes. He pulled away, strode out of the room, and fled.

And now he never had to run again. She was his, forever. He lifted her hands in his and kissed the back of every finger, one by one, lingering on the one adorned by a simple gold ring.

She smiled, and his heart swelled.

"So, uh…" Harry Potter said from the doorway. "Thought of anything to do in Godric's Hollow yet?"

Tonks and Lupin exchanged a look.


	4. With a Name Like Bathilda

Chapter Four

With a Name Like Bathilda, What Did You Expect?

They Disapparated as a group the next morning, not as bright and early as Harry would have liked. Tonks had been feeling ill again, though not as severely as yesterday, and Lupin refused to move her, though she'd made some halfhearted protests. Ron and Hermione had taken the opportunity to sleep in a little, though Harry muttered to himself a bit.

"Characteristic," Tonks had remarked dryly of that particular advent.

When they arrived, it was snowing ever-so-slightly. Harry and Ron were under the Invisibility Cloak, Tonks had turned her hair black and acquired a pair of glasses that made her look a bit older, and Lupin and Hermione had made small attempts to disguise themselves and were relying mostly on their general anonymity. The five made their way across a square - Harry and Ron first, so that their footprints would be wiped out by the others'; Lupin with an arm around his wife, adjusting the fedora he had low over his face; Hermione trailing them with her bushy hair tied back in a braid, reasonably supposable as the couple's daughter.

A lot of partially-stifled arguing and the sound of a few slaps and yelps issued from a perfectly normal, transparent spot of air, and phantom footsteps veered off towards the church graveyard.

"It figures," Tonks remarked, changing her course to follow them.

"Guess it wouldn't kill us to give him a moment," Lupin responded mildly. "If it were me, I think I'd want one."

"But you wouldn't throw a hissy fit if someone told you it was too dangerous," his wife noted calmly.

Remus Lupin smiled as the latch on the churchyard gate rattled. There was a horrendous screech as the rusty hinges yielded, and a horrendous half-muffled curse from Ron.

"You flippin' _idiot_—" Ron started.

"Shut up. Where… Look for _Potter_."

"No, I hadn't figured _that_ out, genius. I was gonna look for, y'know, _Malfoy_ or something."

"Shut up, we're supposed to be invisible."

The little family crossing the square hastened their collective step a little, and the man's face struggled not to succumb to a frown in the shadow of his hat brim.

"Potter… Potter… Potter…" Harry was muttering, very audibly for a nonentity.

"…rhymes with water…" another voice muttered back.

"Shut up, Ron… Potter…"

"Here," Remus Lupin said quietly. The kids looked at him, surprised - or, at least, Hermione did; he presumed the others followed suit - but Tonks looked like she'd predicted this. Like she'd known with complete certainty that a man like Remus Lupin would have been here before, would have sought the gravestone before which he stood now, his head bowed, his hands in his pockets. Tiny, glimmering flakes of snow swirled around him like angels' tears.

After paying their respects and quietly leaving the cemetery, the small group gathered to discuss their next move. Seeing the Potters' gravestone had been a sobering experience for all present - it reminded them of the consequences of failure, and of just how much they had to lose. Harry and Hermione were discussing things calmly and quietly for once, Ron was staring off into the distance worriedly, and Tonks was sniffling slightly, no doubt imagining the loss of her own loved ones.

_Hold her, you idiot, _Sirius whispered, prodding Lupin fiercely. His victim glared at the empty air over his shoulder for a moment before wrapping both arms around his wife and addressing the little group.

"Do we have a consensus as to our next move?"

"Harry thinks we should look for Bathilda Bagshot," Hermione informed him. "I've been trying to convince him that it could be dangerous."

"But the danger doesn't matter," Harry insisted, "if she's the one who has the sword! We _need _it, Hermione, or else it'll be pointless to find any of the other Horcruxes. We're supposed to be destroying them, not collecting them!"

Lupin sighed. "I think Harry may be right this time."

Harry's lips formed the words _Told you so _as Hermione mouthed _That'll be the day._

"And," Lupin interjected before an altercation could break out, "it would be wise of us to keep an eye out, just in case it is more dangerous than we think. We…" Unconsciously his eyes flickered towards the cemetery. He hadn't meant for anyone to notice, but they saw. They all saw. "..can't… afford to make any mistakes."

"Seconded," Tonks announced.

"Thirded," Ron put in eagerly.

"Don't be—"

"Intelligent?" Hermione muttered.

"—ridiculous," Harry finished, glaring at her, peeking out from under the cloak.

Lupin managed a tight smile. "Maybe we should get going."

Down the lane they went, shuffling through the snow, Harry and Ron concealed again beneath the cloak, bickering occasionally when one or the other tripped and almost jerked the cloak off of the ungainly pair of them.

Lupin's gaze wandered of its own accord. How many times had he come here then, in the years before? Could it possibly be almost two decades since he'd gone running down this road, holding his hat on his head, cloak trailing behind him, snow spraying around his feet, Christmas presents tucked securely under his arm?

Sirius had given him a mock-lecture for a good ten minutes, punctuating it with the word "punctual," repeating the refrain, "Promptness is next to godliness" until James and Lily were in stitches…

"You all right, dear?" someone whispered in his ear.

He didn't have to look up to know who it was, and not just because none of the teenagers would have addressed him as 'dear'. But he did anyway, and there she was - smiling at him, kindly but with a hint of worry, melted snowflakes caught in her dark hair like dewdrops shimmering out of a spiderweb. His angel, his reason for living.

"I'm fine," he murmured back. He smiled hesitantly, and then he lifted a hand to tuck a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear. She returned the smile delightedly and caught his hand before he could pull it away, and the two laced their fingers together as they continued to stroll down the lane in the wake of their invisible companions, both smiling quietly and delightedly.

_Aww_, the ghost of Sirius smirked. _You two are too cute to live. I'm so glad I stepped in to set you up._

_Like you had anything to do with it,_ Remus thought back, smiling to himself.

_Ex_cuse_ me? _Sirius cried indignantly. _You forget your PLACE, young man! Why, I oughta…_

The name on the mailbox had mostly peeled away - _B SH T_, it read.

"'Be shit'!" Ron was heard to giggle helplessly.

The sound of a fist colliding with a shoulder emanated from beneath the Invisibility Cloak.

An impossibly old, impossibly frail woman stood - or, rather, hunched - in the center of the snow-swathed cobblestone path to the door of the looming house. Eyes bubbling with milky white cataracts seemed to focus on the group of people loitering hesitantly by the mailbox, and Harry whipped the cloak free. Ron bit back a "Yipe!", but the woman by the door seemed unperturbed.

"Are you Bathilda Bagshot?" Harry asked.

The woman raised a crooked hand and beckoned once. Then she turned and shuffled into the house, leaving the door open wide behind her. Snowflakes spiraled down, slipped beneath the eaves, and darted in to melt on the rug in the foyer like dying stars.

Tonks's hand tightened around Remus's arm. "I don't like this," she whispered.

"Neither do I," Lupin replied grimly.

Harry was already halfway across the threshold. They had little choice but to run and catch up.

When they entered the dark, musty hallway of the house, the old woman was standing at the foot of the stairs, waiting. She pointed to Harry, then beckoned.

"I think she wants to speak to me alone," Harry informed his friends, sounding more confident than they felt. "Dumbledore probably told her not to let anyone else see the sword."

"Harry, I'm _really _not liking this…" Hermione muttered.

"Hang on a bit," Tonks suggested. "Let's confer outside a moment. Then we'll let you go, Harry."

"All right, then," Harry reluctantly agreed. "Just a moment, Ms. Bagshot."

The small group retreated outside. At the foot of the staircase, Nagini the snake hissed with pleasure. Her master had been right - the stupid boy had come. And now here he was, edging his way through the doorway, glancing nervously around as he stepped into the hallway alone.

"I've… uh… left my friends outside," the boy muttered, his voice pitched a little higher than usual. She could almost taste his fear. "So… did you have a message for me…?"

"Follow me upstairs; the sword is there," Nagini told him in Parseltongue, indicating the staircase behind her.

"Um… right." The boy looked even more nervous. "I'll… just… let my friends know it'll be a few minutes, and then I'll come… uh… follow you."

A moment later, the dark-haired boy practically ran out the door and closed it behind him, trembling a little.

"She _hissed _at me!" Tonks whispered. "She didn't even speak - she _hissed!_"

Harry's jaw dropped, and Hermione's eyes widened. "Parseltongue!" she gasped. "Harry's a Parselmouth!"

They exchanged glances nervously.

"We've got a few choices," Lupin declared quietly. "We can run now, before she suspects anything. We can search the rest of the house and see if we can find the sword before she comes back."

"Why don't we kill the snake?" Hermione proposed hesitantly. "Isn't it a Horcrux?"

Lupin smiled a little. "What with?"

"Oh," she conceded faintly. "Good point."

"Well?" Lupin prompted.

"I say we look for the sword," Harry announced bravely just as Ron squeaked, "Let's get the hell out of here!"

"I…" Tonks began hesitantly. She paused, swallowed, and adjusted Harry's glasses. "I could go and follow her, and, if I see where the sword is, I could try to grab it and… and try to fight her… I might be able to destroy…"

Her husband smiled at her sadly, looking pained. "You are more courageous than I ever thought was possible," he told her softly. "I just don't know if… if…" His tormented gaze flickered back and forth between her face and her abdomen, and it couldn't have been plainer that he was struggling with the crippling fear of losing both his wife and his unborn child in one serpentine lunge.

"Yeah, don't talk crazy-talk," Ron put in incoherently, his eyes flickering towards the door. "We don't want to have to, like, sacrifice anybody or something. I mean, how would You-Know-Who have gotten the sword and stuck it here anyway? Y'know? I mean, Dumbledore would've known if Bathilda wasn't going to be able to keep it safe, and he wouldn't have put it here. Y'know?"

Hermione wondered how she ever could have thought Ron was stupid. Well, there was the "don't talk crazy-talk" part of the argument, but the rest was, logically, pretty sound.

"We've got to find it," Harry pressed nervously. "I mean, think about it. Without that sword, we're helpless. We can't get rid of any of the Horcruxes."

"I really just think we should get our asses outta here," Ron countered, glancing wistfully out the door at the snow once again.

"Well, fine," Harry frowned. "Go ahead and get out of here. I, personally, am going to go look for the sword."

"Harry, don't be ridiculous!" Hermione replied, her voice a little tight. "Ron's right. And if You-Know-Who's snake is here, who's to say he isn't lying in wait nearby? It would be safer to go fight another basilisk than to walk into such an obvious trap."

"Wait!" Ron exclaimed suddenly, in an excited whisper. "We don't need to find another basilisk - I'll bet the body of the one we killed is still in the Chamber of Secrets; why don't we just go get one of its fangs?"

"Ronald Weasley," Hermione breathed. Ron flinched away in preparation for a tirade, but instead, she threw his arms around his neck.

"You're a _genius!_" she told him, her whisper a little shrill. "Oh, what would we do without you?"

Ron blushed happily.

"D'you think," Tonks began hesitantly, "that we could somehow trick the snake into staying here until we can come back and kill it?"

Lupin scratched behind his ear absently. It was a bit of a dog-like motion. "I'd only vouch for that if we can do it without leaving someone behind," he said after a moment. "If we were to tell it that we'll be back soon and leave it waiting here, I wouldn't be too averse to that idea, but somehow I doubt that such a plan would have any hope of succeeding."

"I think you're giving the stupid snake too much credit," Harry remarked.

"Better to err on the side of caution, I'd say," Lupin responded. "We don't know how detailed its master's instructions were. I think our best bet is heading for the basilisk. We need weapons, and we're defenseless in the middle of a prospective battlefield as it stands now."

At that moment, the door opened, and Tonks - who had luckily already changed back into herself and returned Harry's glasses - grabbed his arm. The old woman's head had reappeared around the door.

"Um… hello," Hermione stammered. "We were… uh… going to come back, you see, and…"

"We have an errand to run at Gringotts," Ron put in suddenly. "And we were telling Harry that it might not be a good idea to waltz into a bank carrying a sword - they'd probably think we were robbers or something - so we were wondering if you could keep it for us for just a little while. We'll be back in a couple hours, but this errand is important. Would that be all right?"

The woman - the snake - blinked at them. There was a slightly suspicious cast to the tilt of her head, but she nodded slowly. There wasn't much else she could do without speaking in any case. They'd backed her up into a corner that way.

Ron led the mad dash down the walk, out the gate, and back to the village square.

Lupin started pacing in the snow like a caged animal. He itched at the edge of his hair again, compulsively, seemingly without even noticing that he was doing it. Tonks glanced up at the pale, callous face of the moon. Sure enough, it was edging towards full.

"We can't Apparate into Hogwarts," Lupin was murmuring to himself, his feet tracing four long paces up the lane, twisting through a swift turn that sent his cloak spinning, and then taking the four long paces back. "And they'll have Dementors everywhere now that he's got control of it… Severus, being Severus, will have effective barriers in place and students patrolling the halls…" His tongue darted across his teeth. "Going by night might be safer… But going by day would be less predictable… Losing a whole night, however, would also set us back temporally, and time is something we're facing a bit of a shortage of…"

"Well," Tonks suggested, sounding a little worried and stopping him with a hand on his arm, "how would it be if Thicknesse just strolled into Hogwarts and had his people inspect the castle? If we dressed you up as Ministry workers or something, we might be able to walk right in… I mean, you know what they say about the safest place to hide being in plain sight… We could just wander around the castle inspecting stuff until one of us got the chance to duck into the Chamber of Secrets and grab a few basilisk fangs."

Her smile widened a bit, hesitantly, as though attempting a joke that she hoped wouldn't offend. "I could even be Umbridge," she suggested. "I'm sure nobody would dare to refuse her."

Harry rubbed at the back of his hand. "Y'know," he mumbled, "this one time, in detention—"

"WE KNOW," Hermione and Ron said.

Lupin looked up at his wife, blinking, as if almost surprised that she was there. Tentatively at first, then more fully, he smiled. "I think that's an excellent idea," he decided. "You're quite right. I guess we could head back to 12 Grimmauld Place for the night and start out with that early tomorrow morning, couldn't we? Or, at least, as early as we're willing…"

She smiled, relieved at the change in his mood. "As early as you want," she promised. "We could even go this afternoon - I mean, I don't think it's past two. Though it'll take a little time to find disguises for you four - I suppose if we just knocked out some tough-looking muggles and used Polyjuice Potion, I could say you were my Squad for the Investigation of…" She faltered, but Ron was ready.

"Public enemy number one!" he finished brightly. "Say you heard from someone that Harry Potter was hiding out in the castle, and we've come to look for him! Snape and his Death-Eater cronies can't object to that!"

Hermione beamed at him for a brief moment before becoming businesslike. "Well, why don't we split up? One team can get the hair, another can find some appropriate robes, and we can meet back at Grimmauld Place at… say… three? An hour long enough for everybody?"

When everyone nodded, she folded her hands and tapped her fingers against her chin a little. "I suppose someone should take the Cloak and get hair… And the others should find some robes. We might have some back at Grimmauld Place, even… Why don't Remus and Tonks work on the hair for the Polyjuice Potion? I think we'd get into less trouble stealing robes than assaulting people, knowing us… I mean, we'd probably accidentally assault somebody too hard and kill them or something…"

Tonks and Lupin smiled.

"Sure," Tonks agreed for the both of them. "And I can always make myself look like somebody's friend or spouse and yank some hair out during a quick improvised conversation." She grinned. "And there's less chance of me tripping over my own feet."

Her husband smiled adoringly at her, and, before Harry had time to protest, Hermione had tossed his cloak to Lupin, grabbed his arm, and brought the two of them and Ron back to their familiar hideout.

"I don't _see,_" Harry was complaining, "why I have to do the _laundry _while the two of _them _go off - with _my _cloak - to—"

He realized he was talking to an empty hallway; both his friends had vanished in pursuit of robes. Harry heaved a deep sigh. Sometimes it was difficult, being the Chosen One.


	5. Duel with the Diawhatsit

Chapter Five

Duel with the Diawhatsit

An hour after splitting up for their various errands, the five were gathered around the kitchen table, and Hermione was passing out robes and glasses of Polyjuice Potion. Grinning, Tonks opened her hand to show several locks of hair.

"You should've seen the trouble we went through for that one," she remarked, pointing to a particular specimen. "Nasty bloke. Anyway." She dumped them unceremoniously on the table and brushed off her hands while her husband meticulously folded the cloak.

Lupin meted potion into three glasses and dropped a few hairs of each color into them. The liquid in the first glass turned a murky green; that of the second, an uninspiring navy; that of the third, a slightly brownish yellow.

Harry leaped for the navy and knocked it back in a single Herculean gulp.

Ron accepted the yellow one from Hermione, took a sip, and smacked his lips like a wine connoisseur. "Tastes like…" he remarked, "Tastes like…" He took another sip. "Crap. With a hint of butterscotch, mind you."

Harry choked on his. "Death," he noted.

Hermione sipped primly at hers. "Mm, more like sewer water here; I'd say Ron's about got it right."

Tonks smiled. "Know how I glad I am that I've never had to do that? Real glad."

Hermione stood, becoming a pinched, petulant-looking young woman with slick dark brown hair tied back and beady eyes. She considered the mess on the table. Kreacher, who was watching this grotesquerie in horrified silence, started clearing the dishes. Hermione's new face arranged itself into a smile that didn't fit its general character at all. "Thanks, Kreacher," she said.

Ron, meanwhile, folded and slipped into a short, round, middle-aged man with a combover. He patted his head morosely, then clapped both hands on his stomach. "It's like a drum," he reported. He looked down at his now vastly-oversized sneakers. "Hmm," he remarked.

Meanwhile, Harry was an extremely pimply teenaged boy with watery blue eyes and colorless blond hair that hung lank and much too long around his shoulders. Even his delighted smile looked miserable and kind of unclean. "I can see!" he noted, whipping off his glasses with the air of a magician removing the starry cloth to show the results of the trick.

Except, Remus reflected wryly, that real magicians had no need of the starry cloth in the first place.

"Are you going to take one?" the sinister face of Hermione asked in her usual voice.

Lupin smiled and rubbed at the dark stubble emerging on his chin, strengthening the line of his jaw. "I'll wear a hood," he remarked. "I'm willing to bet I'll be nigh on unrecognizable. It's been almost four years since I was last seen there anyway."

