From Then Til Now: A Marauder Story

by bowtruckle90

"First meetings usually warrant and introduction, Mr. Black." Sirius/OC/Remus. First story, be nice. With the exception of Regan, the Priory and a few other characters you don't know yet, everything belongs to JK Rowling.

FIRST MEETINGS USUALLY WARRANT AN INTRODUCTION, MR. BLACK

Regan stood on the balcony of her parents' estate in the country. It was her party, her introduction into the pureblood society, and yet she had no desire to shake any more hands, have any more conversations, or have another ounce of butterbeer. With that in mind, she leaned back against the marble rail and sighed, stroking her strawberry blonde hair, gently winding her fingertips along the gentle curls. Looking down at the marble based balcony's floor, she noticed a shadow on the ground outlined by the light coming from the ballroom.

"Funny running into you here," the voice said. It was a male voice, young. Finally, Regan thought, someone my own age. She stood straight, brushing off the backside of her crimson robes, and raised her face to her guest, only to find the voice belonged to someone she already sort of knew. "It's your party. Shouldn't you be inside? Dancing with your father...having discussions about politics with people who know much more about it than you?"

Sirius Black. He had turned ten in May two years previously. She hadn't been able to attend his party since she was sick. He was a full two years and five months older than she was. They had never formally met, but she did see him once or twice at other social functions. She turned to face him entirely, smiling at his rather dashing appearance in his black dress robes. "First meetings usually warrant an introduction, Mr. Black."

Sirius pulled a curious face and then smiled back. "It would seem you already know me, Regan Leary." He came and stood beside her, one hand supporting him as he leaned coolly on the rail and the other resting in his pocket. "So what would you be doing out here then?"

"I'm a little tired of the hand shaking."

"And the dancing? Because I was rather hoping your weren't done dancing yet."

"Well, I suppose one more won't kill me." She giggled when Sirius bowed low and offered his hand to her. She took it and he led her back into the ballroom, swirling with colorful gowns and candles everywhere. The self-playing orchestra struck up a nocturne as Sirius and Regan swept into the center of the floor. Sirius placed Regan's hand on his shoulder and took the other one in his own as he pulled her closer. As they began reciting the steps each of their mother's had taught them for years before now, it escaped either of them that the couples dancing near them had stopped with all eyes on them with nervous expressions. The sea of people was parting, letting someone through.

Regan saw none of this, enamored in her discussion with this young man. "Sirius...you know, I was supposed to be at your introduction party."

"Were you," he answered. "Why didn't you come?"

"I was sick. Dragon pox."

"That's unfortunate. It would have been more fun if you had been there." Sirius turned them a hundred eighty degrees. It was entirely uncharacteristic of the dance, though Sirius tried to cover it. Regan asked him what he was doing. And right when he was about to answer with an extremely clever lie, Regan's father, Ajax, grabbed onto Sirius' shoulder and pulled the two kids apart. He turned the boy around and pushed him towards Orion Black, Sirius' father, who was following Ajax through the crowd. "Keep your boy away from my daughter, Black!" Ajax, who had been drinking a little too much, however uncharacteristically, called out to Orion. "My wife might think well of your family, but I know what you lot really are! Get out! This party is over!"

In the confusion and general bustle that ensued after that, Regan was able to slip away from her father and mother's watchful eyes long enough to make it to the balcony and catch Sirius' glance as he headed out the door and down the slate pathway. He looked at her for a moment while his parents trudged on ahead with Sirius' younger brother in tow. Then he held up a small object, round and dark with a small scroll of parchment with it. He dropped it on the ground and winked before turning away and following his mother and father into the night.

After kissing her mother goodnight, and after the bustle of a house getting ready for bed had quieted, Regan left her chambers and headed to the servants' stairs in the back of the house. Likely all the elves were asleep by the fireplaces in the kitchens and only a few would be in the ballroom still cleaning up. Joseph, their butler, would have already retired to his own room a floor below and towards the center of the house. It was, luckily, a lonely walk down six flights of ornately carved marble steps and out the back door. The air was cool as Regan stepped out into the night. She hugged herself for warmth and hurried around the side of the estate. After a couple of minutes she reached the front of the house. Hoping that no one was looking out the front windows, she the facade of the building, passed the front door and onto the edge of the right side of the path, bending over to look for the thing that Sirius dropped. A minute or two passed without any such luck in the dark, but then there was a glinting out of the corner of her eye as she crouched lower to get a better look. Regan reached out and rescued the item from the grass. It was a ring. It had the Black family crest cut into the large dark stone. Rolled up in the circlet was the piece of parchment. After burying it in the pocket of her dressing gown, keeping it firmly grasped in her hand though she knew she would find the stairs just as empty as before, Regan made her way back into the house and to her own suite. She locked herself in her bathroom and sat in the tub to unroll the parchment.

Regan Leary,

You know, your family's mansion in London is only two blocks away from my family's house. My room is the third set of windows on the left side of the house. Throw a rock my way sometime. Number 12 Grimmauld Place. I'd like to see you again.

Sirius Black

That was an interesting proposition. He was inviting her to come and visit him in secret. It was strange, certainly, but he did seem to enjoy the brief time they had spent together, and Regan certainly had. Friends were hard to come by for Regan since her family's fortune far exceeded other pureblood families; they were considered too good for anyone, royalty, if you will. And Regan was so often sick. She was born with a bad heart and it often cost her some enjoyments, such as an outing to the Court of Miracles. More or less it was just the same faces she saw at parties and various functions and had the displeasure of sharing petty gossip with, like those wretched Black girls, Sirius' cousins, Bellatrix and Narcissa.

Regan hid the parchment in her stocking drawer and strung the ring on an empty chain from her jewelry box. After placing the chain around her neck and tucking the ring safely away inside her nightgown Regan went to bed with a smile on her face and only a passing thought of her ruined party, 'though in all honesty' she reminded herself, 'it was a total wash to begin with.' Instead, Regan thought of returning to the London house tomorrow, and visiting the Black house tomorrow night. Maybe it was wrong of her, but then again, the ring was the Black family crest, and that gem was absolutely enormous for a piece of jewelry for one's finger. It must be very valuable. She should return it.

MARAUDERS

Regan pushed her way through the crowd that was blocking the corridor on the Hogwarts Express. 'Bloody hell,' she thought, 'are they all waiting for the perfect seat?' She had been elbowed in the ribs twice, tripped half a dozen times, and was no longer in any mood to make any new friends. Luckily it was right then that an old friend pulled her into the compartment she was passing. Sirius had grabbed hold of her waist and pulled her through the doorway. "You could be a little gentler, Sirius," she said trying very hard to sound annoyed but smiling in spite of herself. Regan was laughing as she pulled him into an embrace. "It's great to see you."

