Disclaimer:- I neither earn nor own anything from this story. Harry \potter and his world are the intellectual property of JK Rowling and associates.

A/N:- Here is a small story that is quite a departure for me. It is a request from a fanfiction friend, Jenniferlyncobb. She wanted an adventure/romance with herself as the female lead paired with either Remus Lupin or Lucius Malfoy, I choose Remus. I've never written a Remus centre stage story before. So here goes... Thank you to my beta, Golden Asp, for her work on this chapter, and also a note that the last chapter of this story will be modified to comply with the M rating limit here on . The entire story (complete with unedited lemons) is available over at AO3 if you would prefer.

Chapter One – The Crime

Harry Potter whistled softly as he entered the crime scene. "It looks like a tornado has been through this room," he commented softly to his partner as they surveyed the damage.

"Yeah," Seamus replied, "it looks like it was a pleasant room before it was basically destroyed."

The Auror Corps were used to seeing rooms that had been turned over by criminals, but Harry thought this looked different, however he kept his opinion to himself for a now, as he walked over to the shielding spell around the remains of the victim. Well, remains may have been a bit of an exaggeration. Whatever had happened to the victim, there were only the ends of four of her fingers remaining. The bloodied and dismembered digits lay next to a large book on the floor, which one of their number had encased in a containment spell.

They both grinned and nodded to Susan Bones, who was the Auror guarding the crime scene as they walked in.

"Hey, Sue," Seamus said, as he walked forward examining the scene. "You drew the short straw, didn't you," he cackled in his distinctive Irish inflection.

The mousy-haired witched waved and smiled to them both, and watched as the pair peered at the grisly sight on the floor. They were just about to ask Susan what was going on when John Dawlish—the head of the Aurory—came into the room.

"Ah, Aurors Potter and Finnigan, you're here," he said, trying pointedly not to look at what was on the floor.

"Yes, sir," they answered in unison.

Without further ado, their boss started telling them what had happened. "We've been here since midnight. We were alerted to this situation when one of our community wide detectors alerted us to a spike in dark magic, and when we arrived we found a witch trying to open the door." He indicated the floor with his hand. "Once we got in this was all we found. The victim…" and he consulted his notes. "Miss Fallon Reed was not present when the room was opened. Well, we assume that these are her fingers. Her room-mate..." and he looked at his note book once more. "A Miss Jennifer Cobb, has told us that she had been upstairs in bed when she'd heard what she thought was a wind-like roar and then her friend's panicked screams but nothing else. She had been unable to get the door open. We arrived just as the noises in the room suddenly stopped, there was a thump and the door unlocked itself."

"Mmm," Harry said, looking at the book again. "Is that a grimoire?"

"All I know," Dawlish said, "is that it sent the detection spells into the red for dark magic. No one is to touch it," he ordered.

"Wasn't plannin' on it," Seamus cackled, holding his hands up and backing away.

"Miss Cobb told us that before she went to bed they were both catching up on work before the weekend, and that there was nothing out of the ordinary happening when she finished and decided to go to bed and read. Of course, it's hard to tell just what was happening here before this mess happened." He panned a hand around the room at large with a furrowed brow. "The really weird part is that according to our spells the magical signature of the victim is still in this room, except it's only four of her fingers that are still in this room." He ran his fingers through his hair. "I think you had better call in Special Squad on this one. I think it will require their particular brand of knowledge," he stated, sneering, without even trying to mask it.

"Very good, sir," Harry replied, his expression unreadable. He hated Dawlish's attitude to the Special Squad, even though he himself had trouble with one of its members too, but he did recognise that they were very expert where many Aurors only had basic knowledge of seriously dark magic.

The Special Squad was a group of four, and one of the members was one of his best friends, Hermione Granger, and as Dawlish kept talking, Harry's mind went through the members of Special Squad. He still got on with Hermione, although things were never the same after she broke up with Ron. She was always somehow distant to them now.

Then there were two members of the elite squad that he did not like, Severus Snape and Lucius Malfoy. Both ex Death Eaters were still shady characters as far as Harry was concerned, and he definitely didn't like that Hermione was so tied up with them. Of course she threw his concern in his face, laughing at him every time he brought the subject up. Her stock reply was, 'I'm a big girl now, Harry. I can hold my own with anyone,' and Harry had no doubt that she could, but he couldn't help wishing that things had turned out differently.

Then he sighed to himself as his thoughts turned to the fourth member of the team; he often thought about Remus Lupin. Remus had lost Tonks in the Battle of Hogwarts, and after five years he was still suffering for it. He was functioning perfectly normally and Teddy was growing into a sweet little boy, but Harry knew the genial werewolf better than most, and he knew that even though he appeared normal, the loss of his mate had hit him very hard.