Hermione nodded her approval obligingly, which was once again at odds with her sour visage.

Tonks grinned. "If anyone gets suspicious, I'll just tell them he's my husband, and No, they haven't seen him somewhere before, because he's been in Azkaban for twenty years for killing seven snooping busybodies with a salad spoon and a single chess piece." She smiled adoringly at the man in question, and he laughed nervously.

"Perhaps just say you picked him up abroad and he doesn't speak much English," Hermione suggested.

"Yeah," Ron added eagerly, "and he's your personal bodyguard, and the last guy who tried to attack you got—"

"I… let's not go overboard," Lupin suggested with a small smile. "I suggest we just follow Tonks quietly and try to look menacing; I'm sure she'll be able to handle any explanation required." He picked up a cloak, swung it around his shoulders, and lifted the hood so that his face was in shadow. He now resembled the kind of mysterious vagabond that might emerge from an ominous-looking forest to traipse silently into a little town on a dark and stormy night.

Tonks was silent for a moment, struck dumb by the effect. She smiled like a Japanese schoolgirl laying her hands on Volume 89 of the manga Cherry Love Girl. Lupin smiled back at her.

"Everyone ready?" he asked.

They Apparated into the outskirts of Hogsmeade and made their way through the subdued streets, Tonks as Umbridge parting the crowds like Moses would an ominously-colored sea. Lupin skulked along behind her, head slightly bowed, hands folded behind his back, the heavy boots he'd unearthed somewhere ringing on the street. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, as their rather unglamorous present incarnations, scrambled along after them like hungry mongrels.

Though Tonks's brisk pace faltered just a little as they started through the ranks of Dementors, something distantly akin to breath whistling eerily from under their black cowls, they slipped through without much difficulty. And then they were in.

When they reached the gates they were met, as expected, by Filch, who had a rather nasty-looking woman by his side. He was scowling, but his face broke into what, for him, passed for a smile at the sight of Umbridge approaching.

"You!" he exclaimed. "Come back to teach the brats another lesson, have you?"

"Not this time, I'm afraid," Tonks replied in Umbridge's simpering, sickly-sweet voice. "My Investigators and I received a tip-off that Harry Potter and his friends may be hiding in the school - using it as a sort of base of operations - and we have come to conduct a thorough search."

"Even better," Filch leered. "Shall we assist?"

"No, thank you," she replied. "That won't be necessary; just keep the students and faculty out of our way. I don't want to have to arrest anyone."

The woman next to Filch looked at the group suspiciously for a moment, but then stepped aside to let them pass. Tonks swept through imperiously, her retinue behind her.

Most of the students they encountered scattered in terror before them, however, as they marched down an empty corridor in the direction of the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, Neville Longbottom emerged from a tapestry. He at first made as if to duck away, but then caught a glimpse of Lupin's face and did a double take.

"P-Professor…?" he whispered, hesitantly touching his elbow and sounding rather fearful.

Lupin paused, glanced quickly around the corridor, and, finding it clear, leaned lower and offered Neville a tiny smile.

"You look like you're keeping up well," he remarked.

Hope battled suspicion on Neville's face. "What are you doing with - " he made a face in Tonks's direction. " - _that_?"

Lupin couldn't help but smile now. "That," he explained calmly, "is my wife. And those upstanding citizens are your old classmates."

Neville blinked. He'd never been strong in Potions, poor boy.

"Oh," he said slowly, a smile gradually expanding to light his face. "Oh, Tonks is a thingamawhat, isn't she?"

Lupin grinned. "Precisely. We have an errand to run."

Umbridge and the three ostensible slimeballs in her wake had paused, noticing the interruption. The unhappy woman broke out into a very happy smile.

"Neville!" she cried in Hermione's voice.

"Not so loud," the balding man reprimanded gently in Ron's.

Neville grinned. "Well, good luck and stuff," he said.

Lupin smiled back with a hint of irony. "Thank you. I sincerely hope we won't need it."

When they reached the bathroom, Harry opened the door to the Chamber, and he and Ron climbed down the chute to collect the basilisk fangs while the others waited nervously in the bathroom.

"While we're here," Hermione remarked suddenly, "why don't we try to figure out if there's anything hidden around the castle? This is one of the places You-Know-Who was connected to throughout his life, so we thought that he might have hidden one of the Horcruxes here. If he did, we won't get a better chance to hunt around and look for it."

Lupin was scratching his head again and paused at her voice. "That's true," he noted. "Is there a pattern to the Horcruxes? Is there any way for us to know, for example, what might be here?"

Hermione sighed and bit her lip, thinking. After a moment, she lifted a hand to count something off on her fingers, then decided, "Either Hufflepuff's cup or the last, mystery one - possibly something of Ravenclaw's. I don't know where it would be or even whether it's here at all, but it seems like it couldn't hurt to look. Too bad none of us have been in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw; that might get us started."

"I was in Hufflepuff," said Tonks, sounding a little affronted.

"Oh. Right." Hermione blinked. "I'd forgotten. Well - was there anywhere around the school that was important to her? Or - or does anything know of an object associated with Ravenclaw?"

"I believe I heard once about a crown," Lupin said slowly. "A diadem. That was it - 'Ravenclaw's diadem.' Kind of stuck with me. Fun word, 'diadem.'"

Tonks chewed on her lip in a way that would have made Remus's heart flutter if she hadn't looked like Dolores Umbridge. As it was, it kind of made his stomach turn. "That could be here, yeah. I guess…"

Unhappily, Hermione noted, "That's not much to go on."

Just then, the boys returned from their sacrilegious, disrespectful raid on the basilisk's withering body. Ron had jammed his pockets full of fangs.

"Ron!" Hermione gasped, her hands flying to her cheeks. "What if one stabs you?!"

Ron considered the point. He then promptly removed the potentially fatal objects from his pockets and placed them all into a pillowcase that he retrieved, apparently from nowhere.

"Anyway," Tonks put in, "either of you know anything about a dia-something of Ravenclaw's?"

"Diadem," Lupin corrected gently.

Ron scratched his head. "Uh… never heard of it. Why do you ask?"

"We think," Hermione told him, "that it might be a Horcrux, and that it might be hidden somewhere in the school."

"Well," Ron shrugged, "if it is, it doesn't matter what it looks like, does it? Just where it's hidden."

"You have a point," Hermione mused. "Oh, if _only _I had _Hogwarts, a History! _I _knew _I'd need it!"

"Well," Lupin suggested kindly, "I'd suggest that for now, we either continue our supposed inspection of the castle, flee, or find somewhere to hide while we figure things out."

"If I could only get to the library…" Hermione was muttering.

"I have an idea," Ron announced. Harry rolled his eyes, but the others, who by now had a good deal of faith in Ron's ideas, turned to listen.

Ron scuffed his foot on the floor and looked at his knees, a little embarrassed at the sudden attention.

"Well, you know, I was just thinking about how we used to hide from the real Umbridge all the time while we were practicing magic, and that made me think that maybe the Room of Requirement would be a good place… nobody could find us there, and last time, it provided books, so it might have the ones Hermione needs to look up the diadem."

The unpleasant woman clapped her hands together like a small child, grabbed the middle-aged man's slightly pudgy hand, and dragged him out of the bathroom. The pimply teenager raised an eyebrow. His associates, however, smiled knowingly before moving to follow.

In the Room of Requirement, Hermione was leafing through a thick, so-old-as-to-be-fragile book, and Ron's balding avatar was wending his way between the precarious towers of hidden objects of every sort.

Lupin smiled. "We left so much junk in here, thinking we'd want it later… Just the most random things you could imagine… If you find a white teddy bear with a pink sweater, that's one of them - a girl from Ravenclaw that he hated gave it to Sirius, and we were trying to charm it to follow Severus around chanting 'I love you', only we had to go to class, so we tossed it on in here…"

Leaving him to his memories, Tonks forged ahead into the monumental mess. _Diawhatsit, diawhatsit, diawhatsit,_ she thought absently, glancing over the vast amounts of things. She noticed a statue adorned with a wig and a tiara. "Gee, some hooligan's got a sense of humor," she remarked.

"Lemme see." Harry came over. His face's bushy eyebrows went up, and his too-wide mouth curled down at the edges. "It wasn't a hooligan," he protested. "_I_ did that."

Tonks kind of wanted to say, "I rest my case." Instead she said, "Oh. Well." And then she said, "Is that a diawhatsit?"

Harry considered it. "I don't think so. I think that's a tiara." He couldn't bear the idea that he might have been so close to not one but two Horcruxes in the past and left both sitting there. Tonks grinned roguishly, and he watched her features melt into a face mimicking the statue's.

"How do I look?" she asked, lifting the wig and tiara and adjusting them on her head.

Harry opened his mouth to comment, then stopped dead. Something was wrong - a shadow had passed over her face, which was now rapidly falling back into its usual appearance, but looking unnaturally pale and frightened. She seemed to be in pain.

"What's - what's wrong?" Harry asked, a little scared.

Tonks shook her head, then suddenly gave a horrible scream, dropping to her knees as her eyes rolled back into her head. Her whole body was shaking, and more color was leaching from her cheeks, leaving her face pallid and her hair a grayish brown.

Harry stood frozen for a moment, then, as she gave another scream, rushed madly back in the direction of the others.

"HELP!" he shouted. "HELP, SOMETHING'S WRONG…!"

Lupin was already barreling towards him, and Harry threw himself back against one of the piles of objects, feeling it tremble and then tumble in an avalanche of knickknacks and mementos to the floor, rather than get his borrowed face smashed in.

In seconds, Remus Lupin was at Tonks's side, taking her torso in his arms, his hood knocked askew, the terror on his face unspeakable and inexpressible. Ron and Hermione scrambled over and stopped short.

The first thing Lupin did was rip the tiara and the wig from his wife's head and toss them aside. The second thing was to snap in a voice utterly unlike him, strained and cold and unsettled, "Get someone. Anyone."

For the first time in his life, Ron missed his ungainly long legs as he stumbled for the door to the Room of Requirement. A final clumsy misstep sent him slamming against it, feeling the worst of the contusions blossom in his knees, and then he wrenched it open and staggered out into the hallway.

"Help!" he shouted at the top of his wheezy borrowed voice. "Help, somebody, please, she's _dying_!"

There was a dark figure pausing on the first stair not far away. It half-turned, not yet close enough to fall into the light of the candelabra on the wall. "Who is?"

"She—bu—" Ron wasn't sure why he was stammering, but the words just wouldn't come.

Almost instantly, a sallow, sour, hook-nosed face he hated was thrust up into his. "_Who_ is?"

"T-Tonks," Ron squeaked. He knew he shouldn't tell the truth, but it burst out of him anyway. In the name of _all_ that was good, why couldn't he—

Snape shoved past him and swept down the aisles between the junk, robes billowing after him. Even as Lupin stared, he dropped summarily to his knees and delved a hand deeply into the nearest stack of trash. When he withdrew it, his fingers were clenched around a bottle. He set it down and reached in again, yielding another flask - and then another. The glint in his beetle-black eyes was one of untold, untested brilliance, of intelligence sharper than a honed blade.

Remus clutched his wife closer against his chest, a child clinging desperately to a dying pet, mortification written in every line of a face suddenly weathered with horror and disbelief. "Get awa—"

"Don't be stupid, Remus." Spidery white fingers lifted the first flask against the light, which filtered crimson to the floor. He lowered it and added a little more of something dark and viscous. "That was always James's forte, not yours."

"Hey!" Harry said.

No one paid a modicum of heed.

It only took Snape a few more seconds to finish the potion, but it seemed like hours - Ron waited, panting and trembling; Hermione knelt at the edge of the group, desperately searching for some way to help; Harry stood with his arms folded, glaring at Snape; and Tonks wept and writhed in the arms of her white-faced husband.

Moments later, the Potions master was holding a vial of dark crimson liquid, almost like blood, giving it a few last swirls. As he moved to administer it, Lupin flinched almost by reflex, protectively pulling Tonks a little closer and looking suspiciously at the small bottle.

"If you'd like to watch your wife die, Remus…" Snape snapped.

The little color remaining drained from Lupin's face, and he carefully but urgently lifted Tonks - who was still struggling weakly and whimpering like a wounded animal - to a sitting position. Her head lolled back, and he supported it with one hand as Snape leaned forward and tipped the potion down her throat.

Almost immediately, she gave a violent shudder, a kind of spasm crossing her face, and then went limp, her face as white as a corpse. Her husband, who was just as pale, gently eased her down into his arms and started sponging off her face with water he'd found somewhere.

"He killed her!" Harry shouted, pointing accusingly at Snape. "He's working for the Death Eaters, and he killed her just like he killed Dumbledore!"

"If," Snape growled in reply, his eyes flashing, "what I gave her had been poison, believe me, Mr. Potter, I would have saved it for you. Secondly, had I wished to kill her, I would not have had to waste the time mixing a draught. What in the name of all the four founders at once did she _do _to incur that powerful a curse?"

Scurrying around them, giving Snape a considerable berth, Hermione snatched the tiara from the floor and examined it. There was ancient dirt crusted in the fine filigree, and she held it as if it was roadkill. "It… must be one of the—" she glanced at Snape and finished weakly, "—things… we're… looking for."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "The Horcruxes."

Everyone - save Tonks, who was moaning into Lupin's chest, and Lupin, who was stroking her hair and ignoring everything but the tiny spots of color in her cheeks that his mind was fervently urging to spread - gulped in impeccable synchronism.

With the dignity of a falcon gathering itself for flight, Snape rose from the floor. "You'll be wanting the sword, too, won't you?"


	6. This Would Make a Sweet Movie

Chapter Six

This Would Make a Sweet Movie

"Hang on," Ron began. "What exactly is going on here?"

"I can't explain now," Snape replied, sounding a little impatient. "But Dumbledore left Gryffindor's sword with me and gave me specific instructions to make sure it ended up with…" His lip curled a little. "…Mr. Potter."

"All right…" Hermione began slowly. "So - so he knew that the Ministry wouldn't—"

"DON'T LISTEN TO HIM!" Harry shouted suddenly. "HE'S A TRAITOR, HE'S A DEATH-EATER, HE KILLED DUMBLE—"

He continued to shout wordlessly for a moment, then clapped his hands over his mouth and glared at Hermione, who had just cast a silencing charm on him.

"So he told you about our quest, and the Horcruxes?" she demanded of Snape. "And - and killing him was - was somehow part of his plan, or something?"

He merely nodded.

"All right," she decided. "Harry and I will come with you to get the sword; Ron can stay here with the others and guard the diadem."

Harry looked somewhat mutinous, but he did get to his feet, however reluctantly.

"All right," Hermione said, seeming relieved. "Let's get going."

She followed Snape out the door, making sure Harry was there dragging his feet behind them, and a moment later, it closed behind them. Ron shot a nervous look at the diadem, and Lupin continued to stroke Tonks's hair.

"Feeling any better, dear?" he asked in a whisper.

"Mmm…" Her eyelashes fluttered a little, and the smallest and weakest of smiles touched her lips. "The stubble's pretty hot…"

Lupin smiled. "Clearly," he replied softly, "you're still quite delirious."

Ron verified that the pink was coming back into her cheeks - and, gradually, her hair - and edged off to examine the tiara, giving them a little bit of space.

He turned the crown over in fingers like little sausages. Ron liked sausages, especially Polish ones, when his mother made them, but they were pretty useless as fingers. He missed his knobbly, too-big hands. They would have been better suited to tiara-turning.

Inwardly he sighed. It was weird - usually he hated being so tall and lanky and _awkward_, but now that he was short and squat and kind of chubby, he was missing his normal body something fierce. Ruefully he smiled. Life was kind of like that, wasn't it? You didn't know what you had until it was taken away and you were left with uncooked sausages for fingers?

Meanwhile, Tonks was recovering a bit more, color returning to her hair in earnest as she explained a bit weakly but quite cheerfully, "No, really. It gives you the whole mysterious-vagabond look. Girls go for that. The kind of dashing-hero thing. It has a sort of appeal, I think. The mystery. The whatnot."

Lupin smiled a little bashfully. "I'm not much of a dashing hero."

"Well, I think you are," his wife replied pleasantly. "I mean, not that I'm saying that this look is necessarily better than your normal one. It's a little unkempt-looking. But I still think it's sexy." She smiled, a bit wanly but also cheerily.

Lupin looked at once horribly embarrassed and utterly delighted. It was a tricky facial expression, and Tonks was a bit surprised that he managed it so well. With his help, she managed to raise herself high enough to curl up in his lap and lay her head on his shoulder. She explored the prickly hairs on his chin with her fingers.

"I think," she said, "you should find yourself a cowboy hat and go bust up a saloon. Have a high noon showdown. And all the kids will go, 'Come back, Shane!'"

He smiled. "I'm willing," he responded with that same gentle hint of laughter that made her heart feel like a fluffball, "so long as you'll stand by waving your handkerchief."

Immediately Tonks did a pretty good Southern belle. "Ah saih, dahlin', you be caehfuhl now, y'heah?"

Shortly, the other half of the group had returned. Harry was very gleefully waving a silver sword with pristine rubies set in the long crossbar, a particularly large one adorning the pommel.

"Watch where you point that thing," Snape barked, "before you put someone's eye out!"

Hermione, who was taking refuge behind the headmaster, vigorously nodded her assent.

"Nonsense," Harry replied airily, holding his left arm high above and behind him like a fencer - or, as he more closely resembled, a confused ballerina - and using his right to jab the blade deep into a pile of assorted objects.

The pile he had stabbed slid a little, threatening to cause an avalanche of junk, and Hermione took the opportunity to dive in and jerk the sword out of his hand.

"Be careful, you idiot!" she scolded. "Gryffindor's sword isn't a _toy._"

"I _know _that," Harry sulked. "I was just _practicing._"

"Practicing what?" Hermione asked, rolling her eyes. "Showing off?"

"He has enough practice at that," Snape muttered under his breath.

"May I?" Lupin asked Hermione, extending his hand.

"Oh - oh, all right," she agreed, handing him the sword. Carefully he took it and used the other hand to help Tonks to a position leaning against a large cabinet, then rose and faced the diadem.

"Please stand back," he requested quietly. "I don't know what will happen when I try to destroy it, but it may fight back."