"It's great to see you too, Regan." There was a cough from the corner. Regan pulled away, tucking one of her brightly shining locks behind her ear and looked in the direction the cough came from. There was a boy standing up and holding out a hand. "James Potter," he said. "Regan is it?"

"Regan Leary," she answered, taking his hand with a smile. "I've heard a lot about you from Sirius' letters. Have you realized yet that half of everything he tells you is a lie?"

"She's kidding."

"You look young."

"I am. I turned nine in October. My parents wanted to start home school with me, but were having had a hard time controlling my magic so we got permission from the governors to let me start coming to school mid year."

"A prodigy. Very nice."

Sirius sat down and pulled Regan's jumper by the straps to make her take a load off as well. James sat on the other side of the compartment and they all happily chatted with one another while the corridor thinned. Eventually there were two boys left alone, and they knocked on the compartment door in which James and Sirius and Regan were talking. It just so happened that when the door opened, they were discussing pureblood relations, trying to figure if James and Regan were related, as so many pureblood families often found. They were not interrelated. As it turned out, James had grown up in Whales and moved to England with his family just before starting school.

"Oi, sorry we're late," said a boy of average height and sandy colored hair on top of a pallid complexion complete with dark circles beneath his eyes. "Took forever to find you guys. Hello, someone new?"

Regan looked up and smiled. "Regan Leary. Yourselves?"

The tired looking boy threw a carpetbag on top of the shelving and sat down with a book in his hands. "I'm Remus Lupin. This is Peter Pettigrew. He's a little shy."

The boy called Peter sat as far away from the Regan as possible and squeaked out a small, "hello".

They talked about family winter vacations (well, Sirius and Regan bowed out of that one, since Sirius had nothing nice to say and Regan didn't want him to feel alone), memories from the previous term and speculations about the term ahead. That particular conversation was rather intriguing. Regan, being new, became very talkative once the subject was brought up. "I mean, what could happen to anyone at night as long as they stay inside the castle?"

"There are things in the castle that aren't always safe," Remus replied. Peter nodded in agreement, but still said nothing. James and Sirius were clearly on Regan's side. "I don't understand it either Regan," James put in. "There's loads of stuff in that castle, but the only trouble we've ever run into is Filch. Then again," he sighed, "who knows what really comes out in the dark?"

"I want to find out for myself." Every one of the boys looked at Regan. She shrugged. "My older sister Goneril says they always serve turkey on the first night of each term. Everyone will be in a coma afterwards, it's the perfect opportunity for me to explore a little."

Remus looked at her with a little apprehension. "Wouldn't you rather set yourself up and get prepared for the first day of school? I would, besides we started the term with detention last time, I for one would rather wait a week before going out and getting in trouble with those two." He pointed towards James who cast a wide grin across his face.

Sirius sniffed. "Doesn't mean we're running about making tons of noise and laughing at our own genius. Not tonight. Silent as shadows we'll be, she can learn a few things and does the first day ever really count? Not in my experience. I'm in. James?"

"Why not? Could be the most fun I have all term. How about you boys?"

Remus hesitated a moment, even though Peter was nodding vigorously. Finally, when all eyes were on him, he gave a tired smile and said, "I suppose."

"It's settled then," Sirius said stretching out and putting his feet up on the bench across form him, between James and Remus. "We'll have a boys night out."

"Am I a boy now?" Regan curled up and rested her head on Sirius stomach, face up with a grin of playful nature on her lips. "Course not, love," Sirius responded. "Fine then we'll have a...what should we call this? Four boys and one girl's night out? Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue does it?"

Regan turned her head to the side and closed her eyes, ready for a nap, but she did mumble before falling asleep, "Well, we'll call it a Marauders' night out."

"Marauders night out," James repeated. "She's a Marauder now?"

"I like it. I like the thought of having a girl around," Remus said brightly.

"Me too," Sirius added. He looked down at Regan's head in his lap and saw her eyes had closed. He called her softly. "Regan?"

She didn't answer. Sirius stroked her hair and covered her exposed ear. "Someone let me know when we're closer to school so I can wake her."

"What's wrong with her?" Remus asked with intense interest. Sirius noted the tone of voice, but no one else seemed to catch it. He shrugged and said, "Doesn't sleep well at night...naps a lot." The subject was quickly forgotten and Regan was allowed to rest in peace.

They all talked quietly for a little longer until they could see the castle faintly outside the compartment window, sitting on top of a tall hill like a beacon through the blazing sunset. At that point Sirius gently shook Regan's shoulder and she woke up.

Deciding that there wasn't enough room the one compartment for them all to change, nor was it proper with Regan around, Sirius and Regan made their way to the bathrooms in the back of the train. They too were all filled with changing students, save one, so they both climbed in and shared.

"I can't believe I fell asleep," Regan said as Sirius locked the door. She pulled her jumper and blouse over her head and picked up her shirt from the pile of Hogwarts clothing on the floor. "My heart rate must have been crawling. You didn't say anything did you?"

Sirius shook his head as he finished removing his jeans and tee shirt, and stepped into his trousers. "It didn't drop below forty, and of course I didn't say anything. I promised didn't I?"

Regan picked up her skirt and stepped into it. She tucked in the tails of the shirt. "Well, you do forget things sometimes," she answered as she zipped her skirt in the back and finished buttoning her shirt from the bottom up, mirroring Sirius' own motions.

"Well, I didn't forget this," Sirius responded, finishing getting dressed, throwing the tie over his shoulder and proceeding to ball up his muggle clothes and tuck them under his arm. Regan neatly folded her dress and blouse and grabbed up her own tie, draping it around her neck, collar of her shirt still popped and hair messed from changing clothes. Sirius watched her, arms crossed and a curious expression on his face. "Why don't you want to let anyone know about your condition, Regan? It's not embarrassing, or anything like that."

Regan sighed and rested her hand on the door handle. "I don't like looking weak." With that she opened the door and let herself out. Sirius followed her back to the compartment where she put on a happy face and once more became the life of the conversation.

NEVER KEEP SECRETS FROM FAMILY

Regan woke up on Sirius' bed in the boys' dormitory, surrounded by papers, books, and broken quills. Blimey, she thought, these final exams are taking over my life; hope next year isn't this bad. She rubbed her eyes a little and quietly lay where she was, only turning her head to look around at the other beds. Every one of them was empty except for Remus who was still quietly seated on his. But he wasn't reading or mumbling charms under his breath. He was un-bandaging his right forearm by the looks of it, supposedly examining the progress of whatever he had done to himself recently.