On top of this, he was now the reluctant alpha werewolf, having ripped Fenir Greyback to pieces after the evil werewolf had killed Tonks. Harry smiled to himself, he was so proud of his mentor for his achievements since then. Under a sympathetic Minister For Magic—Kingsley Shacklebolt—Remus facilitated so many advances to the way werewolves were treated, and he had also established a sanctuary for those who wanted to stay away from human contact altogether. Harry was brought out of his thoughts by Dawlish telling them that he was leaving them to it.

"Oh, yeah... okay, sir. Don't worry, we'll sort it all," Harry said. "Where will I find Miss Cobb?"

"She's in her kitchen with Auror Jones, she's pretty shaken up."

"That's understandable. I'll go and ask her some questions once I send the message to Hermione."

Harry then concentrated and summoned his stag Patronus. He gave him the message and sent him on his way.

So, with the message galloping its way toward Hermione, Harry stepped into the kitchen, leaving Seamus and Susan in the sitting room. Looking around the corner of the door, Harry saw a small woman with spikey brown hair and dark eyes talking quietly to Priscilla Jones. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she was cradling a mug of something steaming in slightly unsteady hands as they spoke.

"Hello, Miss Cobb, I'm..."

"Oh... Harry Potter," the woman smiled, despite her obvious distress at losing her friend. "Please, call me Jenny. I remember you from school. I was in fifth year when you started," she continued breathily. "I remember being so proud to have Harry Potter in our house..." then she caught herself. "I'm sorry, you must hear that kind of stuff all the time."

Harry rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and sighed in a very self-deprecating way as he nodded. "Yeah, I kind of do... umm," but then he seemed to snap out of it. "Look, our specialised dark magic team will be here soon, and I need to be able to tell them exactly what happened."

"Dark magic?!" Jenny gasped.

"Yes, that book on the floor. We believe it's a grimoire of some kind. What exactly did your roommate do, did she have a particular interest in dark books?"

"No!" Jenny gasped. "S-she was just a ministry employee, the Department of Magical Sport and Games."

"How would she have come by the book?"

"I don't know, I've never seen it before." She shuddered, and wiped her nose. "It gives me the creeps, it's like it's stone cold."

"You didn't touch it, did you?" Priscilla Jones asked, speaking for the first time since Harry had entered.

Jenny shook her head. "No, that older Auror told me not to touch anything," but then she leant forward and lowered her voice, "b-but it was like it wanted me to," she whispered.

"Yes, books like the example on your sitting room floors love to trick the unweary into touching them," stated a voice from the doorway.

Harry turned and smiled. "Hey, 'Mione."

"Harry," she nodded, giving him a half smile. "We're ready to feel through the containment spell and see what we're dealing with," she told him evenly. "I take it you will wish to be present?" the chestnut-haired witch continued.

"Yes," and Harry sighed, watching Hermione turn without another word, and his mind started on thinking about things again. He sighed... now was not the time to be thinking of things like this, and he suddenly realised that he was wool-gathering yet again. He turned to follow Hermione. "Excuse me, Miss Cobb… Jenny, I'll return once they're finished." Hurrying after Hermione he asked, "So it is a grimoire?"

Hermione cut him a sideways glance and a flash of irritation passed through her eyes. "Of course it is. The question is, who released it, and why?"

They walked into the sitting room and Harry saw Snape and Malfoy circling the book carefully. Malfoy apparently had gifts that allowed him charm dark objects—something Harry would bet his fortune that Voldemort had never known about him—and they were looking through the containment spell to test the parameters of the magic the book possessed.

Then Harry's eyes turned to Remus standing back watching them, and he saw the intense concentration on his friend's face as he watched his fellow dark magic specialists assessing the article, and he played his part in the scheme of things looking out for anything unexpected and dealing with it while they were concentrating on a dark object.

The team was formed soon after the war, and in response to Snape and Malfoy taking on the responsibility of catching the creatures that were left over from the war, the ones that the Dark Lord had set loose on the population before his demise. Just because he was gone didn't mean that they stopped executing his prime directive to them, after all, it was what they did best. This fact aside, he still wasn't ready to hear that Snape and Malfoy had been instrumental in developing anything.

Harry shook himself from his thoughts again as without warning a whip of magic arced from the book and breached the containment spell, Hermione had been standing beside Harry watching, but she was now instantly admitted to their circle and the surge was calmed.

This shocked Harry, he hadn't been ready for it. He couldn't quite fathom why he was being so introspective today, and he watched Hermione and the two Slytherin wizards finish their work and sheath their wands as they approached him with Remus falling into step with them.