Ron and Hermione drew their wands nervously, Tonks watched worriedly, Snape folded his arms, and Harry opened his mouth to ask why he shouldn't be the one to destroy the Horcrux, given that Dumbledore had left the sword to _him_, Harry Potter, not anyone else. However, before he could speak, Remus Lupin lifted the sword, focused on his target where it lay on the ground, and swung the blade as fiercely and forcefully as he could into the thing that had dared to hurt his wife.

An earsplitting scream without end emanated from the crown, and the tarnished gold seemed for a moment to melt - but only for a moment, an infinitesimal portion of a second, after which it roiled like a maelstrom. Then, from the center of the churning metal, sloppy tendrils of gold slapped their way around the blade of the sword. Cringing away from the merciless grating of the continued shriek, Lupin jerked on the sword, but it would not come. The tentacles slid up higher rapidly, growing, lengthening, drawing on an impossible and endless supply of material within the crown, sliding in fast-motion up the groove in the blade towards the grip and Lupin's hands around it.

"Oh, God—" Tonks gasped out, her voice disappearing into the shattering aria of the scream.

Before Lupin could drop the sword and abandon it to its fate, the arms of the tiara encompassed his fingers in theirs, surging forward hungrily, climbing his arms, bathing him in blackened, glinting gold.

Tears of anguished incredulity pricking her eyes, Nymphadora Tonks yanked her protesting body off the ground, threw her arms around Remus's shoulders, closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and wrenched him away from the crown with all her might.

When she dared to open her eyes again, she had stumbled four feet from the diadem, Severus Snape had caught her arms to keep her from falling, and Remus was sitting on the floor dumbly, the gleaming sword in his hand, staring at the jagged cracks that spread like spiderwebs through the front of the diadem. The silence was full and awed.

"So," said Ron in a small voice. "On to the locket?"

"I… I guess so…" Hermione breathed. "Anybody want to do the honors…?"

She was greeted by an enthusiastic round of silence.

"_I'll _do it," Harry volunteered nobly. For once, nobody argued with him. Lupin opened his mouth to suggest that perhaps the one on whom the hope of the free world rested wasn't the best choice for a potentially dangerous job, but before he could speak, Tonks wrapped her arms around him protectively and held on more tightly than the tendrils from the crown. He sighed a little, not entirely unhappily, and allowed himself to be pulled back to a safe distance once he had surrendered the sword to Harry.

They placed the locket on the floor.

Harry readied the sword.

Everybody tensed.

"_Open," _Harry hissed. The locket sprung open, and the spectators all flinched away. They needn't have, though - apart from a few hissing syllables that it managed to get out before Harry stabbed it - perhaps a bit too enthusiastically - it put up little resistance. It was almost suspicious, after the battle with the tiara, but Snape glanced at the cracked locket and confirmed that it was indeed no longer a Horcrux. So that was that.

"So… what else?" Hermione asked meekly. "We got Ravenclaw's diadem… Something from Hufflepuff, maybe?"

Characteristically - and, Hermione thought before she could stop herself, endearingly - Ron scratched his head. "Wasn't there something about a cup?"

"A goblet, you mean?" Snape corrected, still with that bird-of-prey air about him.

Smiling now, ignoring the caustic tint to the words, Ron nodded. "Yeah, that's right. So where's that at? Probably, like, the top of Mount Everest, if he's smart."

"Except that we could Apparate to the top of Mount Everest," Harry remarked, smirking.

"And the change of pressure would wreak bloody hell on your lungs as you did; very good, Potter," Snape said crisply. "But no, I don't believe the Dark Lord would be inclined to indulge in a Muggle landmark as one of his sanctuaries."

"He entrusted Severus with Hogwarts, where_ - that_—_"_ Lupin glanced at the diadem. "—was. Might he have given another of the objects to another of his most faithful supporters?"

Tonks's lips twisted into a small and bitter smile. "Like dear Auntie Bella?" she remarked.

Lupin looked at her for a moment. Then he shook his head.

"No."

"No?" she looked a little downcast. "What do you mean? You don't think she has it?"

"I do think she has it," he replied quietly. "At least, I think it's a possibility. But this time, you're not going to be the one leading the group. You've been impossibly brave and loyal, but we're going to drop you off back at home, and—"

"What are you talking about?" she demanded indignantly. "Why should you leave me behind? I've been doing all right so far, haven't I? I got you four in here, didn't I? I—"

"I know," her husband interrupted, sounding pained. "But—" He broke off and looked at the ground, and when he lifted his eyes again, he looked closer to tears than most of his companions had ever seen him. "Dora, she tried to kill you. You said it yourself. You said she wanted you at least as badly as she wanted Harry, and I - I'm not willing to take that risk." He drew her in, taking her protectively into his arms like a favorite stuffed animal or a beloved child, and buried his face in her hair. "I can't lose you," he murmured, his voice breaking a little. "I can't. I wouldn't be able to live."

"Don't be a sentimental dummy, Remus," Tonks said, tears heavily sonorous in her voice, muffled as it was by his chest.

Harry was rolling his eyes, and Hermione hit him on the arm, hard. To his astonishment, Snape was looking at him murderously too. Was _everybody _against him?

One look at Ron, who was glaring at him and muttering something about "inconsiderate gits," answered that question.

"I'm not," Lupin was whispering. "I'm being realistic. She wants you _dead_. I can't - I don't even want to _think_ about that idea, let alone _live_ it." He drew back to offer her a watery smile, raising two fingers to her cheek. "My household was very, very unbalanced until you came along, and my life was a shambles. I didn't know what life really _was_, what _my_ life really could be, until you stepped into it. Please, Dora. For me. Just sit this one out."

"What, and let her kill you instead?" Tonks gave a slightly unstable half-laugh, half-sob, tears sliding down her cheeks now. "Yeah, that'd be a r-real g-great way to take care of me. I'd be stuck all alone, with my f-family gone and a k-kid to raise on my own, barely even able to take care of _m-m-myself_… I wouldn't be able to _live_, I…" She raised dripping eyes to his, trying to keep her voice steady. "She wants me because I married _you. _She wants both of us dead, and I'd rather die at your side than live on my own. It doesn't matter what you say, Remus. I'm not staying home alone, because you promised when you married me that I'd never have to be alone again. I'm not going to go sit and drink tea and wait for them to bring your body back - I'm going wherever you are, because when I do die, I want it to be in your arms." She tried to dry her eyes, gave up, and buried her face in his chest.

"I love you," she told him quietly and tearfully. "And I'm never going to leave you."

Remus didn't reply. It wasn't because there weren't a thousand things to say. It wasn't because he couldn't return the feeling with every fiber of his mind and his body and his wretched soul. It wasn't even because of the tears in his eyes, the tightness in his throat, and the vertiginous pounding of his heart. It was because everything that had needed to be said had been, on an altar, with two rings and a beautiful woman in a white dress that he had somehow gathered up the nerve to kiss.

He kissed her again, now, burying his hand in her hair, losing his fingers in its expanses, his pulse throbbing in his very fingertips where they rested lightly against the small of her back.

After a few long, long, magnificent seconds, he drew back to kiss the tears off of her face, drinking in her misery, lifting it from her shoulders. He would have done anything - anything.

Politely Severus cleared his throat. "Likely," he said slowly, "going to the Lestranges' won't even be necessary. It seems reasonable to me that she might be keeping the goblet in her vault at Gringotts."

"Well," Ron put in hesitantly. "At least that's not… er…"

"Impossible," Harry finished glumly. "D'you know just how secure that place is?"

"Oh, come on," Hermione reprimanded him. "We'll find a way. Besides, it's probably safer than trying to sneak into a house full of Death Eaters."

"On the other hand…" Ron looked a little unsettled. "I told that snake we were going to Gringotts. What if it told… you know… You-Know-Who? If there really is a Horcrux hidden there, and he heard that's where we were going, then for all we know, he could be hiding in the vault, waiting for us."

All present shuddered at the thought.

"Speaking of the snake," Hermione said in a small voice, "maybe we should go try to kill it, first. I mean…" she gave a nervous laugh. "Gringotts can wait a little, right? Ron's right, I _really _don't like the idea of trying to sneak into a place we practically told him we were going… I mean, I'm not so worried about having to break into the bank - given that we can probably find the tools we'll need here in the Room of Requirement - but if he _is _waiting for us there…" She trailed off fearfully.

Even as her eyes sought the others' faces, probing for help, Snape bit back a curse and clutched his left forearm. At the confusion around him, he drew back his sleeve to reveal that the mark on his pale, pale skin burned an angry red.

"Will Severus Snape please come to the front desk?" he mocked bitterly. "We've got a message for him." He shoved the sleeve down again, breathing hard. "I don't know what he wants. If you stay here, I'll report back to you as soon as I can with all the information I can get without attracting any undue suspicion." Something that distantly resembled a smile twisted his lips. "Shouldn't be hard, given that they all suspect me anyway… If you'll step out of here a moment and focus, the Room will give you a place to stay. It won't do food, of course—"

"Laws of Transfiguration," Hermione murmured.

"Precisely. If I happen to run into Mr. Longbottom, I'll tell him to take care of that for you, but—" Sucking a breath in between his teeth, he rubbed at his arm. "—I've lost enough time already."

Once he had left, the five who remained assembled outside the room. By this time, the Polyjuice Potion was wearing off, so they let Lupin concentrate on what they needed and then hurriedly filed back into the room. It had now set itself up into a large, comfortable room with fluffy, dark green carpets, a fireplace, and several comfortable-looking sofas and armchairs scattered around a central table. There were a few piles of beanbags and pillows scattered in various corners and a bookshelf here and there, as well as some parchment, a few Muggle ballpoint pens, and a deck of cards resting on the table.

Hermione immediately went over and pulled a book called _Gringotts: The Gold and the Glory _off the shelf, then curled up in an armchair and began reading, occasionally pausing to take notes on a scrap of parchment with one of the ballpoint pens. The others settled themselves around the room, and Ron started to play solitaire.

A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Lupin went to open it, and Neville lifted a huge picnic hamper, beaming.

"The house-elves in the kitchen gave it to me; I didn't even have to steal it."

"You're a gift to mankind, Neville," Lupin told him, accepting it with a smile. "Care to join us?"

Neville shook his head pleasantly. "I've got some Herbology extra credit to work on, and then I've got detention from one of the - _new_ - teachers for saying I thought Dark Arts were counterproductive." He beamed. "There's going to be eight of us. Anyway, hope that'll do." He poked at the red-and-white checkered fabric concealing the contents of the huge basket. "I think there's a whole apple pie in there. They just kept throwing stuff in so fast that I couldn't even see, really… Soon as I told Dobby you guys were hungry, y'know."

Hermione blushed happily.

As Neville drew the door to behind him, Lupin went to set the basket on the table, smiling faintly. The smile faded a little as he rubbed his chin - first absently, then intently. Before Tonks could ask what was wrong, he went over to a small chest of drawers nestled in a corner and took from the first door an electric razor, which he applied to his facial hair efficiently. Seeing his wife's eyes on him, he remarked with a small smile, lines of deep worry engraved in his forehead, "It'll grow back by tomorrow, at this rate. Didn't think a full beard would be quite so attractive."

She shook her head in sad agreement. "No, guess not." Then she smiled more fully, crossed the room to join him, and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Never fear. You're still as stunningly handsome as ever."

She grinned, and he laughed that quiet, half-embarrassed, completely adoring laugh of his that she loved so much.

Meanwhile, Ron and Hermione had abandoned books and card games in favor of the food, and Tonks eagerly joined them, pulling her husband along by the hand. Harry grudgingly accepted a biscuit and nibbled on it dolefully as he leaned back in his armchair. Why did he get the feeling that, at least so far, he had been completely unnecessary to the quest? That they could have just as easily - perhaps even _more _easily - found and destroyed the Horcruxes without his help? Why?

However, at that moment, there was another knock on the door. Lupin moved to stand, but Tonks leapt to her feet immediately, narrowly avoiding knocking over a bottle of pumpkin juice in the process.

"Whoops! No, it's all right dear, I'll get it." She hurried to the door and pulled it open, and five sets of eyes fixed on the newcomer.

Harry's lit up.

"Hey," Ginny said.

"Gingin!" Harry cried.

The others could almost hear the swelling sound of the violins as the two somehow managed to race towards each other slowly, arms outstretched. The collision was close kin to the explosion of a small nuclear warhead, if said device were to result in furious, fervid, utterly revoltingly egregious making out.

Ron, a forkful of pie halfway to his open mouth, looked like he was going to throw up. The rest were tactful enough to wince and attempt to find the carpet very, very interesting.

"Ginny, darling," Harry breathed, panting from the recent exertion from which they'd taken a momentary break, "I've missed you so."

"Oh, Harry Berry," Ginny responded, her full lips curled into a pout of unlikely beauty, her eyes wide and pleading. "Oh, _Harry Berry_, you mustn't ever leave me again! I've been so desperately lost without you…"

"Love is a battlefield," Harry proclaimed, taking her strangely lovely face in both hands. If Harry Potter had had a brain, he might have wondered why Ginny Weasley's remarkable prettiness had only appeared when she had been assigned to the task of becoming his, the protagonist's, girlfriend.

"I believe in a thing called love," Ginny cried, tears sparkling in her deep, deep, deep, deep eyes.

"You're the one that I want," Harry breathed breathlessly. He wasn't quite sure how he managed that one, reflecting on it bemusedly. Something to do with the inspiring violin music playing full-blast in his head, perhaps. "The one I want, I want, I want, I want, ooh, ooh, ooh."

"Oh, darling," Ginny replied. "Un-break my heart."

"I think I love you," Harry whispered back. "So what am I so afraid of?"

"What's love got to do with it?" Ron snorted.

"Oh, God," Hermione muttered. "I'm going to go kill the snake."


	7. Why Doesn't Anybody Ever Knock?

Chapter Seven

Why Doesn't Anybody Ever Knock?

Hardly had Hermione made the motion to go kill the snake instead of enduring the exertion of overactive hormones that was playing out in the Room of Requirement when there were three more-than-willing volunteers. Harry and Ginny, for their part, were too busy kissing again to pay any attention.

"They can stay and guard our hideout," Hermione decided.

"Yeah, fat lot of help they'll be in keeping watch," Ron muttered. "Well, as long as we don't have to put up with it."

The four left the school - Tonks as Umbridge again, Lupin with his hood pulled forward even further to conceal his now clean-shaven face, and Ron and Hermione under the invisibility cloak. Hermione looked a little fearful as they passed the dementors, but Ron caught her hand under the cloak and squeezed it, and she took a deep breath.

"Let's be off, then," she decided, sounding braver. Tonks led the way through the dementors' dark, silent ranks, her little entourage following, and at last, they emerged into the town, where they ducked into an alleyway and Disapparated.

And then they were back in Godric's Hollow, the rosiness of the encroaching evening painting the snow the color of innocent blood.

Lupin shuddered. When had he gotten so morbid?

Up the slushy cobblestone pathway they went. Tonks's brow furrowed momentarily, and then she became Harry again, which was, as always, slightly disconcerting. Drawing in a deep breath and releasing it in a puff of mist in the frigid air, she raised one hand and knocked firmly on the door.

There was some shuffling from within, and it sounded like one of the towers of ancient memorabilia within had been toppled. Then the door opened, and the crinkled walking corpse that was Bathilda Bagshot looked at them with wide, empty eyes.

"A… moment," Lupin said abruptly, sudden doubt on his face. He took Tonks's arm and drew her out of the snake's hearing range, tugging her gently over towards the gate.

"So… Nice weather, i'n it?" Ron invented nervously.

"Yeah, nice… and… cold," Hermione put in lamely.

The snake watched the older man put his hands on the dark-haired boy's shoulders, but she couldn't hear what they were saying. Angrily she bit back a hiss, wishing that the two fools lingering in the doorway would shut their babbling mouths.

"I don't think we have any choice but for you to do this," Lupin was telling Tonks quietly. "I don't think she'll reveal herself to anyone but Harry Potter. And—" He struggled again, as he always did. "—I… think it would be suspicious if you went in carrying the sword we're supposedly here to get. So… We'll be right outside the door. When you see the snake, scream for us. Loud as you can. Maybe become something small, and try to hide - I don't know. Just—" Weakly he smiled. "—don't let those survival instincts go to waste."

Passing it off as natural, Tonks turned so that Lupin's back was to Nagini, his body between her and the house. She pushed herself up on her toes and kissed him.

Then she realized that she had actually pushed herself up on _Harry's_ toes and kissed him.

_Oops,_ she thought guiltily.

Lupin blinked a little, but when she let go, he was smiling. A finger darted up to brush a melting snowflake from her cheek. "Well-said," he remarked.

Docilely the dark-haired boy followed Nagini's creaking body up the stairs. She tried to conceal her delight. The master would be pleased… _so _pleased…

Into the room she'd picked, one full of furniture that she could navigate much faster than a tall, four-limbed boy, a room shrouded in a layer of dust with cobwebs draped like streamers. The wallpaper had peeled like dead skin trying to escape its owner; a dresser squatted low and brooding against the left wall, the attached mirror glimmering dully in the ray of moonlight that forced its way between the drawn curtains that hid the cracked window.

Harry Potter walked into the center of the room, his hands loosely at his sides, looking around aimlessly. Didn't he usually wear glasses? Nagini paused. But that wasn't enough to alert the master of. He wouldn't care if the boy had gotten smart and invested in some good contact lenses.

Nagini held back a triumphant hiss, stepping behind the boy where he looked intently in the grimy mirror. Yes. It was time.

Disgust and disbelief mingled on Harry's face as Tonks watched Bathilda Bagshot's skin fall away. She took in a deep breath, and then she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Ron rushed in, sword raised over his head, resolve written over his features, only to receive a bodily blow to the chest from the snake's thick tail.

Nagini gave a roar of a hiss. They had tricked her. And they were going to pay.

The breath knocked flat out of him, Ron dropped the sword and tripped as he staggered backwards, tumbling to the floor.

Remus snatched the sword up where it had fallen and swung at the writhing snake's head. Rearing, Nagini leaped at him, mouth wide, fangs dripping with venom clear and effervescent like corn syrup, and he dove backward to avoid her teeth. Tonks reached for him, but Nagini wrapped her tail around the hem of his cloak and yanked hard, and Remus, jerked off balance, stumbled towards her waiting fangs—

And then there were no fangs. There was only a glint of silver and a spurt of blood like black ink, and the snake's blind head lay forlornly on the floorboards, dripping onto their dusty panels.