Regan sat up and stretched. "Where'd the others go?" she asked. Remus jumped a little and shoved his arm underneath his pillow. "Well," he said scratching his head a little. "They got into a discussion about how Peter has no backbone so James and Sirius thought it would be amusing to take him down to the dungeon to find the Bloody Baron and get Peter into a spat with him."

"I see," Regan responded, not really caring why the other boys had left the room. She was more concerned about Remus' arm. He was trying very hard to look casual, but was in fact visibly tense if one paid attention to the twitching muscle in his jaw.

"Let me help you with that," she said, clambering out of her nest of texts and parchment and making her way over to Remus. No sooner had she finished her sentence than had Remus begun shaking his other hand to wave her off.

"No, no, it's fine."

"Nonsense. It can't be easy to do that with only one hand. Let me help you."

"I've got it, really."

Regan knelt beside Remus's bed and looked him square in the eye. He seemed to give up then and let Regan pull his arm out from under the pillow. Along the forearm there was a series of deep scratches and bites, at least three days old, healing, but still spotting judging by the tiny red dots sprinkling the gauze bandages that had been cast aside. Regan rolled her eyes and sighed before she grabbed up the fresh wraps and tape that lay next to Remus. "If you were a werewolf," she said as she wrapped his arm, "you could have told me, at least."

"I'm not-"

"You disappear for a night every month, suspiciously always on the night of the full moon. When you all come back there's always an injury on you of some sort, or several, sometimes you miss classes, and you look horrendous for days. I think your little vacations have much less to do with your mother being ill and much more to do with you being ill." She met his eyes again as she tied off his bandage a little more roughly than was necessary. "You should have told me."

She stood and turned her back on Remus to make her way back to Sirius' bed. But Remus stopped her halfway there. "You're not honest about your health either."

Regan stopped and turned on her heel, arms crossed and face set. "What do you mean by that?"

"You have a bad heart. You're always tired even with the smallest exertion, always sick. You miss as much school as I do."

They both fell silent. Regan went back to sit on Remus' bed beside him. "It's stupid. Sirius told me I should have been up front about it...but I was scared that if you all knew, you'd see me as weak. And I am weak. But I just didn't want to be treated like I was. So I asked Sirius to keep my secret."

Remus shrugged. "It's understandable. Neither one of us wanted to be treated like a leaper. But I don't think the gang would give us trouble, do you?"

They smiled at one another and Remus held his arms out to her. She folded into them and they hugged tight. It was such a comfortable place to be, Regan almost didn't want to let go. Just as they parted, Sirius and James marched back in with a pale looking Peter in tow. "What's with the love?" Sirius asked, flopping down on his stomach between Remus and Regan on the bed. James and Peter sat on the thick rug at the side of the bed.

Remus shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "We were just discussing that there's something we want to tell you lot."

"Oh," said Sirius scratching his scalp much the same as a dog would and yawning slightly. "Is Remus going to tell us all he's a werewolf, then?"

"And Regan is going to let us know she has a bad heart," James put in.

Regan smiled and Remus laughed a little nervously. "You already knew?" Regan asked.

James shrugged and said, "Sirius told us ages ago, and we decided to let you come to it on your own, when you were ready for us to know. And we all figured out Remus' thing on our own. It was about time."

Sirius sat up and hugged Regan from behind saying, "You know we're family so long as we're here together. The Marauders of Hogwarts. If you can't tell family these things who can you tell?"

They all laughed. Regan knew Sirius was entirely serious when he said that these four other people were his family, because gods knew he had a rotten one back at home. But when she thought about it, it really was true. They had spent so much time together in the past months it seemed odd to think of each other as anything but family.

Sirius was in a playful mood, because he pulled Regan with him as he lay himself down and Remus, joining in, threw himself across Regan's lap. "So we're agreed. No more secrets...not from family."

"To family," James echoed, jumping onto the bed amidst them all and pulling Peter up with him. There was a loud groan from the other parties already on the bed followed by gales of laughter. And they all continued to laugh until there were sore bellies and tired eyes. Rather than go to bed when they were tired, they lay themselves like sardines across the bed and fell asleep one by one until it was just Sirius and Regan awake in the middle. Before she closed her eyes, Regan could hear Sirius whisper to her, "Well done love."

THE MARAUDERS DEFINED

Regan and Sirius had made certain to get to the dorms early to finish preparing their surprise. All term they had been working on it, but it was still missing a few things. They had it spread on the floor of the boys' dormitory and were crouching over it, quills in hand, ink wells out and nibs dipped, drawing out the various missing spots on the parchment.

"Easy with the ink Sirius," Regan warned. "We're almost done with this thing so I'm almost out."

Sirius shrugged and dipped his quill again. "Well, this is the last thing, what does it matter if we use the last of it?"

"Because I've got papers to finish before another Hogsmeade weekend. Not that you would understand what the need to do one's homework feels like."

"I do homework," Sirius retorted. "But either way, with this thing we can go any time we need to."

Regan rolled her eyes as a few spots of black jumped from Sirius' vigorously sharp motions of artistry landed onto her snowy white hair. "Watch it. It can stain you know."

"I like it by the way."

"What a horrible morning. Goneril practically poisoned me with that stuff, you know. I'm lucky to have just turned my hair white. In fact, I'm lucky Poppy let me go today." Regan ran her clean fingers through the white tresses that always hung loosely around her face after leaving the steam of the potions room, even when her hair was tied up. "Okay, Dumbledore's office is finished. You done with the third floor corridor?"

Sirius nodded and dropped his quill tip first down in the well sitting beside his right knee. "You want to do the honors?"

Regan drew her wand and uttered a long series of charms, all of which had been written repetitively on the parchment in the shapes of walls and doorways. With each pass of her wand, the parchment came more alive, until finally the ink faded into the parchment like a stain and the whole picture moved and flowed. Some of the small tags that Sirius had drawn in disappearing reappearing ink two months ago began to wave and follow tiny footprints walking in and out of corridors and classrooms displaying the names of various people. The lines that made up the walls and doorways seemed to float inside the paper rather than simply sitting on it. Then after a moment of admiration, Regan tapped the parchment again with her wand and the paper cleared as though it had never been written on in the first place. Regan nodded once with satisfaction and folded the map up as the boys' dormitory door burst open and the rest of their party came in. They were all smiling and laughing, over something they had done to Severus no doubt, but that died down as Regan and Sirius stood up from the floor.

"Happy Friday everyone," James chortled as he tossed his bag onto his bed across the room.

"Regan," Remus said a little breathlessly. "What happened to your hair?"'