It was Snape who spoke. "It is the first in a series of six grimoires from the collection of Morgana le Fay," he stated.

"How did it end up here?" Harry asked.

"No idea," the Potions master replied, a black brow arching.

"But I believe it will tell us... if we ask it nicely," Lucius Malfoy's cultured drawl stated in answer.

"But away from this suburban street," Hermione added.

"Did the victim have an interest in books such as this?" Remus inquired.

Harry shrugged. "Her friend suggested that she didn't."

"Then I suggest we do some digging from that aspect while my colleagues deal with the grimoire," Remus suggested, giving a nod to Severus, Lucius and Hermione.

Harry watched the unspoken agreement between the four and then the other three circle the book. They stood with their feet slightly apart and raised their hands, pressing their palms together forming an unbroken circle. A phantom wind started to whirl around them and the four partial fingers suddenly jumped up into the circle with them and they left in a type of mutual apparition, Harry had never seen before, with the book contained between them.

It was only after they were gone that Harry realised that the fingers were gone with them. "Hey, where did the fingers go?" he yelled.

"They've gone with the rest of the victim," Remus stated.

"What?!" Harry asked, his head whipping around to face Remus so quickly that he almost overbalanced.

Remus gave him a quizzical look, and said quietly, "Harry, the missing witch is trapped in the book."

"What?"

Sighing, Remus shook his head. "They did not teach you much about dark books at the Auror Academy, did they?"

"I never thought that a book could be lethal," Harry snapped defensively.

Remus fought the urge to roll his eyes, and he smiled kindly at the boy whom he thought of as another son. "Remember that book Hagrid had you all buy your third year?"

Harry snorted. "That bloody thing was dangerous... Oh!" he gasped as recognition sank in.

"And that was a tame one," Remus told him. "Perhaps I will advocate to the academy that there be a better course in dark books for recruits," he laughed.

Harry sighed. "I guess that the answer I should have given you was that I've never really thought about it."

"Mmm," Remus hummed. "You seem distracted today, is there anything wrong?"

"I just seem to be… oh I don't know. Sick of being alone, maybe." He sighed. "I'll just do the reversing spell on the room and Seamus and I can start looking."

Remus nodded, and patted Harry's shoulder. "Is this because of Ginny's wedding?"

Harry grimaced. "Maybe, but I don't think it's directly because of her."

"Okay, but if you want to talk," Remus offered, and then said, "You said that there was a witness?"

"Well, not exactly a witness, but another occupant of the house," Harry clarified.

"They didn't see anything?" Remus stated, sheathing his wand.

"No, she said that the door sealed itself."

"Interesting... Well, be careful looking through the victim's work, in case there are any other unexplained surprises," Remus said, obviously thinking about something. "Well, I had better speak with her."

"This way," Harry instructed.

They walked to the small kitchen once more, and found Seamus regaling Jenny with a Quidditch story. Priscilla and Susan had left once they were no longer required.

Harry smiled, his overactive mind off again. If there was one thing that Seamus was good at, it was talking, he could fill any awkward silence. It was a gift for this type of work, considering the number of traumatised people you had to put at ease so they were able to speak about what had happened.

This small break while Harry reflected on Seamus and his manner had given Remus time to spot Jenny, and he was currently fighting with himself as Moony instantly reared up within him, recognising her as a potential new mate.

When Harry turned back to introduce Remus to her, he was startled to see that his irises had taken on the golden hue that meant that Moony was exerting his influence on him. "Remus?" he asked quietly. "You, okay?"

"Huh?" Remus replied, and he seemed to shake himself. "Oh, yes... my apologies," and he was attentive once more.

"This is Miss Reed's roommate, Jennifer Cobb," he said to Remus, and then to Jenny, "Mister Lupin is a member of the Dark Arts Special Squad, and he would like to ask you some questions about what happened."

"Oh," Jenny gasped. "Hello, sir, how are you?" she asked enthusiastically, obviously recognising him from Hogwarts. "Would you like some tea?"

"Yes, thank you," Remus answered, sitting down as she indicated the chair next to Seamus.

"Harry, would you like tea too?" She turned to Harry as she got up to make more tea.

"Oh, no, I'm fine," Harry answered, thinking that Jenny's voice had become more breathy as she got up from the table. "You all right?" he asked, his brow furrowed.

"Yes, I'm fine, but my lungs don't work so well anymore," she shrugged. "Spell damage from the war."