Hermione Granger held the sword of Gryffindor in trembling hands, drops of ebony blood still dripping from its point. Then she let the sword fall from her numb fingers and started to cry weak, astonished tears.

Instantly, Ron was at her side, his arms around her shoulders.

"That was _brilliant_, Hermione!" he told her. "You've done it; you've destroyed the Horcrux; now we only have one left!"

"Not only that," Lupin told her softly as she clung to Ron's arm and sniffled, "I am also quite certain that you saved my life."

Tonks didn't have to add her thanks - she was already huddled in her husband's arms, trembling.

"That was too close," she whispered, raising her eyes to his face.

"I was thinking the same thing," he smiled weakly, leaning down a little to kiss the top of her head, burying his lips in hair that was fading from black to pink. "I suggest we go back to Hogwarts - it seems unwise to linger here."

Ron nodded emphatically, and the little group collected the sword, draped a blanket over the remains of the snake, and made its way back outside.

"Well," Tonks said hopefully as she melted her features back into Umbridge's in preparation to Apparate, "maybe they'll be… you know… done… by the time we get back."

At that moment, deep in the heart of Hogwarts, Harry Berry managed to forcibly remove his lips from Gingin's.

"Hey," he said slowly, glancing around. "Where'd everybody go?"

"Forget them, Baby-Sweet-Cupcake," Ginny sighed happily, grabbing his chin and making him look at her again. "Just kiss me, you great, hunky, Quidditch-playing, stupidly-brave studmuffin."

Harry cast one more cursory look around, pausing. Wasn't there something about… Horcruxes…? Ah, who cared?

"Okay," he agreed affably.

Two pairs of lips snapped back together like a rubber band pulled to the end of its elasticity.

The real heroes walked back into the Room of Requirement.

"Aw, jeez," Tonks said.

"Oh, _God_," muttered Snape, who had arrived behind them. "I think I'm going to be ill. Shall we discuss things on the opposite side of the room?"

Nobody disagreed.

"All right," Snape explained quietly once they had gathered around him. "What I could glean is that he does seem worried about your potential desire to go to Gringotts - and acted as though there was something of importance there - but he's worried about something else, too. So if you lay low for a few days - you'll need to, in any case, if you want to plan a break-in to the most heavily protected establishment in the world - you should be safe. If I hear anything else about his plans, I'll let you know, but I won't be able to spend too much time lingering around here, or people will get suspicious."

"Any idea if he knows we're after the Horcruxes?" Hermione inquired worriedly.

Snape shook his head. "I don't think so. I think he has fears, but not definite suspicions yet. He was asking me to increase the guard around the school and keep an especial eye out for any unusual student activity."

In impressive synchronism, everyone glanced towards Harry and Ginny, who were, surprisingly, still fully-dressed.

"No, that's not particularly unusual," Snape commented. His face darkened. "Unfortunately. Let me tell you - when this is over, I'm retiring someplace nice and sunny where everyone's too old to have teenaged children."

Lupin sat down on one of the couches in the Safe Zone, i.e. fairly distant from the so-intense-as-to-be-potentially-radioactive snogging going on at the other end of the room, and Tonks joined him. A very loud crashing noise was audible from outside.

"Heavens, Miss Abbott," Professor McGonagall's voice remarked airily. "Those Weasley boys are awfully clever, aren't they? I wouldn't have expected that to blow a hole through the entire portrait that Mister Malfoy Senior was so kind as to leave us."

Snape laughed aloud. It was a foreign and unanticipated sound, but not an unpalatable one. "Duty calls," he noted. Skirting the nuclear reactor core of lust that was Harry and Ginny, he exited the Room of Requirement.

"Er… so," Ron remarked, crossing the room to join Lupin and Tonks on the sofa.

"So," Hermione repeated, following suit and spreading a large book across her knees. "This book is wonderful, it gives all sorts of information about Gringotts… It's not going to be easy, though. I think we ought to make our plans under the assumption that the Lestranges' vault is one of the top-security ones and then be pleasantly surprised if it isn't."

"You mean," Lupin corrected with a wry smile, "be very, very worried and suspicious if it isn't."

"Oh… I suppose so," Hermione agreed sadly.

Ron clapped her on the shoulder reassuringly, being careful not to bring his hand down too hard.

"Don't worry," he assured her. "After all, nothing that's there can possibly be worse than what we're sharing a room with right now."

Hermione smiled weakly at him.

"Thanks, Ron. That helps a lot."

He grinned a grin that was a bright, cheerful, a little awkward, and a little too big - in short, everything he was.

As the night wore on, the burgeoning moon high above the tapering spires of the castle, Hermione detailed the kind of perils that they would likely find themselves facing as they attempted something no one had ever been stupid enough to do before - break into Gringotts. Eventually, something unexpected happened.

"Oh," Ginny gasped, rather out of breath, her knees beginning to ache something terrible from standing there all that time, "Harry Berry - I'd better go. There's a curfew at Hogwarts now."

"Curfew?" Harry scoffed. "That sounds an awful lot like a _rule_. And you know how I feel about rules, Ginginny McGin."

"Well, I'd better go," Ginny noted tearfully, apparently ignoring the sad attempt at a nickname that Harry had just made. "Otherwise someone will be flaying my hide."

"But your hide is so beautiful, like everything else about you down to your toenails!" Harry protested mournfully.

"All the more reason to preserve it unflayed," Ginny replied. "Goodbye, Harry, darling. All my love and all my hopes of success on your epic quest."

"Oh, yeah…" Harry remembered, suddenly, that there _was_ a reason they'd come here.

"Right," Ginny responded. "Now I'd better be off."

"Let me kiss you one last time," Harry pleaded.

"Then I'd never get out of here," Ginny noted.

There was some emphatic nodding from the assembly on the couch.

Harry sighed deeply and looked morosely at the floor. By the time he mustered up the strength required to raise his heavy head, Ginginny McGin was Gonegoney McGone.

Harry pointedly ignored the audible sighs of relief from his companions and instead stalked over to look at the halfhearted notes that Hermione had made about the defenses they were likely to encounter at Gringotts.

"What did you even _write _this with?" he demanded. "The strokes are all… even…"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "It's called a _pen_, Harry, and they can be a whole lot more useful than quills and ink if you're taking notes. Now, the biggest problem we're likely to encounter is right at the start. Luckily, though, we have a couple days to figure out…"

Harry tuned her voice out and let his mind wander to the magical realm of daydreams. They had a couple days… There was a curfew overnight, but Ginny could return each morning… Who cared if she had class; bell schedules were _rules_, weren't they? And Harry had never liked rules…

As Hermione continued to explain the obstacles and the others offered ideas for ways around them, Harry leaned back in his chair and breathed a contented sigh. Things were looking up.

Within a few days, Hermione had filled almost an entire notebook with plans, lines crossed out everywhere, carats sprinkling the text like isolated mountains and leading a persistent reader to asides and changes that wandered the margins.

Harry pulled the cloak over his head. "Sounds great," he said, though he hadn't really been listening too much. It was hard to listen and be depressed about the idea of not having his parents at his and Ginny's wedding at the same time. "I'm going to go walk Gingin to class."

"I think _Gingin_ can walk down a hall by herself," Ron muttered.

Harry ignored him. Sidekicks would be sidekicks.

As the door shut behind his invisible back, Hermione tapped her prized ballpoint pen against the paper. Then she set it down and looked pointedly at Ron. "We should go get some food for later this evening," she remarked.

"Okay," he said, not understanding it yet, but perfectly willing to go along with it until he did.

"It'll probably take a good while," Hermione commented airily to Lupin and Tonks. "Don't… y'know… wait up."

"Yeah," Ron put in, the light of sudden comprehension in his eyes. "It'll be a few minutes."

Lupin smiled fondly. "All right," he conceded. "We won't get too concerned, then."

As the door clicked shut after _them_, he turned in time to see Tonks hiding a grin.

"Subtlety isn't their strong suit," she noted calmly.

Lupin looked at her silently for a long moment, and she smiled up at him contentedly from where she was sprawled over one of the beanbags. She had that wonderful glitter of verve and vivacity in her eyes and just the right hint of sprightly pink touched the apples of her cheeks. Long, slightly wavy hair the approximate shade of pink that appeared in the most blazing of sunsets was spread behind her, and her hands were folded behind her head.

Remus Lupin grinned back, slightly wolfishly.

Mere seconds after the appraisal, his lips were at her throat. Smiling to herself, Tonks latched her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. Stubble grazed her cheek, and she shivered happily. He always got a little more aggressive near the full moon - unsurprising, really, and not at all unpleasant. Pretty hot, to tell the truth.

His left hand planted above her shoulder for balance, his right was free to trail appreciatively down her side, his mouth exploring her face carefully. Even when he went all alpha wolf, he was so, so gentle. She buried one set of fingers in his hair and stroked the grove of emerging stubble on his jaw with the other. Hungrily she kissed his neck just under his ear. Stupid kids, dragging a couple of newlyweds out of their nice, quiet home just to go on some quest to save the world as everyone knew it—

Remus found her lips with his, held them a moment, and then traced a line of kisses down the side of her neck, fervently now. Maybe she'd get a hickey! She'd always been kind of morbidly curious what _that_ was like.

No, she reflected contentedly as the fingers of his right hand rode reverently over her ribs, as he caught her lips again and wordlessly conveyed more love than most people thought a human heart could hold - even when the moon was this heavy, Remus was never that rough.

He didn't need to be. Just the brush of his lips against her skin spoke volumes.

_Go for the ear,_ Sirius's ghost whispered urgently. _They LOVE the ear._

Remus wasn't really thinking. He hadn't been for a while. If he had, he might have balked. Instead, he touched his lips to Tonks's left ear, and, right on cue, she giggled and squirmed happily.

_Hand to the collarbone,_ Sirius went on imperiously.

Remus raised his right hand and caressed the indicated ridge of bone. The action earned a delighted little sigh.

Sirius grinned. _Learn from a master,_ he advised, cracking his knuckles.

_Thanks, _Remus thought back, _but I really—_

_Cup her neck, _Sirius interrupted imperiously.

_Huh?_

He could sense Sirius's ghost rolling its eyes.

_With your hand. Girls love that. It makes them feel all vulnerable, and they think that's hot. That reminds me, this one time, I was with this one girl, and I told her I was a vampire—_

_Shut up, _Remus thought at him. _You're distracting me. _Carefully he slid an arm under his wife's shoulders and let his fingers slip around to hold the back of her neck, lifting her upper body a few inches into the air and applying his lips to her throat. He wrapped his other arm around her waist, his fingers sliding beneath the hem of her shirt and dancing up her spine, caressing her skin.

"Remus!" she exclaimed, a gasp turning into a kind of helpless, delighted laugh.

_Mine_, the wolfish part of his brain insisted.

"AUGH!" Harry Potter screamed.

Harry stared in disbelief. As he did, incoherently sputtering things like "obscene" and "unseemly," Lupin looked up uncertainly, seeming almost a bit disoriented. It was almost like he'd just woken up in a strange place and hadn't yet remembered lying down to sleep there the night before.

Tonks, however, grew articulate much faster, "articulate" being a relative term.

She gave Harry the finger.

"We're married. Now get out."

Harry sank to his knees, his hands in his hair, pain on his face. "Ohhhh…"

"Your - your scar?" Lupin hazarded, cautiously getting to his feet.

"No, the images in my _he-e-e-ead_," Harry moaned.

Tonks was on her feet before Lupin could offer her a hand. There was a dark hint of rage in her eyes. "You little prick," she spat at Harry. He looked up in surprise. She couldn't be talking about him. Was Draco Malfoy—? "Yes, _you_." Oh. That was strange. "What, you think the only people who are physically _capable_ of falling in love are teenagers? That what you think, hotshot?"

"Dora—" Lupin began carefully, wincing.

"_No_, Remus," she interrupted, the edge vanishing from her voice when she directed it at him. "You've cut him a hell of a lot of slack. More than he deserves. And I've given him a lot of leeway because you like him. But if he _presumes_ to find the _one_ truly great thing we've had in our lives _disgusting_, I'm not going to waste my time trying to find patience for him anymore."

"What's wrong?" Ron demanded. He and Hermione had reappeared and edged carefully through the door, and they were now looking bewilderedly from Harry where he knelt on the ground to Tonks's angry face.

Harry looked up at them mournfully, then indicated the offending couple with a single shaking finger. "They were… they were—"

"Acting a bit like you and Ginny have been for the past four days?" Ron demanded coolly.

Hermione folded her arms. "Spending their honeymoon looking after a bunch of teenagers on a quest and hoping for just a little private time together?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "It's not their _honeymoon_; they've been married for like six months. At least - " He shot a glance at Tonks's abdomen, which was in the first stages of beginning to grow a little. " - I hope so."

Tonks looked insulted and somewhat humiliated.

Before anyone could blink, Harry was flat on his back on the floor, and Lupin was over him, left hand pinning Harry's shoulder, his right keeping the point of the sword of Gryffindor hovering centimeters from Harry's jugular vein.

"Slight my wife again," he hissed softly, "and see what happens." He shook the bewildered boy on the floor, hard. "_See_ what happens."

"Remus," Tonks said quietly, her arms folded across her chest, concern paramount in her expression.

At the tone of her voice, he blinked, as if waking up from some bizarre, somewhat unpleasant dream, dropped the weapon, stood, and backed away from Harry slowly. "I…" he started. Then he stopped, looking confused, as if he couldn't quite figure out what it was he'd meant to say in the first place.

"You're sorry?" Harry prompted vituperatively, expecting Lupin to look shocked and embarrassed to get called on his crudeness.

So it was very unexpected - at least from his perspective - when Hermione gave him a vicious kick in the ribs.

"Shut up," she cried indignantly, "you - you - "

"Git," Ron supplied.

"Thank you, Ron," Hermione responded.

While Harry spent the rest of the evening sulking and nursing his grudges, the others gathered around Hermione's notebook and quietly finalized their plans for the next day. Occasionally, Ron would scratch his head and point something out, or Hermione would make a note in the margin of a page, or Lupin would start to tap his fingers on his knee restlessly. When that happened, his wife would lean over and gently put a hand on top of his, and his urgently tapping fingers would calm down. At one point, while he was tapping again and looking around nervously, she took his hand and gently placed it over the small bulge in her abdomen. He smiled softly and unexpectedly, then let out a quiet, happy sigh and slipped the other arm around her waist, pulling her a little closer and laying his cheek on the top of her head before successfully tying down his attention and returning it to Hermione's voice as it went over their plans a last time.

Remus couldn't help but remember when they'd first learned - when she'd come barreling out of the bathroom waving some strange plastic device with a line across a circle, yelling, "Remus! Remus! RemusRemusRemusREMUS!", and had summarily tripped on the edge of the carpet, primed to faceplant if he hadn't darted in and caught her. She had somehow managed to kiss him all over his face while still bouncing up and down wildly, and - he winced even now at the thought - he had been able to do nothing but stare at her in disbelief and think desperately, _Don't be like me. Please don't be like me._

Andromeda had insisted they have Muggle tests done, just to be sure, she said, to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything was all right, and two Half-Bloods weren't likely to contest the idea. Remus had sat numbly in one of the hard, cold chairs while Dora had chatted amiably with this doctor and that doctor, wondering vaguely whether he should pick up a magazine to hold in his faintly trembling hands to better convey the illusion that he was in control of his racing mind and erratically pounding heart.

Of course, she noticed. The one person in the world ever to notice _him_ was bound to notice a change in him.

"What is it?" she'd asked. He would shake his head, paste on a smile, assure her that it was noth— "Nothing doesn't do that to your face, Remus Lupin." She would point, and he would flinch as if from an indictment.

Eventually she tired of the stupid game, and she took his unsteady hands in hers and squeezed them so hard that they tingled. "Remus," she said slowly, "I'm not going to put up with this. If there's—" Her resolve had faltered a little, and the black hole in the pit of his stomach had sapped away another wisp of contentment, of normalcy. "—someone… else…"

Oh, God, no.

That had broken it in him, and he'd sat down right there, on the floor, and dropped his head into his hands. "Not that. Never that."

"Then _what_, Remus? _WHAT_?" He'd glanced up at the hopeless frustration edged with anger, and, upon seeing his face, her voice had softened. "I need to know, Remus. I need to."

"I…" he began slowly and somewhat miserably, dropping his eyes to the ground, "I can't help but think that… in light of my - condition… perhaps… the idea of our having children is - is a bad one." He lifted his eyes to her face, and what he saw there sent a wave of cold horror rippling through him. That spark he loved so dearly was gone - vanished from her face, which was now blank and somewhat lost. It was as if something behind her eyes had died, leaving emptiness in its place.

"Mr. and Mrs. Lupin?"

A voice broke into his thoughts, and he looked up to see a smiling nurse standing at the edge of the waiting room. Wordlessly, Dora rose and followed her, and he trailed after helplessly. What had he done to her now? Every time he tried to spare her pain, he ended up hurting her again.

It was during the ultrasound - while the doctor was adjusting the little probe and pointing things out on the nearby monitor - that he finally realized what was missing: she was no longer happy about it. She was watching the doctor identify tiny little features with a kind of empty, detached curiosity, as though it didn't really matter much to her anymore.

_Maybe,_ Sirius's ghost suggested halfheartedly, _you should tell her that no matter how big she gets, you'll still think she's hot._

_You idiot,_ said another voice that Remus recognized as James's. _She's not upset because she's worried about looking fat!_

_Hey!_ Sirius's ghost defended. _All girls worry about their weight. I think there's some part of their brain that's programmed to think they're overweight, even if they're thin as a—_

_Can't you see it's something much deeper than that?_ James's ghost insisted.

_Well, what would that be, Dr. Potter?_ demanded Sirius.

_She feels abandoned,_ James explained. _She think he doesn't want the baby._

_I never said I didn't want it!_ Remus thought back in horror. _I love children; I'm just worried that I'm dooming it to a life of misery simply by having fathered it!_

_Well, I don't think that's how she interpreted it,_ James informed him sadly.

_Think about it from her point of view,_ Lily added helpfully. _Imagine if she was the werewolf, and she told you she didn't want to have your child because there was a chance it would be like her. Wouldn't you be upset?_

_Yeah,_ James agreed.

_I still think—_ Sirius began.

_Please!_ Remus thought. _Just - just give me a little peace so I can think, all right?_ Of the doctor, he requested, "Could my wife and I have a moment alone, please?"