"Never mind that Remus. She'll be normal looking again before you know it I'm sure. Gather round gents and witness an amazing feat."

James cocked an eyebrow at Sirius' words and Remus and Peter set their own book packs down on the floor before stepping closer. "What've you got there, then?" Remus asked in an interested tone. They all crowded in and Regan, after checking that the door was indeed closed, held out the parchment, still blank, and pointed her wand at it. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," she said.

As they all watched, the front of the map was covered in an intricate design and a golden title scrawled itself across a red diamond in the center of the folded parchment's surface as though written by an invisible hand. It said The Marauders' Map. James repeated the name with a large grin on his face, adding, "A map then is it?"

"Map of what?" Remus ventured.

"Wait a mo'," James said opening the flaps. "This is Hogwarts." He pointed to a figure in a room. "Is that really-?"

"Dumbledore in his study," Regan finished for him. "Yeah it is. Now when we go out after hours we don't have to worry as much about running into Filch so long as someone's watching this thing."

"This is fantastic," James said with wonderment and a little mischievousness in his voice.

"This is illegal," Remus retorted with a groan.

Sirius flopped down onto his bed, which sat behind him and clasped his hands behind his head. "Illegal, perhaps, but highly useful." The others all followed suit and climbed onto Sirius mattress, James holding onto the map as he did so. "All that's left is to sign it," Sirius said.

"Why would we sign it?" Peter asked. "What if we lose it? They'll know exactly who it belongs to."

"We're not going to sign our real names I imagine, Pete," James said turning the map over and over again in his hands. "Right Regan?"

"Oi," Sirius cut in raising his voice in mock abashment. "Hey, maybe I came up with the idea, James. How dare you insult my intelligence..."

James laughed. "You're clever my friend, but the day you put work into anything other than chasing skirts and keeping an eye on Puddlemere's game point average is the day I dance naked in potions class. Aliases, Regan?"

Regan nodded and said, "I think it's time we had some. We'll be signing our animagus aliases."

"Animagus?"

"I've been doing some reading," Regan paused and looked to her left before flicking her wand at the windows to make certain they were shut just as securely as the door. (After all a map of the school was one illegality, penalty of a slap on the wrist, but what they were about to discuss could have consequences much more dire than that.)

"Someone's been practicing," Remus said in an impressed tone. He was referring to her non-verbal spell making, of course. That was NEWT level stuff, and they were only third years; but then Regan was uncommonly talented despite being two years younger than they were, as the boys had discovered the first month with her when Snivellus was found hung from his knickers on one of the eaves of the astronomy tower.

"Anyway, I've found that werewolves are only dangerous to people. Other animals have nothing to fear of them. When I read that I wrote Sirius with an idea over Christmas. If the rest of us become animagi we can spend the full moons with you, Remus."

"It was a rather tantalizing notion, so over the several weeks while we worked some more on the map we also gathered some materials for learning how do accomplish such a feat."

Remus looked skeptical, Peter looked nervous, and James...well, he wasn't really paying attention. Or at least that's how it seemed. He was either listening most intently or still studying the map. It became apparent that it was the former when he lifted his head and asked, "So why do we need to sign it? Besides pride over our brilliance."

"Because it would make the precautionary charms on it much more amusing," Sirius answered. "See, Regan thought that carrying that thing everywhere, even if we all just said it was a spare bit of parchment when it's wiped clean, someone's bound to note that no one ever goes to use it."

"You mean Filch is bound to note it," James corrected, folding the map up. "Or one of the Slytherines. So to wipe it and make it blank we...?"

"Tap it and say 'Mischief managed.'" Sirius was looking prouder and more smug every second. "Anyway, Regan put this jinx on it, whenever someone who isn't knowledgeable of the password to get in tries to make it work, the parchment will insult it, and we thought it would be nice if by some round about way it were us doing the insults."

"It was Sirius' idea. He thought it would be more fun that way, and honestly, if I didn't give him something amusing to do he would have been sitting there sighing in my ear until the damned thing was finished," Regan explained, "With this charm in place we can tell everyone it's a special order Zonko product. Even try to make people read it on purpose. So everyone knows about it and our nicknames but no one knows what they really are to us."

Remus was amused by this. "So Regan thought of the map, the animagi, and the charms, and you thought it would be fun to have nicknames and make the parchment insult people. That was your contribution?"

Sirius shrugged, hands still clasped behind his head. "I was busy. Places to go, girls to woo, you know how it is. Oh wait, you don't."

James chuckled and butt in. "Enough you two. This is clever. Very clever indeed. But we'll need to pick practical animals, in case things don't work out, you know. Just in case things get out of hand."

"Wait a second," Remus said. "We can't really do this. This is completely illegal. Isn't it?'

Sirius laughed a little and, holding up his hands to count of his fingers, said, "Well, let's see, we'll be illegal animagi using a map that lets us spy on the comings and going of anyone on the premises of the school and James' invisibility cloak to sneak out into the night after curfew to meet up with a werewolf, let him out of his safe zone and into a village full of unsuspecting people." He shrugged and looked to Regan. "What do you think Regan? I think that's three laws, at least four school policies, and about a dozen codes of ethics we're breaking without the specifics of each outing wouldn't you say?"

"Sounds about right," Regan said sounding unconcerned. She looked across the span of the mattress they were all occupying together with Remus between Peter, who was on the end, and James on his other side. He was beginning to tremble a little. Regan stretched across James' midsection and placed her hand over the one he was resting on his knee. "Don't worry," she said quietly, "If we get caught you can blame it all on me. We're doing this for you; you're innocent."

He was still apprehensive, but Remus did crack a smile and said, "Well...it would be nice to have some company...I think."

"That's the spirit, Moony," Sirius said clapping his hands. Remus looked a little puzzled. "Moony?" he asked. "Yeah," Sirius responded. "Regan's idea. A name for you."

"If you hate it we can always think of something else," Regan put in.

Remus smiled and looked at her. "I like it. It's perfect." James kicked his feet up and turned himself so that his head was resting in the space on the bed that was hollowed out by Remus' curled shape and his legs set themselves down in Regan's lap. "So what about the rest of us?"

Regan pulled off James' shoes as they were wet and dirty from the slush outside and laid back, copying the pose Sirius had not moved from since they started this conversation. "Well, one of us is going to have to be some kind of rodent. We need someone to be something small enough to run under the branches of the willow and press the knot. And then we think someone should be a buck, one of the boys. The antlers are going to be important in case we have a hard time controlling Remus, no offense."

"None taken."