"Oh!" Harry gasped, he always reacted like that when he heard of someone else who'd been injured in the war. "Well, as long as you're okay... then we have work to do in your sitting room, and then I was wondering if we," and he pointed to Seamus who had just finished his tea, "could have a look through Miss Reed's room, it might show us something," Harry replied.

"Okay," but Jenny shrugged. "I don't think you'll find anything. It's the first door down the hallway, on the left," she told them. "Now, to your questions, Mister… it seems too strange calling you Mister, I remember you as the professor of Defence when I was at Hogwarts," and she laughed softly. "But I guess we all move on, don't we?"

"Yes," Remus added, suddenly seeming to realise that he had seen this witch before. Moony had not reacted to her the last time he'd seen her because he already had Tonks, well they had been dating. He was very glad of that now, because it would have meant that Moony would have been telling him to go after a student, and he had standards, even if Moony didn't. "You were in seventh year the year I taught, weren't you?"

"You remember me?" Jenny replied, obviously pleased.

"Yes, a Gryffindor, if I remember."

"Yes," Jenny agreed, "Gryffindor."

"And Miss Reed was a Slytherin, wasn't she?"

"Yes, that's also right. I know we were an unlikely pair to be friends, we copped flak from both our houses for it, but you see, it wasn't that simple, we're cousins… were cousins… oh my god… I'll have to tell everyone," her voice trailed off and her hands came up to her cheeks as she flopped back down in her chair a look of shock on her face.

Unable to stop himself Remus leaned across the table and patted her arm. "How about you allow my colleagues to work their magic before you do that," he told her.

"What do you mean?" Jenny asked, caught in the eyes of the man opposite her, and loving the golden glow that seemed to be glinting out of them.

Remus forced Moony back down again and cleared his throat. "It is entirely possible that your cousin is still alive… minus four fingers, but alive," he stated.

"What?!"

"I don't know how much the Aurors have told you, but Miss Reed's magical signature is still active, which means that she is still alive," he said, sitting back once more and taking a sip of his tea.

"Oh, that's wonderful," Jenny cried.

"Don't get too excited yet, it may not be the witch you expect that comes back. Experiences in darkness often change a person. Let's wait and see."

"Oh!" The witch opposite him gasped, and it was more of a hiss of air than anything and her face turned sad again. "W-Why has this happened?" she managed shakily.

"That's what we need to find out. Tell me about Miss Reed."

"Fallon... can we call her Fallon? it makes her sound more like a person and less like we're talking about a number."

"Certainly... would it help also if I called you Jennifer?"

"Jenny, please," Jenny stated, smiling.

"Then Jenny, please call me Remus, I am no longer your professor."

Jenny smiled around her sorrow again. "I'm pleased about that, Remus."

Remus didn't comment, but said, "Was Fallon romantically involved with anyone?"

"Well yes, but they'd recently stopped seeing one another."

"Was there any reason for bad feeling about this breakup?"

"No, it wasn't anything serious, it was just casual," Jenny shrugged, "and they moved on."

"I will still need to speak to him regardless."

"Okay," Jenny nodded. "His name was Sep, he works in the ministry archives."

"Sep?" Remus repeated. "Is that all you know about him."

"Yes, that's all I know about that one. Recently there was also, Thad, Dray... umm, Adrian, Percy and a girl called Pansy." Jenny shrugged again, see Remus' eyes narrowing. "She was searching, and she hadn't found what she was looking for."

"Very well, do you know any surnames, where they worked, or anything I can use?"

"No, sorry. I just remember her telling me about them the next morning."

"Perhaps one of the boys will come up with something." Remus took a sip of his tea. "Just out of interest, what do you do?"

"I work as a clerk in the records department."

"Mmm," Remus hummed thoughtfully. "Any particular type of records?"

"No, just general ones," she replied.

Remus drained his cup. "Very well, we'll be in touch. I'm sure I will need to speak with you once more," he added.

Jenny smiled. "I hope so," and followed Remus into the sitting room.

Harry and Seamus were still there, and as they watched, Hermione's falcon flew in through the open door. She waited for Harry to detach her missive and then she left in the same manner.

Harry read the note.

- We have a result for you when you're free. Do not leave the victim's room-mate alone, this is far from over.

Harry conjured his messenger to reply. "Received and understood, we'll be there ASAP," and watched his stag canter through the wall before he turned to Jenny. "Do you have a magical relative to stay with for a while?"

"Umm, not at the moment, why?"

"Then you better come with us, we are not going to discuss anything here."

They were turning to leave and something thumped down on the floor behind them. Remus, Harry and Seamus spun around, wands drawn, Remus stepped in front of Jenny as an arch of magic rose up from the book that had just landed on the floor behind them.