The doctor smiled and stepped out of the room obligingly, no doubt thinking that the couple wanted some privacy to express their mutual joy, and Remus sighed and then took a deep breath, searching for words.

As soon as the door closed behind the doctor, however, Dora jumped to the ground, crossed to the other side of the room, and sank to her knees, then curled up in a corner, her shoulders shaking. Remus couldn't remember ever having seen a sadder sight.

"When I was little," she began in a shaky voice as he knelt beside her, "I was just as scatterbrained and clumsy as I am now, so my friends would always joke about what a terrible mother I'd be. They thought it was funny. When I was fourteen, I went to someone's birthday party, and she was showing off her baby sister, but she wouldn't let me hold her. She said I'd probably drop her." Dora took a deep, shuddering breath and went on. "I was so lonely, and all my friends could ever joke about was how irresponsible I was and how awful it would be if I ever had kids, until it drove me crazy." There were tears sliding down her cheeks now. "I wanted a baby so much. It was so important to me. I wouldn't drop it or be careless with it; I'd love it. And I wouldn't care if it looked like a tiny Quasimodo and turned into a manticore every time it _saw_ the moon. I'd still love it, because it would be my kid."

Remus couldn't listen to any more. If he did, his heart would break.

Carefully he put his arms around her, expecting her to recoil and pull away. She didn't, which was good, because he would have died within - instead, she curled up closer, forlornly, like a wet kitten, coiling her fist around his shirt and clinging to it like a lifesaver. Sobs shook her shoulders, and each choking breath that she gasped out sent another silver knife through his susceptible heart.

He couldn't see her eyes, because her face was still buried in his shirt - which was on the damp side now - but he stared at the top of her head, and her consummately wonderful, endlessly vibrant hair, stared reverently and a little incredulously. Then he leaned down and kissed her forehead, because it was the only part he could reach.

"Nymphadora Tonks," he whispered, because he didn't trust himself to speak any louder, "you are the most beautiful woman in the world. I… hope… that you can forgive me. For letting my problems with myself get in the way of what should be a new life that is _ours_, not mine, that I shouldn't weigh down with those things."

There was a long pause, and then she slid her arms around his neck, and, little by little, the pain that had been in the racking sobs subsided. "I love you, Remus," she said weakly.

"As I love you," he responded softly.

There was another pause, the good kind.

_Weird,_ Sirius remarked.

_You're an idiot, _James noted, rolling his eyes. He turned to Remus and grinned. _That's what I'm talking about._

Lily smiled at him too. _Well done, Remus,_ she told him. _Just don't forget that she feels the same way about you that you do about her. It's all right. Everything's going to be all right._

When the doctor returned, she was somewhat surprised to find them curled up on the floor, both drying their eyes.

"Are… are you all right?" she asked, sounding worried.

"Yes, thank you," Remus replied, helping his wife to her feet. Then his eyes lit up a little.

"Could - is there any way you could show us the baby again?" he asked, a little helplessly.

"Of course," the doctor promised with a warm smile.

As the little form reappeared on the monitor, Remus squeezed his wife's hand, and she gave him a shaky smile from where she lay. He bent to kiss her forehead, then looked up to examine the tiny creature on the screen. For the first time, he stopped himself from thinking about all the potential problems it might encounter, all the worries and doubts that had been gnawing at his mind. Dora was right. It was their baby, and they were its parents, and they would love it - that was the most important thing.


	8. In Which Our Heroes End Up Royally F–ed

Authors' Note: Yes, we removed the burning/multiplying objects spell from Gringotts. We didn't like it. If you did, we apologize.

* * *

Chapter Eight

In Which Our Heroes End Up Royally F-ed

The next morning, Bellatrix Lestrange paced the Room of Requirement. Her associates were just as restless. Harry was saying goodbye to Ginny.

Well, actually, he wasn't saying much of _anything_, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

After it had gone on for a while, they broke apart momentarily to breathe, grinning giddily at each other. Ron seized the opportunity to seize Harry by the arm and drag him forcibly out of the room.

"ThanksgottagolaterBYE," he filled in as his interpretation of Harry's woeful howls and screams.

A mournful, airy cry of "Harry Berryyyyyyy" followed them out into the hall. Lupin tossed his hood up to hide his face, Harry and Ron squabbled in low voices under the Cloak, and Hermione merely stayed in Bellatrix's shadow and tried to look supercilious, knowing that no one would doubt her as long as she did.

When they reached the towering front doors of Gringotts, Tonks quailed a bit, but Lupin put a gentle and unobtrusive hand on her elbow that succeeded in giving her the courage to enter, her head held high.

When asked to provide her wand for identification, Tonks simply held out her own with an air of such bored ease that the goblin who had demanded it did no more than to give it a cursory glance and then hand it back to her with a nod.

"Follow me, please."

He led them through the doors at the other end of the hall - there was a moment of panic as they closed on the hem of the invisibility cloak, but then, somehow, it had slipped out, and they were through.

Down they drove, deep down, in the little cart, until they reached one of the vaults near the very bottom. So far, it had been surprisingly easy, and Hermione remembered Lupin's words with worry - what seemed like good luck might easily turn out to be a trap.

The cart's wheels squealed around the precipitous turns like lost souls in pain, and Hermione gripped the edge of the cart grimly, gritting her teeth, trying to avoid sitting on Ron's rather large foot, which was rather close to her thigh. Her stomach didn't appreciate this kind of torture.

They were all crammed in close, Bellatrix's elegant height and long legs making it no easier. The goblin who had been assigned the task of taking the entourage down to the vault, who had muttered that his name was something that sounded like "Eldritch," was attempting to stay as far from his charges as possible - a difficult task given that they were slotted in like spaghetti noodles in a cardboard box. He cast glances at them that conveyed suspicions only thinly veiled for the sake of politeness and condescension that wasn't veiled at all.

Hermione didn't think _that_ portended quick and easy success. Though, according to Lupin, that should be a good thing… or should it? She gave up. This was all far too confusing.

When they finally reached the correct vault, deep in what felt like one of the lowest caverns, the group climbed out with no little sense of relief, which changed into no little amount of fear when they saw the huge dragon shackled not far away.

Rolling his eyes at their trepidation, Eldritch drove the creature back with an unusual noisemaker that he produced, then waved the group to follow him and placed his hand upon the vault door.

It slid open.

Tonks waited for Eldritch to lead them in, but he remained at the door and indicated the vault with a small, grim smile.

"Please enter and take your time. When you have finished, the cart will take you back."

He disappeared.

Feeling even more nervous, Tonks and her entourage entered. There was a large pile of treasure in the middle, and, on a high shelf on the far wall, a little golden cup with a badger on it.

Most of the group hesitated, but Harry strode forward purposefully and climbed up on a small pile of gold coins to reach it.

"The final Horcrux!" he announced triumphantly, extending his hand.

"Harry, _wait!_" cried Hermione, who had just noticed that there was an identical gold cup on a shelf above the doorway.

It was too late. Harry's hand passed through the decoy, dispersing it like mist, and the door of the vault slammed shut behind them.

"Oh, Christ," Ron said.

Hermione stared at him - or, rather, at the general place from which his voice had come, given that it was pitch black in the vault. "Do you even know the significance of saying that?"

It was easy to imagine Ron's shrug. "Not really. Just sounded appropriate."

"I'm afraid we have bigger problems than semantics," Lupin remarked, a bit tightly. "Survival being one. Evidently this was indeed a trap - and an effective one, since we fell for it marvelously." After a rustle of fabric, he murmured, "Lumos." Immediately the modest light from the tip of his wand spread shadows across his face, exaggerating the lines, darkening the layer of stubble that had indeed reappeared on his chin and cheeks, glimmering in his eyes. "Ron," Lupin said calmly, "why don't you see if you can find a fault in the door?" He nodded to the glint of gold above the door. "Is that the real Horcrux?"

Hermione chewed on her lip and tugged at a section of her hair. Her father, when he saw her do it, always said that she was pulling on her brains and galvanizing them into motion. As far as she was concerned, whatever worked, worked. "It might be," she replied slowly. "Or it might be another fake that fills this whole room with hot lava or something."

A small smile alighted on Lupin's face, slightly eerie in the dim wandlight. "Very true."

"I… I dunno." Ron scratched his head. "I kinda don't think so. I mean, if I was You-Know-Who, and someone was trying to steal my Horcruxes, I wouldn't want to bury them in lava. I'd want to find out who they were. Wouldn't you?"

He glanced around with that nervousness that always followed one of his suggestions, that helpless worry that someone would laugh scornfully and tell him what a fool he was. But nobody did.

"You're right," Hermione agreed firmly. She climbed partway up a pile of treasure and plucked the cup off of its shelf. It did not bury them in molten lava. In fact, nothing happened, but this cup did not disappear.

"When we get back to the Room of Requirement," she said, "we can destroy it."

Nobody said the word _If_, but it was in everyone's minds.

They settled down for a long wait - minutes passed, hours; none of them could tell. Nobody spoke until, at last, the still, dark silence was broken by a soft moan.

"Remus?" Tonks asked softly and worriedly. "Are you all right?" She directed her wand light over to his face, which was pale and drawn. He looked somewhat ill, and he was trembling a little.

"What's wrong with him?" Ron demanded, sounding a little frightened.

Tonks opened her mouth. Then she closed it. Then her eyes widened.

"It's the twenty-second, isn't it? Tell me it's the twenty-second."

"Yeah, it is," Ron said slowly. "That was the day we planned for the break in. Remember?"

"No…" Hermione said. "It isn't." She held up her left wrist, illuminating her watch with a thin beam of wand light. "It's past midnight - almost one-thirty. It's the twenty-third."

"Fuck," Tonks breathed. Very slowly, she raised wide, horrified eyes to her husband's face. "It's full moon."

* * *

Authors' Note: We apologize for (a) The shortness, (b) The cliffhanger, and (c) The lateness of the chapter. It was Eltea's fault, but she had a really terrible day, so please have pity. To make it up, we'll try to update an extra time this week - look for it about Tuesday. :)

Tierfal says: And review, or we'll hate you forever. We now apologize for (d) Tierfal.

Eltea says: We won't really hate you if you don't review. But we'd love it if you did. :)


	9. In Which Our Heroes Get Un–F–ed

Authors' Note, or rather, Notes:

(1) About Harry. While we find him somewhat annoying, we have a tendency to love all of our characters, even the annoying ones. Therefore, the ending - which is coming up in a few chapters - will probably at least moderately satisfy the Harry fans reading this. We'll even explain away some of his grumpiness, because we love you that much for giving this story a chance. Bear with him for a few more chapters.

(2) We hope that those who expressed worry about possible bloody death in this chapter were merely fearful for the characters we all love. Otherwise… be warned that we're definitely entering the T level for violence

(3) Yes, we know that J.K. Rowling's werewolves are portrayed as psychotic bundles of bloodlust. We have chosen to make ours more like a real wolf. If that bothers you, you are more than welcome to write your own story where all the characters get eaten.

Thank you. We are shutting up now.

* * *

Chapter Nine

In Which Our Heroes Get Un-F-ed

Remus Lupin smiled a weak, sorrowful, apologetic smile - a smile that promptly transformed into a leer and then a snarl as his teeth lengthened and curved, as his eyes jaundiced like old newspaper in fast-motion, as his face began to reconfigure. Bone cracked horribly, his chin and jaw and nose coalescing like molten lead before extending outward with another series of spine-tingling _snap_s into a long, tapered snout. His ears inched their way up the sides of his head, extending outward and upward until they pointed like beacons towards the sky. The fur came out in fits and bursts, sprouting in gray and white tufts, and Lupin's limbs obeyed the moon's cruel caprices just like the rest of him, wrenching into place, padded paws blossoming on the ends of his extremities.

Lupin's lips curled back into a mockery of a grin, and a snarl built deep in his white-furred throat.

"Oh, Christ," Ron squeaked.

"Could you _not_?" Hermione squeaked back.

Face set like the stone of a statue, Harry raised his wand in a shaking hand and pointed it at the growling wolf.

"_NO!_" Tonks screamed, grabbing his arm and shoving it down so hard that Harry tumbled to the floor.

"Don't… be… _stupid!_" Harry yelled. "He'll kill us all; he'd want us to—"

Tonks didn't bother with her wand. Besides, magic wouldn't have provided the grimly satisfying crack of her fist connecting with the face of the boy audacious enough to suggest harming her husband.

"Don't you _dare!_" she shrieked, half-stumbling, half-crawling over to the newly-transformed werewolf. "Don't you even _think_ about touching him unless you want your ass handed to you, Harry Potter!"

She threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his fur, shielding him from the others with her body. If they wanted him, they were going to have to get through a very angry, very hormonal Auror first.

Warily, the wolf examined this woman. Normally, he would have attacked, but her dive _towards _him was somewhat confusing. Normally, the wolf's prey was frightened and tried to escape. He sniffed at the woman's hair and caught a very familiar scent. He sniffed again, at her clothes, and this time caught not only her scent but - faintly - his own, the human smell that lingered on his clothing and furniture. He recognized this woman - she was his mate. Not only that, she was carrying pups. She needed to be protected from the teenager now picking himself up from the ground dabbing at his bloody nose, him and the rest of his pack.

Hermione latched on to Ron's arm and pulled him back against the wall, gold skittering under her shoes. Harry stared dumbly at the wolf for a moment, swiping at his nose with his sleeve, before crawling backwards to join them.

Lupin growled, deep and low, a sound that resonated like mounting thunder against the walls of the cavern-like vault. The kind, gentle fingers he recognized stroked at his fur, rubbing behind his ears, running over his shoulder blades. Angrily he barked one more time at the trio of threats in the corner, and then he settled down, folding his front paws before him like a sphinx. Her palm slid down his back softly. Yes. That was good.

As the minutes wore on, her gentle hands stroking some of the tension out of his muscles, he gradually relaxed. Now she was scratching behind his ears again - that felt wonderful. He stretched contentedly, then gently shunted her over into a corner and curled up around her protectively.

The boy with the bloody nose half-rose and made an attempt to approach, but one snarl sent him scurrying back to the rest of his pack. The wolf eyed them suspiciously, then settled down again. She would warn him if they tried to attack.

Slowly, though, as minutes stretched out into hours, she became sleepy, her fingers pausing in their gentle caresses to cover a yawn. As her eyelids drooped even lower, the wolf allowed her to curl up with her head resting on his back, her cheek pressed into his warm fur. Moments later, he heard the soft, steady breathing indicating that she was asleep.

The pack in the corner seemed rather subdued, so, after shooting them one last threatening glance, the wolf curled up peaceful around his mate, closing his eyes but leaving an ear pricked up just in case.

This was how things should be.

At some point later - it was impossible to judge how much time had passed - there was a sound outside the vault door - the same sound that had driven the dragon away before, and then footsteps. The wolf's eyes snapped open, and he rose carefully to his feet - leaving his mate sleeping peacefully - and paced over to the other side of the door, slinking into the shadows.

Moments later, Bellatrix Lestrange stepped into the vault. Her eyes, searching in the dim light, ran over the pile of treasure and the missing trigger for the trap, then landed on a small figure curled up near the right wall.

"Show your face!" Bellatrix snapped imperiously.

Slowly, the figure raised itself up, blinking sleep from its eyes. Pink hair glimmered in the light of Bellatrix's wand, and her eyes widened, then narrowed.

It was her good-for-nothing, half-blood, monster-marrying niece, and she was pregnant. The blood of Bellatrix's noble family had been mingled with that of a werewolf.

She felt a cry of fury building in her chest, gathering, collecting, rumbling to be released. "_You_," she spat. "You married that _thing_." Tonks's eyes narrowed. "And now you're working on a whole den of them, by the looks of things," Bellatrix sneered, so disgusted she feared she might lose control of herself and vomit.

Desperately, feeling a swell of animosity in her stomach, black waters roiling tempestuously, Tonks fumbled for her wand. _Wherewasit, wherewasit, whereWASit—_

Flames of pure hatred raged in Bellatrix's eyes, and she raised her wand in one swift, elegant, viciously violent motion. "_Avada_—"

A flash of gray split the air like lightning, and Bellatrix Lestrange let out a strangled scream that petered out into a forlorn gurgle by its ignominious end. Thrashing on the floor, she slapped and pushed and shoved at the huge wolf that had its teeth buried deep in her throat, but Remus Lupin was not deterred.

He twisted his head, giving it one last, definitive jerk, and Bellatrix shuddered once and lay still. The wolf released its grip and stepped back. There was another cloaked figure by the door, wand in one trembling hand. The wolf's gold eyes narrowed, and he snarled - a sound that sent the man stumbling back, staring in horrified awe at the blood of Voldemort's favorite fanatic, matting the thick fur around the wolf's curled lips, reddening his long, curved canines.

"_Av—Ava—_" Rodolphus Lestrange stammered. He didn't know if the spell would work on animals. He didn't have time to think about it.

Neither did he have time to do it before the darkened fangs sunk into his windpipe.

A few moments passed in stunned silence. Then the wolf turned, growled one last time at Bellatrix's prostrate form, and returned to Tonks's side. She, to her credit, did not flinch away, but instead knelt beside him and wrapped her arms around his neck, stroking the fur of his back with one hand.

"Thank you," she whispered. The wolf nuzzled her affectionately. He had done his duty, protected his mate and her pups.

Hesitantly, the other girl approached, and he began a low growl in the back of his throat, but the gentle fingers began smoothing his fur again, then reached out to extend a hand to the girl, who edged a bit closer and took it, looking terrified. Another of the boys was following a bit behind her, and the bloody-nosed one was bringing up the rear.

The wolf tensed suspiciously, but his mate was touching each of them on the shoulder, ushering them a little closer - well, if she thought they were safe, perhaps they were. Perhaps they could be permitted to join the pack. He sniffed each of them in turn, and then he paced back to his mate, pushing her backwards a little. Even if he allowed them to join, he wasn't letting them get _too _close to her.

"So… how do we get out?" Hermione asked, her voice a bit squeaky. She indicated Lupin with a shaking finger. "Should we wait for him to turn back, or…?"

"I - I have an idea," Ron began hesitantly. "Did you bring any Polyjuice Potion?"

Ten minutes later, Bellatrix and Rodolphus returned to the main room of the bank, a huge wolf in tow. The goblins on duty eyed it fearfully, noting the blood flecking its lips, before looking questioningly to Bellatrix.