"And then the other two should be rather large dogs of some sort in case Remus is up for a fight." There was a momentary silence. Everyone was looking at one another. "That's it, that's all I've-"

"Shh," Sirius quieted her. He was looking toward the door, which was now ajar. Very ajar, in fact, enough so to be termed as half open. A shadow was outlined against the stairwell's wall. Someone was, presumably, listening. They could see the figure had near shoulder length hair and a large nose on his face. Regan pursed her lips and waved to the boys to continue talking as though they thought they heard something and decided it was nothing. Meanwhile Regan slipped from under James and stood up on the bed. She crept down and tip-toed her way around the large circular room toward the door. She aimed her wand at her handle on the door, shooting a curse at it and watching it reflect off the metal handle before it jumped into the stairs and a yelp from outside the door could be heard, followed by footsteps pounding down the stairs and through the common room.

Regan smiled sickly and shrugged. "Snivellus."

"What on earth was he doing in here? How did he get in?" Remus, trying very hard to be the good boy all the time in order to make prefect in a couple of years was always concerned about legality and school policy. No student outside of their own house's dormitories was allowed to know how to get in to another's.

Sirius and Peter both shrugged as Regan closed the door and walked back to the bed to lay back down, letting James return his feet to their previous position. "I don't know," he said with an annoyed sigh. "He probably got the password off some first year."

"Anyway," Sirius brought the conversation back to the real issue. "Seeing as Peter is the smallest, he should be the rodent. James is the biggest so he should be the buck. Seems that size directly effects the ability of becoming a certain animal and it's dangerous to try and stretch into something too big or compress into something too small."

"So now we just need names," Peter said. Regan smiled and said, "Well, let's see. What do rats and mice have? Fuzzy ears?"

"Sharp little teeth," James put in.

"And those wormy little tails," Remus added with a shiver.

Sirius smiled and thought aloud, "Wormy...tail...wormtail. What do you all think of that?"

There was a general murmer of agreement, so they moved onto naming James. They all agreed that it should have something that had to do with the antlers, but Regan decided on the name when James suggested Spike (he was kidding, sort of. Maybe only halfway. Well, it didn't matter seeing as no one would actually ever call him Spike.) She decided on Prongs, and the consensus was two thumbs up. Sirius had come up with his name over the holiday: Padfoot. The trouble came with Regan. No one had thought of one for her yet.

"How about workaholic," Peter suggested.

"Perfectionist," Remus added.

"Psychotic workaholic has my vote," James chortled.

"All right," Regan said stonily. "Enough. Without me you wouldn't have all of these things happening for you."

"Red," Sirius said.

"Enough I said. Goodness, I think I'll be getting a compartment with Lily for the ride on Christmas."

"No," Sirius said. "I mean it. Your hair is red, so the dog's fur will be red. So we'll just call you Red."

Regan had to warm up to it, but eventually came to love the idea. So with all that settled, they all took a turn signing the contract of sorts already inscribed on the back of the map by Regan. When it was done, the whole contract disappeared into the map, only to be seen again upon special command from one of the signers. It read:

Introducing the Marauders' Map, created in autumn 1973 by the Marauders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, class of 1978.

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good...

Mr. Moony

Mr. Wormtail

and Mr. Prongs

with Miss Red

...Mischief managed

A CHANGE OF PLANS

"Ah! Why can't I do it?" Regan had been trying for hours to make the dog form work on her. Every time it seemed that she was almost there, only her back left humanlike, she would experience such a feeling of a lack of control she had to come out of it.

James was trying to say anything he could think of. Everyone else had gotten a hang of their shapes, but Regan, usually the most talented in the bunch, wasn't doing so well. Remus refused to let anyone start planning an outing without her, so they had been working on school nights lately. James suggested a break, and while he a Sirius sat down on the Room of Requirement's provided couches Remus approached Regan who was standing in nothing but a towel so as to save her clothes from being stretched into ruin.

"What's going on in there? You can do this; you've made yourself into books, teapots, quills-"

"Inanimate objects. This is something I need to control beyond just maintaining concentration and I can't. James is attached to the idea of another dog, but I think I'm just too little."

Remus could understand that. Becoming a werewolf was terrible; he never felt in control of himself, even though he desperately wanted to be. The animal in him was just too big to handle, and it took over him much the way this dog form could do to Regan if she accomplished it. He knew exactly how she felt. "I think you're right. Why not try something smaller, like a fox. Still useful, able to fight, fast. And small. You'll have no problem with it."

"I think maybe it's something I just can't do."

"You can."

"No."

"Try."

Regan closed her eyes and let a breath out. She thought about foxes she had seen and already began feeling her self shrink. Her nose got wet and her ears grew taller. Her spine extended and she could feel the thin hairs on her body thicken. When she opened her eyes, the boys were all standing around her, and she was struggling to get out from underneath the towel. Her fur had grown in just as brightly as her own hair, and she imagined the color of her eyes must be looking more red than brown.

"Not exactly a dog, but I like it," James said.

A HORRIBLE MISTAKE

Peter was in bed napping and Remus was down in the shack already, just waiting to transform so the fun could begin. Sirius strolled, well, tried to stroll only to end up tripping over a table and someone's sleeping cat, in through the Gryffindor portrait hole and into the common room. He was looking very pleased with himself, that smug smile stretching across his face. Regan looked up from her book for a moment, not really seeming to notice anything wrong with his attitude. James on the other hand put his stolen snitch (from the quiddich cupboard one night after helping to put away the supplies following a practice) securely in his jeans pocket and said, "What do you look so happy about Padfoot?"

Sirius let himself fall over the arm of the couch Regan was sitting on and flopped down on top of Regan's lap, knocking her book from her hands, and cupped his hands behind his head. "Just the most recent in amazingly brilliant schemes to make Snivellus miserable." Regan pulled a face and waved a hand in front of her nose.

"Sirius, have you been sneaking wine from the kitchens again?"

He smiled stupidly and lifted his chin slightly. "Regan...I have set up a most fantastic prank. In about five minutes, Snivellus is going to find out exactly what we've been up to for the last...when did we start going out with Remus?"

"Two years ago in third year," James said, sitting forward. "Sirius what do you mean he'll find out?"

"Hah! Always nosing about...I told him-oof!" Sirius fell off Regan's lap (or rather she had pushed him, though Sirius hadn't really seem to notice the difference) and landed in a heap on the floor and laughed for a minute before Regan stepped onto his chest to make him lay still. Sirius coughed and turned over to face James, wildly gesturing in a courtly manner with one of his hands while proper his head up with the other. "He wants to know? Well he's gonna bloody well find out! When he sees Moony, Snivellus is gonna crap himself silly! Haha!"

James and Regan exchanged a look of panic. Sirius did stupid things on the rare occasions this term while he had taken wine form the kitchens, but he had never done something that was downright irresponsible, particularly where the welfare of the group was concerned. They stood up and ran for the portrait hole, ignoring the manic laughter that was following them until the fat lady closed behind them.

Running along the corridors, Regan looked to James. "What do we do?"

"You get Dumbledore, I'm going after Snivellus."

"Shouldn't I-?"

"No, I'll get him. You're too small to hold him back manually. And Dumbledore will see you any time of day."

"Okay."

At the end of the corridor they split in two directions. Regan made her way to the headmaster's office in a little less than two minutes, running the whole way. Thirty seconds later she was pounding on his office door and watched it open up to the headmaster, already in his sleeping cap and housecoat. After a slightly stammered explanation they both raced out toward the Whomping Willow, whereupon they found James clawing at Snivellus' jeans trying to get him to stay put, Snivellus looking as pale as death, both boys yelling at one another.

When they all were seated in Dumbledore's office, the headmaster began explaining things to Severus. "Remus is a werewolf, as you have now discovered. And I would hope you would do your classmate a courtesy and keep his secret for obvious social reasons."

For a minute Severus merely kept his place, arms folded and staring coldly into the lit fire across the room. It looked as though he was going to say nothing or worse, a stony, 'why should I?' James was nervous, Dumbledore was clearly thinking of something to say outside of pleading, so it looked as though it would all be up to Regan. She turned toward Severus where he was seated next to her.

"Severus, please. Please keep this secret. I'll make sure they stop bothering you, okay? Anything. Just please don't tell anyone." Severus looked sideways at her before dropping his gaze downward.

"You can't make them do it. You can't make them leave me alone."

"No, I can't, but I can try to make them keep the public humiliation to a minimum. Peter will leave you be, so will Remus and I. But James and Sirius I can't promise."

"You have to."

"I can't."

"Promise."

Defeat. It was not a familiar feeling for Regan. But unfamiliar as it was, she knew she had lost. And so she extended her hand toward Severus and said, "I promise. I'll find a way."

They shook and they and James were dismissed. When they were alone in Griffindor tower, James stopped Regan and said, "Why did you promise that? You know you can't control Sirius, and he's been giving Evans trouble. She might take it lying down, but I can't let him get away with the things he says."

Regan shrugged. "I know that. But I had to agree to him."

"Why?"

"So we would shake hands."

"Why is that important?"

"So I could put a spell on him. He won't be able to say anything about Remus. If he tries he'll babble nonsense until he stops trying."

James laughed and picked Regan up in a bear hug. "You're brilliant!"

Regan sputtered for a second and James set her down. "Sorry. I forgot you practically just ran a marathon. Tired?"

"Extremely."

"Maybe we'd better skip the outing tonight. Sirius is drunk, Peter's asleep anyway."

"You can still go."

"This was designed as a team effort. I need all of you." Regan sighed. She hated leaving Remus to fend on his own. James wrapped a brotherly arms around her shoulder. "Come on."

Regan and James went back to the common room and levitated a passed out Sirius into his bed.

THINGS HAPPEN

"Where are you two going?" It was Friday, after the last class for the week and as James, Remus and Peter headed towards Griffindor Tower to change their clothes and make their way out to the grounds for a fun filled afternoon of the fresh spring weather that had just recently arrived.

"To look something up in the Library," Regan called back as she and Sirius headed in the other direction. As they hurried away, Sirius could feel the eyes of the others boring into them until the moment they turned the corner.

And the moment they did, schoolbags dropped to the floor and Regan found herself pinned against the corridor wall, pressed back by Sirius' body. She smiled into his kiss as his soft lips touched hers and his hands started making their way towards the hem of her skirt. "Stop," she whispered. "If we're going to get into it don't you think we should find someplace more private?

"You're right," Sirius said, picking up the bags and taking Regan's hand. As he led the way, Regan tried to think of where he could be taking them. And the question kept her puzzled until Sirius stopped them in front of the entrance to Dumbledore's office.

"Sirius, no." He pulled her up the staircase.

"Sirius we can't do that." He whispered, "Licorice wand."

"We're going to get expelled."

"It's not going to happen. He's gone for the weekend on business at the Ministry, remember?"

"The portaits-"

"Won't know what hit them."

Sirius opened the door and crept quietly inside. Before any of the portraits noticed, Sirius cast a charm to make them all sleep. He pulled Regan inside with a mischievous grin and shut the door. He dropped the bags and raised her into his arms, wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her over to the great desk. As he nibbled on her neck, Regan continued to protest, if only half-heartedly.

"Sirius, what we've been doing could get us expelled, but in the headmaster's office?"

Sirius set her down on the edge of the desk, placing his mouth on hers. She was done protesting, and he needed her now. Sirius pulled up her skirt roughly and pushed aside her thong before inserting two fingers. Regan moaned as Sirius pumped into her, starting out at a medium speed and moving quickly into a rapid frenzy, making Regan practically scream with pleasure. She could hear a fly unzipping, but just as that noise stopped, another one came to her ears. The door.

The handle was turning and the hinges began to squeak. Regan leapt off the desk and Sirius shuffled after her, pants round his ankles, so slow that Regan reached back and dragged him by his boxers. They dove behind a couch in the corner near the fireplace just as the door closed. Dumbledore had come in, carrying his phoenix, Fawkes. Fawkes appeared to have a cold. The bird looked a little wilted. "There we go," Dumbledore said as he set the bird on his perch. "You take some time to rest, my friend."

As Dumbledore filled the bird's water dish form a small spigot in the wall behind the desk, Sirius and Regan were mouthing what in the world they were going to do.

'Break something' said Regan's lips. Sirius mouthed back, 'What?'

'Break something."

'What?'

'Break. Something.'

"What?"

Just as Dumbledore was about to turn his head toward the whisper, Regan drew her wand and shot a spell toward the table that held the licorice snaps, breaking a leg and causing the snaps to start swarming all over the floor.

"What in the world-?"

As Dumbledore was busy brushing the little things off the papers on his desk before they devoured them, Sirius and Regan made a break for it. Grabbing their bags from next to the door as they went by they sprinted out the door, down the stairs, and down the hall, heading back for the tower. Along the way, they didn't come across anyone, which was good, since Sirius did have to stop when they rounded the first corner to pulled his pants up from around his ankles and secure them properly.

When they got back to the common room, they both dropped their bags and started laughing hysterically. By the time they were rolling around on the floor, James, Remus and Peter were standing over them, bundled up against the cold. "What's so funny?" Peter asked.