"I am grateful," she told them haughtily, "for your alert. When my husband and I arrived, our faithful Hugo had dealt with the intruders." She smiled nastily. "I left him in the vault, transfigured into a valuable-looking crown, the spell set to break when he was touched. As you can see, it was effective. Lucky for me, since, for all your magnificent defenses, you had been unable to recognize an impostor." She leaned down to stroke the wolf's head a little, and the goblins cringed, parting hurriedly to allow her and her husband to pass.

Moments later, the little group was out in the night air, with the last Horcrux tucked safely away in Hermione's bag.

It wasn't until they were safely back in the Room of Requirement that Hermione took out the cup and set it on the floor - the last Horcrux before they had to face the objects' creator. Harry, Ron, and Hermione made an uneven half-ring around the golden goblet, looking down at it dumbly and a little reverently. Tonks, for her part, was preoccupied with stroking the soft white fur of the wolf's stately chest as he licked the blood from his chops and watched her intently with yellow eyes.

"I'll do it," Ron said, just as Harry opened his mouth to ask someone to bring him his sword. Ron picked it up - _his sword_, in case anyone needed reminding - and ushered his friends away. "Stand back," he warned them, as if he was in any position to make commands.

Ron tightened his grip on the sword handle. It felt good in his hands - steady and strong, reassuring somehow. He looked down at Helga Hufflepuff's glimmering goblet, raised the sword high, and began a great blow.

Then he stopped.

There was liquid in the cup, dark, swirling liquid, the color of blood, of ink, of death, of his hair when it was wet, of Hermione's eyes, of - he couldn't tell anymore; he hesitated, holding the sword halfway through a stroke, and stared into it.

The cup seemed to expand - it wasn't so small anymore; instead, it was wide, huge, his face reflected in that changing water, the cup's radius like that of a mirror. He looked at himself, at his gawky, awkward features, at his boring brown eyes, at his juvenile freckles, at his contemptible red Weasley hair. Something stirred within him - something cloying and warm, something syrupy and comforting. Something like self-pity.

Hermione was the smart one, and Harry was the hero. What did that leave him? He was the sidekick character, the extraneous one, the one who would die in the movie, because it would make the audiences cry. He wasn't compulsory like the other two - he did comic relief and took bullets for the protagonist. What was he doing holding this sword? That was presumptuous if it was anything. He didn't have the authority to do this. You could see it in his face, in the melting putty of his face—

Horror reared in him, icy and sharp, but the warm sadness wrapped oozing arms around him, smothering it. Ron watched the tip of his too-long nose form droplets that fell to splatter somewhere he couldn't see. His skin was graying, graying, and wide wounds were opening, the exposed flesh an angry ruby red, his eyes drooping like a basset hound's. He realized with a blurry sort of bewilderment that he was watching himself rot and die. Distantly he felt a stinging in his arms, stinging on both sides, repeatedly. He couldn't gather himself enough to feel it any more distinctly. He was _dying_, he was dying, his face was dying, and he was _molding_ and _decomposing_ even as he watched…

"Ron?" Hermione prompted nervously as he paused. He said nothing but looked into the goblet, hesitantly at first, and then with a strange sort of unshakable interest. "Ron, what is it?"

"Idiot," Harry muttered.

"Shut up," she shot back, worry making her voice high. "Ron?" she said again. "Ron, come on."

Tonks was looking up now, dread in her eyes. "They've all done something - all tried to resist—"

"Ron!" Hermione cried, louder. She reached out to grab his arm and recoiled in horror as vindictive red cuts slashed across his limbs from nowhere - first lacerations across the backs of his wrists, and then new ones a few inches higher, and then a few inches higher than that—

"Do something!" Tonks shouted urgently from the other end of the room, fighting her way to her feet. "Hermione, _do_ something!"

"_RON_!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, grabbing his arm and feeling his blood sticky and hot on her fingers. "_RONALD WEASLEY, YOU LISTEN TO ME, RIGHT NOW!_"

He couldn't hear her. Oh, God, he couldn't hear her. Oh, _Christ_.

"Do something drastic!" Tonks cried.

"Drastic?" Hermione repeated, her voice squealing shrilly without her consent. "Like wh—" But she knew. She swallowed, then she leaned around Ron's bony shoulder and kissed him hard.

He stumbled back and blinked, the glazed quality disappearing from his eyes, and stared at her. "Wow," he said breathlessly. Then, as if the word plunged a plug into an electrical socket, he took a step forward, raised the sword of Gryffindor, and brought it down like an axe on the goblet of Helga Hufflepuff. The delicate golden cup shattered into a thousand pieces.

All around the room, a deep breath was released. It was done, finally - the last Horcrux, destroyed. Now they simply had to find a way to destroy the seventh part of the soul, the part that resided in the body.

Before they had a real chance to discuss anything, Severus Snape arrived. He cast a glance at the destroyed Horcrux, then a wary one at the huge wolf, who raised its hackles and growled. When Tonks, who was sitting on the ground next to it, gently stroked the stiff fur on its neck, it settled down, curling up happily again as she scratched behind its ears and under its chin. Snape raised an eyebrow, then turned to Hermione.

"You were successful?"

Harry was a bit insulted. He _was _the Chosen One, after all, and Snape ought to have spoken to him first. But Hermione was already replying.

"Yes, we've destroyed the last one - now we just have to get the bit that's in his body."

Snape nodded slowly. "You won't be able to for a little while - he's abroad right now, looking for something. But I think he's planning an attack on the school, because he has an idea that we're harboring the resistance. That might be the best course, in the end - wait here for him to come to us, then try to trap him when he does."

The human members of the company exchanged glances. Snape looked to Tonks for the final decision, which chafed against Harry's small-continent-sized pride and made perfect sense to everyone else. She was the presiding adult at the moment, after all.

"That sounds reasonable to me," she decided.

Snape nodded. "I'll see if I can find Mr. Longbottom again. He seems to enjoy waiting on you." He glanced at the wolf and paused. "I'll mention that a few of you have certain dietary constrictions that need to be addressed."

Tonks couldn't help but smile a little, if thinly. "Thank you."

Snape nodded his response and backed out the door.

Remus nudged Tonks's shoulder with his nose, seeking her fingers behind his ear again.

"Of course, dear," she replied softly, smiling to herself, as she applied her fingernails to scratching the indicated spot. Remus settled again contentedly, his glinting, startlingly intelligent amber eyes sliding halfway closed.

* * *

Last Note: If you caught the Hound of the Baskervilles reference, imagine Eltea hugging you!

If you didn't… Congrats, Tierfal's in your boat.

Eltea loves all of you anyway. :)


	10. Who Are You?

Author's Note: No, not a typo. Just Eltea this time, to explain last chapter's reference: Tonks calls the scary canine 'Hugo'. Hugo Baskerville, according to the legend in the story, incurred a curse on his family that involved being hunted by a hellhound. Now you get it - hugs for everybody. :)

And yes, we will eventually explain what's up with Harry and redeem him somewhat.

* * *

Chapter Ten

Who Are You, What Have You Done With Harry Potter, and Why Are You So Insufferably Emo?

And so they waited. Days passed into weeks, weeks approached a month, and still there was no sign of Voldemort. Tonks was growing bigger very rapidly, and her husband could almost always be found at her side, ready to offer a word of affection or steady her if she lost her balance, as she did even more often with the new, unevenly distributed weight.

Hermione, for her part, buried herself in books, researching spells, trying to acquire a larger arsenal of magic before the fight with Voldemort's forces, and Ron joined her more and more frequently. The two of them were almost always to be found off in a corner, practicing some new spell they were working on, and, more often then not, Lupin joined them to offer advice and coaching, Tonks perched on a beanbag nearby providing encouragement and applause when they managed to pull off a particularly impressive spell.

Harry, for his part, didn't see a point in joining them. After all, relying almost solely on an arsenal of two spells had never hurt him in the past, and it seemed like every time he ran up against the fearsome freak that was Voldemort, 'Stupefy', 'Expelliarmus', and a little bit of luck managed to pull him through. He considered the oddness of this for a moment, but he was distracted when a horrible pain in his scar sent him whimpering into a corner.

"Harry?" Tonks inquired in passing. "You okay?"

"DON'T TALK TO ME," Harry found himself screaming. "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME! NOBODY UNDERSTANDS! EVERYBODY HATES ME!"

Tonks blinked.

Harry blinked.

"I think I need to go lie down," he excused himself weakly.

Remus frowned as he watched Harry cross the room and, in a sudden fit of melodrama, flop down on the bed. His friend's son hadn't been this angsty when younger… but he'd been getting stranger and stranger over the last few years. Perhaps…

But then he was distracted by the crash and cheery "Oops" that meant his wife was, as usual, wreaking havoc on innocent furniture.

At least some things were right in the world.

As the month began to draw to a close and the moon cycled once again towards full, Hermione began to pay particular attention to Lupin and his wife. Abandoning their privacy to share a room with a bunch of teenagers for a month couldn't have been easy, and, though they had dealt with it graciously, she was beginning to see signs that it was wearing on them.

She stood up and closed the book in her hands, setting it down on the table. "Ron, Harry, Ginny, and I are going down to Hogsmeade," she announced to the adults.

Ron blinked at her, and then his eyes lit up and he nodded. "Yeah, planned it eons ago, and didn't get a chance 'til now," he invented, somewhat transparently.

Harry was stroking Ginny's hand and crooning something about everlasting love and fragile destiny. Hermione grabbed Ginny's arm, Ron took Harry's, and between the two of them, they dragged the lovebirds out the door.

"We'll knock when we come back," Hermione called over her shoulder as they disappeared.

Lupin smiled at Tonks, and there was a little bit of wolf in his smile. She grinned back.

"Where first?" Hermione asked, slightly rhetorically, entirely breathlessly. "Honeydukes? The Three Broomsticks?"

Ron kicked at a tuft of the tentative snow that had settled in isolated, weak little patches over the night. "Wish Zonko's was still open. Or that Fred and George bought it up to make it into another Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, like they said they might. That'd be a laugh." He looked up at the moody gray clouds. "We could do with a good laugh right about now."

Hermione glanced back at Harry and Ginny, who were somehow managing to snog and walk at the same time. Knowing it was safe to do so without fear of ridicule, she took Ron's too-big, slightly-awkward hand in hers and squeezed it. "I think you're right," she replied quietly. Faintly she smiled up at him - a long way up. "But we're still here, all of us, and that's the important part, isn't it? That we're all here and whole?"

"Yeah," Ron agreed quietly. He looked off into the distance for a moment, then down at his feet, then back at Hermione. "What d'you think would've happened if Lupin and Tonks hadn't come with us?"

Hermione bit her lip. "I shudder to think. We'd probably be running around on some crazy wild goose chase - if we were even alive."

Ron nodded slowly, then remarked, "It was really considerate of you to think of giving them some privacy."

Hermione shrugged, blushing a little at the compliment. "I could tell they needed it. Did you see the looks they were shooting at each other when they thought we weren't looking?"

Ron laughed a little. "Yeah, I guess. You just always think of the right thing to do."

Hermione smiled. "Well, you're the one whose brilliant plans have saved us time and time again. How do you come up with them?"

Ron shrugged. "They just come to me."

"Well," Hermione replied, "I'm glad they do." She smiled again and squeezed his hand. "And I'm very, very glad you're here."

Happily, he flushed the same color as his hair.

Hermione glanced at Harry and Ginny as the quartet crossed into Hogsmeade. "Here," she said. "If you'll go shove them into an alleyway somewhere, I'll go to the Three Broomsticks and get us all some butterbeer. I'm probably the least likely to be recognized, and all that."

Upon nodding his assent, Ron went and took a bit of Harry's sleeve between his thumb and forefinger and, making an intricate face of disgust for Hermione's benefit, drew the entwined couple off into a brick alley, arranging them aesthetically behind some bags of trash. Seeing that she was waiting, he gave her a sharp salute and a warm smile, and she grinned back and hastened off towards the pub.

It wasn't long later that the two of them were huddled together against the wall of the alleyway, nursing their drinks and laughing softly, ignoring the murmurs, sighs, smoochy noises, and declarations of love and gooiness that emanated from Harry Berry and Gingin. Hermione examined Ron's Horcrux-inflicted injuries concernedly.

"S'all right," Ron assured her, taking a swig from his drink. "They're weird scars, though, aren't they?"

They were - wide and black, charred-looking, like they were streaked with ash. Like the flesh within had died.

"I think maybe we should see someone about them," Hermione noted worriedly.

Ron wrinkled his nose. "Like who? Like Pomfrey? She'd know we don't go to this school anymore."

Tracing the deepest of the scars with a finger, Hermione shook her head. "Snape, maybe." As his ginger eyebrows rose, she went on, "But really - I mean, he's got experience dealing with Horcrux wounds, right? He's done it once for Tonks already."

Some of Ron's dubiousness gradually faded as he saw the earnestness in her eyes. "Well," he conceded slowly, reluctantly, as if consigning himself to something fearful, "all right. When we've got time. They're not getting any worse."

"Well," she insisted, "I still think we should ask him to look at them. I mean, they don't _seem _to be getting worse, but that doesn't mean they aren't, or aren't getting harder to heal the longer you leave them. And I don't trust anything that a Horcrux did to you - I mean, look at what happened to Tonks when she put that crown on!"

Ron shrugged. "Guess you're right." He took in a deep breath and let it out as a sigh, then admitted, "Being away from my family has been kind of getting to me. I mean, I usually don't see them much during the school year, but it feels different, because it's not like now, when I _can't. _It's just… been getting me down."

"I know what you mean," Hermione replied quietly. She glanced over at Harry and Ginny, decided they weren't likely to notice a nuclear explosion, and let her weary head drop a little to rest on Ron's shoulder. "I feel the same way - about my family, and our friends. But like I said earlier, I'm just really glad you're here. I don't know what I'd do otherwise - I think I'd be really miserable."

Tentatively, Ron put an arm around her shoulders, and when she didn't pull away, he held her a little tighter. "Yeah. You're better company than my mom is anyway. She's always asking about school and Harry and whether I'm keeping an eye on Ginny." He pulled a face and jerked his head at the happily - and sempiternally - kissing shadows behind the garbage bags. "Clearly, they can take care of each other. I don't think You-Know-Who'd be able to tear 'em apart long enough to kill them."

Hermione grinned. "I think you're probably right."

§

"_Remus_!" Tonks giggled helplessly. He didn't answer but for kissing her neck harder, his fingers curled in her hair. It wasn't very surprising. Once the instincts got ahold of him, the words were kind of superfluous. She was lying on her back on one of the soft beds the Room had provided, and he was kneeling low over her, his lips curious and probing. Oh, _God_, had she married the right guy, or had she married the right guy?

§

Back in the alleyway in Hogsmeade, the kissing sounds emanating from the trash bags that hid Harry and Ginny were getting persistently more annoying, so eventually, Ron and Hermione moved down to the other end of the alleyway - the end that let out on the edge of the town, where they could sit on the concrete step at the end and look out over the forest and the mountains. It was a peaceful spot, a beautiful view from a hiding place sheltered by the towering concrete walls of the buildings on either side.

When the two tired of watching the view, they practiced the new spells they'd been studying, and when they tired of that, they settled down again to watch the sunset.

Hermione soon moved to rest her head on Ron's shoulder again, and he put an arm around her, happiness flowing through him like an elixir.

"I… today's been a really wonderful day," he said softly. "And I somehow don't really care about having to face You-Know-Who sometime in the future, because I'm so happy right now that it seems like nothing bad could ever happen. Y'know?"

"I know," Hermione agreed softly, her eyes on the brilliant colors before her. The red-orange just above the horizon was the same shade as Ron's hair. She opened her mouth to tell him, but what came out instead was, "You're my best friend."

It sounded a little silly to her - childish, almost - but Ron didn't seem to care. His face broke into an enormous smile, one that lit it up like the sunset was lighting up the sky.

"I'm glad," he told her. "You're my best friend, too." Then he leaned down and kissed her.

When they returned to Hogwarts a little later in the growing twilight, they were holding hands.

Harry and Ginny didn't seem to mind. They were a little distracted.

They had to throw the Cloak over both Harry and Ginny, who were conjoined at the mouth. It made it harder to tell whether the other two were following them - though listening worked, just not looking.

In the corridor where the Room of Requirement was, they saw Snape approaching from the opposite end of the hallway.

One of his dark eyebrows rose. "Leave them in peace, did you?" he remarked. His gaze flickered over Ron and Hermione's intertwined hands, but he made no comment.

Hermione blushed a little anyway, just for good measure. "Yeah," she said. "We thought they could use a few hours without _that_." She pointed in the direction whence came all the smoochy noises.

The third cousin twice-removed of a smile touched Snape's lips. "I could use a lifetime without _that_," he noted. He knocked on the door to the Room of Requirement loudly and briskly. When there was no response, he glanced at Ron and Hermione, who shrugged.

"Maybe they're asleep?" Ron suggested.

Eyebrows going higher, Snape opened the door. When the group stepped inside, they discovered that Ron's prediction had been quite correct - Lupin and Tonks were curled up together on one of the beds, slightly tangled in the sheets, Tonks wearing Lupin's shirt, Lupin having not replaced it.

A misguided miracle occurred: Harry pulled apart from Ginny long enough for his jaw to drop an unlikely amount. While it stopped the snogging for the first time in hours, it would have taken a full-fledged miracle to shut him up.

"I - they…" he stammered. At last, after looking away and then looking back to make sure his eyes hadn't been deceiving him - they hadn't - he turned to the others in horror. "_She_'s wearing _his _shirt. Does that mean they - they - " He faltered. "You know…?"

Hermione snorted a bit derisively. "Why shouldn't they? They're married, they're in love, and we _did _promise to knock before we came back in."

"But - but - " Harry was spluttering.

"In case you didn't notice, Harry," Hermione interrupted coolly, "sex _does _exist. Apparently you hadn't heard, despite the fact that you share a dorm room with four other teenaged boys."

Harry looked a bit dumbfounded. Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, Harry. How do you think they got their kid?"

Harry had covered his eyes, but he dared to peek out a little and glance over at the married couple curled up on the bed.

Then he screamed.

"_Shut up,_" Snape hissed, cuffing him on the back of the head.