"Nothing," Sirius sputtered. "Never mind." They stood up and gathered their things. "You all go on ahead, we'll meet you out there," Regan said making her way toward the girls' dormitories. Remus and Peter shrugged and move onto the porthole. James caught Sirius' arm as he went by. "Nothing, huh? Sure about that?'

"Well," Sirius shrugged, unable to keep a secret from his second best friend next to Regan. "Things happen. Things have…been…happening."

James looked back at Remus who was waving to Regan as she climbed the stairs with a silly looking grin on his face. He then turned back to Sirius, leaned in close, and said lowly, "Don't tell him."

The next week, James, Sirius, and Regan were walking by the headmaster's office, but in front of the staircase there was now a gargoyle. Well, it was a statue, but it still made them all stop and look.

"Rather intriguing isn't it?" Dumbledore had been standing before the statue, admiring it with a most curious smile gracing his lips.

"Sure, sir," James said. "But why?"

"Well, it's funny, but I have the feeling that someone was in my office while I was away. Students, I think. I figured I should correct that before going on my trip to the Ministry this weekend. Oh, well, things happen. Tootle pip."

Sirius and Regan blushed deeply and James crossed his arms. "Things happen huh? You two just couldn't keep it in your pants."

THE DECISION

"Remus, I'm with Sirius. We're together. I can't do this." It was their last day ever at Hogwarts. Remus had Regan were up against the wall in the entrance hall. Regan pulled back as far as she could from his lips; the lips she had just kissed. She would have slid from him, but he was holding fast to her arms.

"He isn't what you need. He's a child. He'll always be that way. He can't take care of you."

"Neither can you. Well I should say not that you can't but won't. You have such a distorted vision of yourself Remus. At least Sirius is aware of his faults, even if he is too proud to highlight any of them out loud or fix them."

"How can you defend his behavior? You know he's never going to change."

"I know…but I know how to take care of myself and him. And he lets me. You don't let anyone help you."

"Well then…I hope you're happy Regan. Goodbye." Remus stepped away from her and began to walk back into the graduation ball being thrown in the Great Hall. "Wait," Regan called. Remus stopped on the stair and turned back to her. Regan was standing at the foot three steps away.

"I don't want to drive you away. I value this friendship. But Sirius and I are tied together. I truly believe it's fate."

"You don't think fate will ever point you in my direction?"

Regan averted her gaze. She felt shame, but didn't know why. Remus was great, but he wasn't Sirius. She loved Sirius. But then…could she feel this shame because she loved Remus deep down too?

"I don't know Remus. I just…don't know."

"Well, when you do, look me up."

THE ESCAPE

"This is ridiculous." Regan shoved more tops into her bag as she shot another stony glance at Sirius, who was leaning against the doorframe to her bedroom. His hair was half dry from the rain that was pounding on the windowpanes outside Regan's windows. "I don't see how this is all about me right now."

"Regan," her mother pleaded, sitting on her daughter's bed. "You have to go. At least in London the Priory can look after you." She paused for a moment, and then added, "Sirius can look after you."

Regan sat down beside her mother, the bag between them, and looked around her newly emptied room. Much of what had adorned the walls and shelves for years had been packed in the bottomless bag and ready to go with them to the townhouse Sirius had bought in London. It was right around the corner from the Ministry of Magic and two blocks away from the Priory headquarters. In a funny way, Regan felt like she was getting married, only with none of the elation involved. She was leaving her parents' home, likely for good for the purpose of going into a home with Sirius. The only thing was, she was hiding. This was not the celebration of a joyous event. This was running away with her tail between her legs. And with that thought a new twinge of anger at this situation leapt from her stomach to her throat.

Two nights ago, Voldemort came to the house in London again, asking if the Learys would join his cause. They refused and as he was leaving he started ogling Regan. When he touched her face, stroking her cheek, Ajax Leary had all but manhandled him out of the house. Madam Leary thought it would be best if Regan left and stayed with Sirius, seeing as the country estate was closed and the family had moved to the beach house in Whales. The house from which Regan was now being forced to flee. Though it didn't really matter if she was in the townhouse, the manor or the beach house, she couldn't go back to any of them until this nightmare was over.

"Who will look after you, Mom? If I'm not here, who will make sure you and Daddy are safe?"

"We've asked Alastor to send someone from time to time."

Ajax had come to the door and Sirius stood aside to let the man through. "Daddy, you didn't have to do that."

Master Leary knelt before his daughter and kissed her forehead. "Don't worry, darling. We'll be fine." He pressed something into her hand. "I want to be sure you will be."

It was his old knife. The blade was cursed so that the cuts it made would continue to lengthen and deepen until someone started to heal them. It was more of an assassin's weapon than anything, and Regan would rather not know why he had such a thing.

Ajax stood and escorted Sirius from the room. When the men were gone, Regan moved the bag to the floor and scooted closer to her mother resting her head on her shoulder. "He'll take care of you," Madam Leary repeated. "He will. I know it. He loves you, and in his hands nothing will happen to you."

"He's impulsive. He takes stupid risks. But you're right. He is quite protective of me."

"Well, he loves you. And in this moment I have never seen him as determined as he is now, while he's trying to get you somewhere safe. He may be a perpetual child, but there is no one better to take care of you if it can't be your father and me."

Regan smiled and sighed, "He does, doesn't he? He loves me. Perhaps I'll be Mrs. Regan Black someday."

"Perhaps, dear." Madam Leary reached around her neck and unclasped the pearls. "Here, darling. I want you to have these. My mother gave them to me, and her mother gave them to her…now I'm giving them to you."

There was a knock on the doorframe just as Regan closer her hand around the string of tiny white orbs. It was Sirius. "Sorry," he said. "Regan we've got to get going. I came here at this ungodly hour and endured your parents in their night things to get you to travel at a safe hour. We can't dawdle any more."

"Okay." Regan and her mother stood and hugged one another. After picking up the carpetbag, Regan followed Sirius out of the room and out of her home onto the front step, which overlooked the beautiful beach and the ocean, calmly lapping at the shore. Taking her cloak from his arm and sweeping it around her, Regan expertly clasped the brooch at her clavicle with one hand, paused when she noticed Sirius' posture, and with an annoyed look that matched her irritated sigh, she dropped the bag in his waiting hand. Sirius led Regan down the steps through the dune grass that stretched before the house as she pulled her hood up over her head.

"I don't like running away from this, Sirius," she said when they were well out of earshot of any open windows.

"If you don't run you'll find yourself in unhappy company sooner rather than later. From my perspective, I'd rather you not be in that company at all."

Regan was silent as they apparated near Diagon Alley in London, and remained that way until they reached the house. "How's Lily?" Regan asked.

"She's doing great, Harry's great, and no one has slept for a week since they brought him home."