"AUGH!" Harry cried, clutching his head. "My scar - my brain - my _eyes!_"

"Actually," Ron mused, "can't really blame him too much for that. The idea of our former teacher having a sex life _is_ a bit unsettling…"

Tonks murmured something incoherent and raised her head slowly, looking around. She frowned a little when she saw Harry whimpering, smiled faintly when she saw Ron and Hermione, and raised an eyebrow when she saw Snape.

"So," she said.

At that, Lupin lifted his head too. "Mmwhat?" was his contribution.

Snape cleared his throat. "Yes. Well. The Dark Lord plans to attempt a coup against Hogwarts tomorrow night."

Tonks covered a yawn. "So soon?"

Lupin mumbled something into the pillow, and she leaned down. "Come again?"

"Full moon," he repeated, slightly more audibly.

Glancing at the window to confirm the statement, Snape frowned. "There isn't time for Wolfsbane. I could try, but—"

A smile so cold as to be foreign alighted on Tonks's lips, twisting them upward. "I don't know that that's even necessary just yet," she remarked airily. "You should see what he did to dear Auntie Bella last month."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "I wondered why she was so conspicuously absent."

_F-ing bitch had it coming,_ Sirius sniffed contentedly. _Nice job, Remus, my boy._

Lupin mumbled, "Yeah, you betcha" into the pillow and focused on going back to sleep. He was exhausted. His brain was in the process of staging a fantastic mutiny.

He felt Tonks stroke his hair, her fingers just light enough to be soothing, just firmly enough to make his scalp tingle and his heart soar. Yes, this was a wonderful place to be, and a safe place to abandon himself to dreams.

"He gets tired more easily this time of the month," Tonks explained to the others.

"Well," Harry muttered very loudly, confident that the images currently shredding his brain were going to give him nightmares forever, "he exerted himself well enough."

_Rip throat out,_ the wolf suggested.

_I'm sleeping,_ the human responded drowsily.

The sound of a hand connecting with flesh was consummately clear.

"Insolent _boy_," Severus snapped.

_Well, that works, too,_ human and wolf decided together.

Ten minutes later, after more planning had proceeded, and after Lupin had had his hair stroked a considerable amount more and had mumbled happily in his sleep more than once, Snape stood and smoothed the front of his robes. "Well," he announced, "I have absurd paperwork and a lot of preparation to do, and Miss Weasley has a curfew. Isn't that right, Miss Weasley?"

Miss Weasley looked away from Mister Potter's startling, bright, verdant, deep, emerald-y green eyes for the first time in ten minutes. "Huh?"

Snape sighed. "You. Out. Now."

As it turned out, she had to be forcibly removed, but Snape was not deterred from his grip on her sleeve by the piteous weeping and the dragging of her feet. The door shut behind them.

"Gingin…" Harry called morosely in her wake, raising one hand in the direction she'd left. "Without you, I feel so…hollow…"

Ron sighed.

Hermione stood and fought with her hair a little. She'd been toying with it all the while, and it was even less orderly than usual. "We should probably get some sleep," she remarked. "Tomorrow's a big day, after all."

Harry nodded miserably. "At least if I die… I'll get to see my parents and Sirius… and I won't be so alone anymore… OH, GOD, I'M SO ALONE! WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE ME? WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE ME? WHY, WHY WHY?"

He threw himself onto his bed and sobbed.

There was definitely something weird going on, Remus noted, but he was exhausted at the moment and really didn't want to remove himself from Tonks's arms. If he survived the final battle, though, he was going to figure out what was making Harry moodier than Remus's pregnant wife…

The next morning dawned cold and clear. Not that anyone was awake that early.

The next morning, ten o'clock rolled around cool and crisp. Lupin looked ruefully in the mirror at the five o'clock - or, rather, ten o'clock - shadow adorning his face, running a hand over it and frowning to himself absently. He couldn't tell whether it made him look older or younger.

Tonks slipped up to him and put her arms around his neck from behind. Grinning, she stroked a bit of stubble with one fingertip, kissed his cheek, and murmured just loud enough for him to hear, "Dreadfully sexy!" before darting off again to attend to her own morning routine.

_God, if she wasn't my cousin - niece - whatever - I would SO steal her from you,_ Sirius muttered.

_Oh, God, that's _disgustingJames protested.

_What are you talking about?_ Sirius demanded. _I'm serious! All you have to do to get in her pants is grow a little beard? HONESTLY!_

_I think I'm going to throw up,_ James moaned.

_Don't do it in there!_ Lupin cried. _I need that brain!_

"Hey, Remus?" Tonks asked from across the room. There was a bit of a quaver in her voice, and the stubble was instantly forgotten. She looked pale, and her hair was fading again. He smoothed it out of her face, and she smiled weakly. "He's giving me a bit of trouble," she remarked, trying to sustain a bit of floundering humor, laying a hand on her abdomen.

Lupin smiled and sat down next to her, setting both arms around her comfortably. "How do you know it's a he?"

More contentedly, a spark of pink bursting at her roots, she smiled up at him. "I just know."

Gently he smiled at her, raising a hand to brush a little more hair from her face, more as a gesture than because it was strictly necessary. "Do you just know the winning lottery numbers?"

As she laughed, more magenta spread through her hair, branching downward.

_Kiss her,_ Sirius suggested. _Do it for me, man!_

_Man,_ James said, _you are _such_ a pervert! She's your _niece!

_Yah, whatever,_ Sirius scoffed. _She's his _wife_ now._

_Yes, _Remus responded calmly, _and I can do this by myself now._

_Our little baby's all grown up! _Sirius sniffed.

Our_ baby? _James demanded. _You know, that puts some really horrible thoughts in my head._

_Oh, James,_ Sirius laughed fondly. _If that disturbs you, don't ever, _ever_ try reading fanfiction._

_A little peace… please?_ Remus begged silently.

James's laughter rang like a bell, but the advice ended. Yes, he was on his own now.

Of course, that didn't mean that he didn't take good advice when it was given.

Gently he set two fingers under her chin and lifted her face so that he could press his lips softly to hers. Pink rushed eagerly through the rest of her hair, expelling the unremarkable brown that had preceded it, chasing it away.

Lifting a hand to comb his fingers through her hair as he continued to kiss her gently, he realized with a jolt that the two might not see each other again after that night - it was the first time he'd really considered the fact.

It couldn't be. The world couldn't be that cruel.

Protectively, almost desperately, he slipped his arms around her, and she pulled back a moment to murmur, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he whispered back, lifting a hand to the back of her head and kissing her temple. He buried his face in her wonderful, bright hair and took a deep, shaking breath. They would see each other again. They had to.

She leaned up a little to kiss his jaw. "No, really," she insisted softly, her lips now brushing his cheek. "What's making you unhappy?"

"What if," he responded slowly in a voice just above a whisper, "this is it? What if tonight doesn't go as planned?" He touched her cheek, touched her neck, touched her shoulder, memorizing the contours one more time. "What if something happens to - one of us?"

She looked up at him, and then she held him tighter, toying with his hair. "Then one of us will be miserable," she said. There was sorrow in her eyes, but there was also a steely resolve. "We knew what we were signing up for, Remus. And we knew then and know now that what we're doing is right. There are only a few things I'd die for, Remus, but this is one of them." Wanly she smiled. "You're another." She took his hand and set it between her collarbones, on the necklace. "Whatever happens," she whispered, "this is forever."

Sirius had abandoned him then, when he'd decided, once and for all, that he would work up the courage to ask her. He'd knocked on her door. "Coming!" she'd yelled. Something had smashed. Then, flushed and smiling bashfully, she'd yanked the door open. Her smile had changed quickly into a grin, and he'd stumbled over his tongue.

The threshold looked a mile wide, so he didn't try to cross it. Instead, he knelt right there, taking her hands in his, and looked up at her in horror, desperate hope, and unfathomably deep adoration. "Dora," he'd managed somehow, choking it out, "will you marry me?" Then his voice had come back with a fury, and words had tumbled out haphazardly, barely adhering to any sort of tenets of grammar or sense. "I - don't - really - have the money for a ring, but I could get one if you want, it'd just - I - you know—"

She had pulled him to his feet and kissed him. She had drawn back and smiled. "I would love nothing more," she said, tears sparkling in her eyes, excrescent joy shining in her grin, "than to marry you, Remus. You don't have to buy me a ring."

"I - wanted to get you something," he fumbled.

She kissed him again, and once more he was speechless. "Then let's get something else."

In the end, she'd picked out a simple but very lovely silver chain. And then, despite his vague misgivings, she had selected a charm for it in the shape of a running wolf. When he'd hesitantly inquired if she was sure that was what she wanted, she'd kissed him right in the middle of the store, and once again he found himself bereft of words of any kind.

Now she'd strung her wedding ring on it, and it was both small objects that pressed against his fingertips. Two symbols - him and them.

By that evening, the tension was running high. Ron and Hermione had spent the day reviewing their spells, the adults in preparing a variety of things they might need - such as small bottles of potions that might be useful, such as blood-replenishing potion and painkillers - and Harry in saying goodbye to Gingin.

They had all dressed for the battle, in comfortable, easy-to-move-in clothing, and the absence of loose wizarding robes made Tonks look even more pregnant than usual. Lupin winced - they'd had this discussion, and she'd made the perfectly valid point that the fate of the free world rested on the evening's battle and that one Auror more or less could make the difference - but his heart still twisted horribly at the idea of anything happening to her.

As he unhappily watched her tuck her wand away into a pocket, Snape arrived almost silently with a corked bottle of what looked like golden liquid.

"Felix Felices," he explained. "I've had it for nearly two years - I brewed it as soon as Mister Potter returned after the Triwizard Cup announcing the Dark Lord's return. I knew it would come to this. Here, there's enough for everybody."

Hermione opened a drawer at random and pulled out a series of shot glasses. Snape poured.

"Cheers," Ron mumbled. Wordlessly everyone clinked glasses and drank.

Snape sat on one of the couches, a long finger touching his chin as he considered. "The Dark Lord wants all of his supporters at his side. I'll have Minerva organize everything - evacuate the students, and so on. She's better at delegating than I am. It's fortunate that you struck so early. If you hadn't, he might have amassed a much larger force against us. As it stands, we might have half a chance." He paused. "Maybe a quarter." He stood and shook his robes out around him. "I'll try to convince him to leave a fair amount of his soldiers at Malfoy Manor as a defensive measure, in case you attack - which is a ludicrous idea, of course, but perhaps he doesn't realize that it is. I don't think I have to advise you to call every member of the Order of the Phoenix to your aid."

Even after such a speech, Snape looked somewhat surprised when Lupin caught him halfway to the door and clutched his hand.

"Severus," he said. "We never would have been able to do this without you."

Snape simply looked at him for a moment, as if he didn't believe the verity of the sentiment, and then he shrugged. "You do what you can," he remarked quietly. A ghost of a smile crossed his face, and then he slipped out the door.

The next few hours were strange - almost surreal. The school was quickly evacuated, and those who remained stalked the corridors tersely, preparing for the storm that they new would break with a fury, shattering the brief calm that hovered ominously over the school. Nobody seemed really surprised to see the five adventurers suddenly in their midst - with the exception of a few strained 'Hello's, there was very little talk. Members of the Order of the Phoenix began arriving, and soon, there was nothing left to do but wait silently for the battle to begin.

At last, a dark-haired student who had been standing sentry announced that hooded figures in great numbers had begun Apparating at the edge of the grounds and crossing into the school. Everyone hurried to the nearest windows to look, and, sure enough, a huge, dark mass was gathering before the doors of the school.

The storm was ready to break.

Harry paced a little, Ron and Hermione nervously pulled out their wands and exchanged a worried glance, and Lupin squeezed his wife's hand.

"Whatever happens," she whispered, "I love you."

"As I love you," he replied quietly. He leaned over to kiss her - perhaps for the last time, he thought - and, as their mouths touched, the storm broke at last.

_DAMN STRAIGHT!!_ Sirius roared. _KICK THEIR FUCKIN' ASSES!_


	11. From Hogwarts With Love

Chapter Eleven

From Hogwarts With Love

As the doorway before them was blown into rubble and Death Eaters began pouring through, Ron expected Hermione to release her urgent grip on his hand, but she didn't. Instead, she dragged him into the center of the exploding fray beside her, found a defensible alcove, and jerked them both into it, and there she commenced laying about with spells with reckless abandon.

"Rule number one in magical battle," she noted breathlessly, flattening a six-foot-tall Death Eater with a full-body bind. "Don't turn your back on your enemy."

"Sounds about right," Ron replied, whipping off one of the new spells Lupin had taught them. A Death Eater tumbled to the floor, his hood slipping back to reveal a shock of dark hair, his arms around his middle as the worst stomach cramps of his misguided life assailed him. Ron considered. "That's a good one," he decided.

"How long do they - _expelliarmus_ - last?" Even as a black wand zipped into her hand, she twisted around Ron to deck out a Death Eater who'd been creeping up on his right.

"Until—" Ron snagged another of his own. "—I do the countercurse."

"Excellent," Hermione replied, in the tone of someone inquiring about the weather of her future vacation site. Except that someone planning a vacation likely wouldn't knock a hirsute man with crooked yellow teeth bared right off of his feet with a well-aimed jinx in the middle of the process.

Meanwhile, Harry had dived right into the center of the fray, firing spells left and right.

"Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!"

"Stupid git," Ron muttered, catching a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. "Why wouldn't he learn new ones with us?"

Hermione shrugged. "Maybe he thought it was below his dignity. _Expecto patronum!_"

The small group of dementors that had been gliding towards them scattered, driven back by the memory of the previous day's trip to Hogsmeade.

"Well," Ron replied, trying to catch his breath as he cursed another Death Eater, "his loss, I guess."

"Stupefy! Stupefy! Expelliarmus!"

But Harry's aim was bad, and it was Hermione's wand that the spell jerked out of her hand. However, she simply lifted the black wand she had taken from the Death Eater and pointed it at hers.

"Accio!"

Her wand zoomed back into her hand.

"Knew extra wands would be useful!" she sang.

Ron laughed. Then he grabbed her arm and threw them both to the floor as an Unforgivable sailed over their heads and dissipated into the wall behind them.

_Why am I suddenly so mediocre?_ Harry demanded of himself, cold sweat beading at his hairline as he made another terribly undignified dodge. _It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that everyone else has been practicing while I've been angsting needlessly and making out with my girlfriend… could it?_ He frowned, wondering if - but then a voice inside his head demanded, _WELL, DIDN'T I HAVE A REASON TO ANGST? ISN'T MY LIFE MISERABLE BEYOND ALL COMPREHENSION? ISN'T THE ENTIRE WORLD SET AGAINST ME? THEY ALL HATE ME! WELL, I HATE THEM - HATE THEM, HATE THEM, HATE THEM! KILL… KIIIILLLLLLLL…_

Harry blinked and shook his head. Something very strange was going on.

§

The battle churned with more currents and sub-currents than an ocean in the midst of a tsunami. One of them carried Lupin away from Tonks. After ducking a curse that, if memory served, would have ripped his limbs from his body and scattered them bleeding across the room, he glanced back over his shoulder frantically, seeking her dark and therein less conspicuous hair, but the sea of moving bodies yielded no such singular prize.

_If there is a supernatural deity up there,_ he prayed desperately, _keep her safe. Please keep her safe._

"_Diffindo_," he said calmly, pointing his wand at an approaching Death Eater's shoelaces. The laces obediently split, and the woman did a neat faceplant on the floor. Her nose started bleeding. "_Petrificus Totalus_," he added, stepping over her and moving forward again, keeping an eye out for new enemies and for his wife at once.

§

Meanwhile, Severus Snape was having a difficult time trying to fight on one side while appearing to fight on the other and being attacked by some of the people he was trying to help. He cursed a Weasley sibling, then muttered the countercurse under his breath as the crowd of Death Eaters he had been with swept around a corner. Just before they disappeared, he sent a stunning spell bouncing off a wall to flash into their midst from the opposite direction, then ducked a spell that the confused and angry Weasley had aimed at him before dodging into another corridor.

_Why, _he demanded of himself, _am I doing this? Why didn't I just move to Cancun before this whole fiasco started?_

The answer escaped him, and he was momentarily distracted by the need to Stun a Death Eater that had appeared and then wipe his memory of the incident. While he was at it, he wiped the man's memory of his whole dark past. Who knew? Perhaps he would wake up a new person.

He turned in time to see Bill Weasley careening down the corridor towards him, three Death Eaters on his tail. Biting back a few detailed cusses, he snatched Bill's arm and yanked him into a divergent hallway.

"Wh—" Bill began indignantly, eyes narrowing.

Before he could finish the word, Severus drew a small flask of forest green liquid and pitched it into the corridor in the direction of the approaching Death Eaters. Glass smashed, and then there was a tremendous explosion, and if Severus had not had the presence of mind to slam himself and Bill back into the wall, the jet of green flame that blasted into their portion of the hallway would likely have compromised the unfortunate Bill's appearance even more.

Bill's scarred face was silent and blank for a moment. Then it lit up in a wide grin that looked very much like his brother Ron's. "WICKED!" he shouted.

"Inspired by Molotov Cocktails," Severus explained tersely.

"No idea what a Motlov cocktail is!" Bill went on, just as enthusiastically. "Don't even care! That was ruddy BRILLIANT!"

Severus Snape allowed himself a very small, very thin smile. "Thank you. Now get out of here."

Without waiting for an answer, he darted around the corner, skirting the charred remains of the Death Eaters and wincing offhandedly at the soot all over the mangled walls. Then he was back in the middle of it.

_I bet the Bahamas are very nice this time of year,_ he thought absently as he abbreviated a Death Eater at the wrists with another of his personal inventions.

§

Meanwhile, in an upper hallway, Professor McGonagall stood at the top of a staircase, blasting spells down at the Death Eaters attempting to climb it and breathing heavily. She was really getting too old for this.

A spell narrowly missed her, and she stumbled back, almost losing her balance. A firm hand caught her elbow and helped her to her feet again.

"You all right, Minerva?" asked Kingsley's deep voice.

"Yes, thank you," she replied a little breathlessly.

"You don't sound so good," he commented worriedly, sending a few curses flying down the stairs while trying to keep an eye on her at the same time. "Why don't you sit down a moment? I can hold them."

"It's quite all right," she replied, new energy in her eyes. "I think I can make it for a while longer."

He smiled. "You're a brave lady. Duck!"

A spell sailed over their heads, smashing a chandelier that burst into flames as it shattered, and the two abandoned their discussion in favor of turning their full attention on the fight.

§

The evening wore on - an hour had passed, maybe two, and the fighters on both sides were tiring. The battle had moved from a full-out clash to guerilla warfare, individuals and small groups hiding in doorways and behind statues to ambush others going by, small fights sometimes breaking out and usually ending as quickly as they had started. The one place where fighting continued strong and fierce was the great hall, and it was in that direction that Remus Lupin was running, hoping against hope to be reunited with his wife. He dashed into the room, knocking a Death Eater aside with a spell, and scanned it desperately, searching with his eyes. She had to be here somewhere. Had to be.

There was a low chuckle behind him.

He spun to discover the fang-toothed leer of Fenrir Greyback.

A growl rumbled deep in his chest. "_You_." This was the man who had changed him. This was the man who had forced him to hide, to draw away, to seek shelter from the watchful eyes of the world. This was the man who had doomed him. This was the man who had turned him into a freak and a monster. This was the man who might have done the same thing to his son. "_YOU_."

More of Greyback's vicious teeth showed in a terrifying mockery of a grin. "Me, Remus," he rejoined, voice low and rumbling, sounding like thunder, like an avalanche. Like a wolf. "Me, me, me. But you're not looking for me. You're looking for someone else."

Remus's wand was in his hand, his arm was raised, the words _Avada Kedavra_ were on his lips for the first time in his life, and he meant them - meant them, meant them, _MEANT THEM_—

Greyback raised his own hairy hand, and in a dirty palm half again the size of Lupin's, there was a necklace, either end of the chain dangling. On that chain glinted a charm of a small silver wolf and a gold wedding ring, nestled almost comfortably in a grimy crease in Greyback's skin.

"I'm afraid," he said through a wide, self-satisfied grin, "that your bitch is dead." The corners of his lips curled higher. "Pushed her over a parapet myself, thanks."

A thousand curses whipped through Lupin's mind like a gale-force wind. _No, no, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO, __**NO**__—_

His hand was just as steady as his voice as he roared, "_AVADA—_"

A wispy cloud shifted, and moonlight streamed through the tall windows of the Great Hall. The scream rose into a tortured howl.

By the time the echoes had faded, there were two snarling wolves on the stone tiles, one sleek and silvery-gray, the other bigger, his dark fur tending to brown tainted with a venomous-looking yellow, a cruel glint in his animal's eyes.

Remus Lupin snarled.

Fur burst in the air like fireworks, fangs flashing in the flickering candlelight, canine limbs moving almost faster than human eyes could follow.

The gray wolf dove to bury his teeth in the other's throat, to rip it out, to taste the blood and hear the dying breath, but his opponent danced nimbly out of the way and came back strong, batting with a set of thick claws that raked the side of the Lupin's snout. The slashes burned as if inflamed. Lupin feinted back and scrambled onto one of the long wooden tables, and as the bigger wolf lumbered towards him, gathering speed, leapt off and bit down with all the force he could muster. Greyback's attempt at a dodge saved his vulnerable face, but Lupin's fangs sunk deep into his shoulder. The yellow wolf howled furiously and ducked his head, writhing, but the other wolf clung hard, and his teeth couldn't be dislodged. Feral instincts mixed vertiginously with human ones, and Greyback rammed sideways into one of the benches. Whimpering piteously, Lupin released his hold, tumbling beneath the table. A yelp tore loose from him as he tried to put weight on his front right paw. A voice inside him that sounded foreign and esoteric moaned something about fractures.

The other wolf snarled as he slipped over the fallen bench and under the edge of the table. New energy surged into the gray wolf. This would end when one of them died, and it wouldn't be him.

He turned tail and darted out under the table, ignoring the flaring pain in his foreleg, hearing the other wolf laboring along behind him, streaking under the benches and the tables one by one until he reached the stone wall he had known would come. Against it he sprang, pushing off from it hard, turning in the air to land again on a bench. As the yellow wolf swerved to avoid smashing headlong into the stone wall, Lupin leapt. This time his aim was true. A howl that rent ears throughout the length of the castle burst from the yellow wolf's throat, cut off abruptly as Remus Lupin jerked a sizable portion of it free.

Ivory fur drifted like snow. Blood pooled. Fenrir Greyback's body twitched three times and lay still. The wolf's form roiled until it became a hulking man with wide, staring, lifeless eyes.

The gray wolf was splattered in blood, matting his fur, staining his teeth. He bared them one last time at the fallen foe.

A very distant voice that brought to mind a large black dog whispered in awe, _Jesus Christ._

The gray wolf ignored it and limped back to the glint of metal left on the stone floor. He nudged it with his nose, and all the rage drained from him in one enervating rush. Forlornly he curled up around the necklace on the floor, setting his head down next to it. The wolf's emotions were not very complicated, but they were complex enough for him to know that he had lost before he had even begun to win.

§

The Mark burned darker and more painfully than ever before. Cringing, Severus Snape forced himself to run faster - faster yet. He knew it was coming. He knew the moment was near. He knew his master had realized that the end was in sight.

It chafed vaguely against his dignity as he skidded to a stop on the dewy lawn - very vaguely, because it was there that the two sides were quite literally at odds.

The Death Eaters' ranks were visibly pocked and tattered, more rife with holes than the oldest hand-me-down that might have been given to one Ron Weasley. But the Order was missing some members as well. Severus took a cursory, quick census, the work of a fraction of a moment for a mind like his - and his heart contracted. Tonks and Lupin were both entirely absent at a time that neither would have missed for the world.

Harry Potter had the sword of Gryffindor in one hand and his wand in the other. He pointed the latter at the pale snake of a man standing tall before him, even now - even when he knew that a breath of wind could have pushed the matter either way.

"_Exp—_" he began.

"_Avada Kedavra_," the man who had once been Tom Riddle said calmly.

Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, crumpled to the ground, the sword still glinting dully, and became the Boy Who Died.

_The last Horcrux,_ thought Severus Snape, feeling something what, under a microscope and exaggerated wildly, might have been a shred of remorse.

Neville Longbottom, the coward, the fool, the painfully innocent and innocuous little boy, stepped forward. His voice shook, but his hands didn't.

Severus had always noticed how steady his hands were even when the air was at its most relentlessly tense.

"Y-you _bastard_," Neville shouted.

Severus shoved the last Order member out of the way. "_NEVILLE!_" he roared.

What occurred next seemed to Severus to occur in slow-motion. All other witnesses relayed that if they had blinked, they would have missed it.

The boy turned.

His eyes found Snape's.

His eyebrows rose.

Snape threw the Colt .45 pistol.

The gun pinwheeled through the air like a comet coming to Earth.

And then Neville caught it squarely in his right hand, turned on one heel, and fired three bullets into Voldemort's forehead.

The Dark Lord slumped to the ground next to the shadow of a form that lay there already.

At that moment, that shadow of a form leapt up.

"What did I miss?" Harry Potter demanded cheerily.

Hermione gave a shaky laugh.

"Well, only Voldemort's downfall at the hands of a Muggle weapon and a moment that will be written into every history book published from now on." She glanced at the former Dark Lord suspiciously. "I assume he _is _dead?"

Voldemort's body answered her question by exploding into a thousand pieces and settling in a cloud of black dust, floating to the ground like soot cleared out of a chimney.

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Bit melodramatic, but I think he's dead, all right."

At their leader's explosion, the Death Eaters split ranks and began running. Some of them were Stunned and taken into custody; others reached the edge of the grounds and escaped. It didn't make a great deal of difference, as far as Snape was concerned. What did make a great deal of difference was the absence of two members of the Order of the Phoenix and their current whereabouts and conditions.

And then he spotted one, as cheers rang out from all around him and people began to embrace, laugh, and celebrate.

Off to the side, all by himself, Remus Lupin was curled up against a tree, and he was crying.

* * *

Authors' Note: Only one chapter left, and then the Epilogue. We will be posting the two - as separate chapters - in a few hours, at which point everything will be resolved and all mysteries will be explained.


	12. If You Hate Harry

Chapter Twelve

If You Hate Harry the Character, Stop Reading Now

Snape ran almost faster than he had run to save the world. He heard himself panting ignobly by the time he dropped to his knees next to Lupin. Between the man's fingers, Snape could see tears cutting white lines through the blood caking a rusty red-brown on his face. Wild, bewildered eyes peeked tentatively out at him.

"He killed her," Remus whispered. He choked. "The bastard pushed her over a _wall_." His voice broke brutally. "I was going to tell her - going to tell her we could call him Theodore, after her father. Teddy, for short. I was going to tell her, and now I'll never tell her anything. Ever." He looked Severus full in the face now, his voice trembling, faltering, failing, his eyes wide and wet and pleading. "So young. She's - she was - she's so _young_, Severus. Why not me? Why not? I've lived. I've seen so much more. And Teddy—" He hid his face in his hands again, shaking his head, refusing to believe it, trying not to see what he knew was there, because seeing it would have killed him. "Teddy didn't even get a chance to start."

And he sobbed, then, the broken, brittle sob of a man who has lost everything.

Before he knew what he was doing, Severus had put his arms around the other man's shoulders. He didn't know what to say, because there was nothing he could do or say that would fix things, nothing that would comfort the lost, trembling heap of misery that was clinging to Severus's arm and crying helplessly into his shoulder.

"I…" he finally began softly and somewhat huskily. "I'll go and see if I can find her."

He left Lupin curled up against a tree, his face in his hands, sobs shaking his thin shoulders.

It didn't take long to find her - soon after Severus had begun his circuit of the walls, he saw a small, dark form sprawled on the ground under a low parapet, limbs twisted, long hair in her face. He winced - the odds against surviving such a fall were a thousand to one, perhaps a million to one.

He couldn't bear to look too closely, but he did reach out and put two fingers to the side of her neck. He pressed his fingertips down as hard as he dared, searching, hoping, praying silently. But there was nothing - no pulse. She was dead. Severus's stomach twisted.

Carefully, gently, he knelt and lifted her in both arms. Even with the added weight of the child, she wasn't particularly heavy.

Slowly, his heart sinking with every step, he started back in the direction from which he had come. He passed several other bodies and a groaning, misshapen Death Eater whose neck was covered with angry red welts and who was crawling pitifully along the ground in a way that suggested serious injury. Severus didn't even stop - he had other things to attend to than capturing already-dying Death Eaters.

At last, he reached the front lawn again and set the body down gently beside the tree. Lupin scrambled over to it blindly, tears streaking his face, and lifted his wife's upper body in his arms, hugging her to him and pressing his face into her hair.

After a moment, during which Severus sat in silence and tried not to intrude, Lupin drew back, swiping away the tears that were still flowing freely down his cheeks, and brushed a strand of long, dark hair out of the face that lay across his lap.

He paused a moment, his sobs quieting, and then he spoke, a little blankly.

"It's not her."

"What do you mean?" his companion demanded worriedly.

"I mean this isn't her body," Lupin told him. "It's some Death Eater's."

For the first time, Snape looked at the woman's face, and with a jolt he recognized Alecto Carrow.

"You're right," he replied weakly.

As they both stared down at Alecto's lifeless face, a weak and slightly shaky voice called out from the direction of the castle.

"Remus? Severus?"

Both turned as if by a spell to see the woman Snape had taken for an injured Death Eater dragging herself over the crest of a small hill, her eyes on them, her face pale but determined. And then he noticed something he hadn't in passing - she was wearing Tonks's clothes.

With the speed and will of a small tornado Remus rocketed to her side. Arms were thrown around necks, and tears flowed as if from opened taps - but this time they were tears of impossible relief, of amazement, of giddy, overwhelming joy. Tonks's fingertips grazed over the gashes on Lupin's face sympathetically even as he bent to touch his lips gently to the similar wounds that banded her throat.

When the tears had petered out to grateful, gasping breaths, Tonks managed to inquire, "Have you got it?"

Lupin didn't have to ask what "it" was. He took her hand in his and placed the necklace in her open palm. "He broke the clasp," he reported, "but that can be fixed."

With a bit of suspicion Tonks eyed his right hand. "And you broke your arm."

"Well," Lupin said. "You know."

"I'll get Pomfrey," Severus volunteered. When they agreed heartily and thanked him, he slipped off on his errand. Too much of this saccharine reunion stuff and he might find himself writing a smutty romance novel.

He shuddered.

§

Inside the castle, in the Great Hall, a victory celebration was in full swing. Ron and Hermione were sitting on the end of the Gryffindor bench, talking and laughing, when Harry came up, brandishing two napkin-wrapped bundles.

"They have really great cookies at the other end of the table," he beamed, "so I brought some for you." He pushed one at each of them, then skipped back off.

Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"What's up with him?"

"I dunno," Ron shrugged. "Ever since You-Know-Who—"

"He's _dead, _Ron. I think it's safe to say the name," Hermione teased gently.

Ron smiled sheepishly. "Well, ever since that spell hit him and he got back up, he's been… different. Friendlier; nicer."

"Well," Hermione mused, "maybe something got blasted out of him. Who knows? But I like him better this way." She unwrapped her cookie and took a large bite of it.

Ron nodded and followed suit. "We sure are lucky to be alive," he remarked.

Hermione laughed. "Of course we're lucky, Ron. We all drank lucky potion. Chance had nothing to do with it."

"But…" A frown line appeared on Ron's forehead. "But if we were assured things would go our way, then we _weren't _lucky. Just prepared."

"We weren't assured things would turn out," Hermione explained. "We were just assured of luck, which means that we knew that random chance would always turn out the same way. It would make perfect sense if you weren't trying to be logical about it."

Ron put his face in his hands. "I'm so confused…"

Fondly, Hermione smiled. "It's okay. An elementary school teacher once told me, 'If it confuses you, ignore it.' Generally, that's not a very good policy, but for now, I think it'll do. Have some cookie."

Cheerfully, Ron obliged.

§

Things worked out, as things tend to do. Minerva McGonagall ascended to the position of Headmistress of Hogwarts and continued to reign over the Transfiguration classroom with an iron wand - she was known to state that it was a lot of work, but that she was willing to put up with it because she had Hermione Granger's word that the girl would take the professorship as soon as she'd completed a bit of mandatory in-depth study. Ron went into the Ministry and did a splendid job of applying simple logic to the most egregious of their absurdly illogical policies. Telephones came into regular use, as did ballpoint pens and a variety of other things that were ridiculously useful and nonetheless neglected. Harry Potter was a grand help to the both of them, as he had suddenly begun to take great pleasure in wandering around completing errands, a wide, dreamy smile on his face. Draco Malfoy realized that he'd been an uppity git for seven years and decided to cool his jets, smile without smirking, and apprentice himself to Horace Slughorn in order to perfect his Potions abilities in the interest of becoming a Hogwarts professor himself. Word has it he was smitten with a Muggle girl while scouring the streets of London for a reliable supply of toads' blood.

Eventually, the truth about Harry's mysterious mood swings came out - the Horcrux that had been a part of him had been producing an effect similar to menstrual hormones. Once he had settled down from the euphoric giddiness that came after its destruction, Harry Potter became a considerate, responsible young man, and it wasn't long before he and Gingin were married and blissfully spouting off sickening pet names.

So, in the end, everyone really did live happily ever after.

Well, except Voldemort.

He was still blasted to pieces.

* * *

Authors' Note: Come oooonnnn, did you really think we had the heart to kill someone we loved enough to rewrite the book for? The Lupins are alive and happy. In canon. Anyone who believes otherwise is clearly hallucinating.

Denial, you say? What's that? More than just a river in Egypt?

(Eltea apologizes. She loves terrible puns. Tierfal is raising an eyebrow.)

Tierfal says: "Both eyebrows, thanks."

Eltea says: "We'll stop stalling and post the Epilogue."


	13. Epilogue

Epilogue

Nymphadora Tonks was waving a thrift store fan at herself and gazing aimlessly off into space when Severus Snape strode over the stepping stones of the pathway, skipped up the four stairs, and knocked on one of the porch pillars for good measure. She looked up abruptly and, upon seeing him, smiled broadly.

"Severus!" she greeted him happily. "I'd get up, but—" She set one hand on her abdomen.

Severus Snape smiled. "When's he due?"

Her smile in return was an utterly contented one. "Any day now." As he started to put his hands in his pockets, she motioned at him insistently with a hand. "Sit down, sit down!" Obediently he chose one of the white wicker chairs close to the swing she was occupying, and she called in through the open window behind his head. "Remus, Severus is here!"

"Oh!" came the surprised response faintly.

In moments, Remus Lupin came bustling out onto the porch carrying a tray laden with three tall glasses of lemonade, which he proffered to his wife and his guest first. It was clear that Severus had no choice but to take one, so he obliged. He didn't regret it. It was remarkably good lemonade, and it was wonderfully cold in the heavy, lurking heat of the afternoon.

Lupin was wearing a gray T-shirt under an old white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of faded jeans. He sat down next to Tonks, placed the tray on the porch railing, took his glass from it, and settled down to smile at Severus.

Severus Snape had first taken a long vacation - a cruise through the Caribbean almost a month in duration. That alone had made him look drastically healthier. The man wore black slacks, but his untucked shirt was a pale blue, and he had taken to tying his hair back from his face. He was now steadily working on a degree so that he could teach chemistry at a university. He looked like a different person - a happier one.

"I won't waste your time," Remus began.

Snape smiled and sipped at his lemonade. "I really don't mind."

Remus grinned. "Well, I won't anyway. I asked you to come by because…" He took a deep breath and smiled a little wider. "We want you to be our son's godfather."

Severus stared for a full ten seconds in silence. Then, slowly and somewhat shakily but entirely genuinely, he smiled. "I," he said, "would be absolutely honored."

"There's just one problem," Tonks put in, wincing.

"What's that?"

As one the couple smiled tentatively.

"His middle name is going to be Sirius," Remus said.

There was a pause. Then Severus Snape laughed until he could barely breathe.

THE END… for now!

* * *

Authors' Note: So there you have it. Thanks for sticking with us and reading; we've really enjoyed it. And yes, The End _for now_ - look out for a sequel (well, sort of) called "Worse Than Voldemort" which will be coming in a few months. It will have Lupin and Tonks (of course), be even fluffier and more of a comedy than this, and be posted on Eltea's profile. Until then, thank you so much for taking the time to read our story.

-Tierfal and Eltea :)

Tierfal says: "Now, was that made of awesome, or was that made of awesome?"

Eltea says: "I love you all! Hugs for everyone!"

The End :)


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Harry Potter, Humor, Romance