"Figures." Regan stopped with one foot on the bottom step, hand on the railing, and eyes downcast. "Sirius? Will they really be okay?"

"I'm sure they will." He held out his hand to beckon her forward. She took it and he kissed the back of her hand softly before leading her up the stairs and inside the door.

Inside was a hallway adorned with portraits of Regan's family and pictures of the marauders through the years against green walls and a crystal vase of pink roses on the table beneath a gold-framed mirror. The whole corridor was lit brightly by a chandelier hung from the high ceiling with many small candlesticks sitting on each of the three prongs. To the right was a sitting room, and on the left was a dining room, both carrying a blue and white palate though the living room was more of a royal blue than the navy of the dining room. The staircase was a straight one, made of cherry wood and in the back of the house, Regan could see what looked like a kitchen. And through that door, a small statured house elf ran to Regan, who dropped to her knees and gathered the small creature into her arms.

"Toby! What are you doing here?"

"Well, Missus," he replied in his high-pitched little voice. "Madam said that since the manor and house was closed it was times I comes to works for you Missus."

Regan pulled away from him and sighed. "My mother does too much. I'm glad you're here, Toby." She let go of the elf and stood up.

"Is nothing. Now breakfast will be ready at six. Does Missus need help unpacking?"

"Don't worry after it, Toby," Sirius said ushering Regan to the stairs. "I've got it."

Sirius walked her upstairs. The walls were painted indigo and there were more paintings and mirrors. "There are two bedrooms on the left and two bathrooms in the back, and on the right is a study. And there's something else-"

He led her into the study. It was a warm sienna colored room lined with shelves filled with books, some of them old textbooks of theirs and others were things they had brought from their homes. And in the corner was a beautiful baby grand piano. "I paid an extra thousand galleons to have the previous occupants leave the piano."

Regan smiled a little before leaving the room and heading for one of the bedrooms on the other side of the staircase. Sirius wasn't upset. He knew she liked the piano, but he wouldn't be in much a mood to play either if he was her. After all, it was something she and her mother used to share.

"So which one is our room?" she asked. Sirius led her toward the one at the end of the hall. Inside it was decorated in a lighter, almost mint shade of green. There was a bed, a large closet, a dresser, a wardrobe, a vanity and stool, a standing mirror and a nightstand on each side of the bed, which was canopied and draped for privacy. The room was spacious and airy. It reminded Regan of the ocean. She suspected that was why Sirius had chosen this one, to let her feel as though she had never left the beach.

"It's refreshing, Sirius," she said, setting down her bag and recognizing all the things she had brought from home in their proper place and mingling with his things. Regan turned around and looked at the hands on the clock behind her. The time read as just past four in the morning. Breakfast was coming early since the shower was to begin at nine and there was nothing done. There was two hours before the day began. She smiled slyly and turned to Sirius, who had one hand dug into his pocket and another running through his hair. His eyes were downcast. He was nervous. She didn't blame him. Regan had barely said a word since leaving the beach house.

"What do you say," she said reaching out and taking his hand away from his head, "we go ahead and christen our new bedroom?"

Sirius cracked a smile, but it faded a moment later. "Are you sure you're okay for it? I mean, you've had a rough night. I don't want to put you out."

"What if I want you to put me out? I'm eighteen years old, Sirius. I have needs."

"I have needs too."

"Well, then, I say we go ahead and have some fun before there's no more fun to be had."

Sirius growled low in his throat and grabbed Regan around the waist. He swept her down into a dip and pressed his lips against hers as Regan giggled and little into it. He swung her back up and stepped forward, backing her up until they reach the edge of the bed. And when they did, Regan let herself fall, pulling Sirius down with her.

The kissing continued as Sirius ground his growing erection into her. Regan ran a hand through his dark hair and down his neck. When she reached his shirt collar, Regan pushed off Sirius' leather jacket and pulled off his shirt. Her own blouse followed along with her jeans, leaving her with nothing but a bra, knickers being non-existent. As Sirius rubbed her clit, Regan tugged at the button on his jeans trying to get them off.

Sirius lifted himself off her for a minute, just long enough to remove his pants and boxers as Regan unhooked her bra. Sirius lowered himself back down and sheathed himself in her, slowly, inch by inch. As he began thrusting in and out, Regan began moaning softly. As the speed picked up so did her tone until the headboard pounded against the wall in rhythm and they were both screaming, rocking back and forth, often times one losing time with the other as the speed reached breakneck proportions.

They came together and then slipped beneath their new sheets, Regan in Sirius' arms and resting her head on his chest. After a little while, when the breath in both their bodies had returned to normal, Sirius kissed the crown of Regan's head and said, "We have another hour or so. Want to go again?"

Regan shook her head. "I just want to lie here with you right now."

"Sure," Sirius said, trying to sound unconcerned, supportive, but the thing was he was wondering if Regan had gone ahead and done it when she wasn't really into it at the moment. He figured it was better to not question her at the moment. Chances were he would come home from a Priory briefing one day and find it all coming out on the piano, or in some baked goods. Best let it go ahead and come out as it may.

BURNING

"I don't see why you insist on going to the house right now. They're fine, I'm sure." Sirius was trying to convince Regan that it was bad timing to check on her parents. After all, they were babysitting Harry. Not that Toby couldn't handle things for an hour, but Lily would have a cow if she knew. "The Priory has been visiting them every week for a year, and nothing has happened."

Then again, Regan rarely got vibes that made her actually go somewhere when it interfered with another responsibility at hand. When that happened, the vibe usually came out to be right. So Sirius decided to swallow his tongue for the time being and indulge her this.

They crept out of the house and Sirius fired up the motorcycle. When it was warm and no one was in sight, he hit the invisibility booster and they and the bike faded from view. They flew for about an hour until they reached the western shore of Whales. On the decent, they saw the smoke. In fact, Sirius had to move his landing spot closer to the water and farther away for the smoke to accomplish a safe landing. Looking up as he expertly steered the bike, Sirius confirmed his fear: it was the Leary house.

When he was about three feet off, Regan jumped from the back of the bike and looked up at her beach house. It only took her a moment to compose her shock, and she ran toward the ruins, calling for her mother and father. "Regan wait! Dammit…" Sirius turned the bike off as fast as possible, swung his leg over the seat and ran after her. He stopped for a moment, looking at the scene before him. The Leary beach estate was burned, badly. The morning rain seemed to have doused the flames, but the house was still smoking terribly.

"Mamma!...Daddy!" Regan had reached the door and run inside. The air was so hot it was difficult to breathe. But she continued on anyway and ran through the dining room, the ballroom and the kitchen. And when she got to the sitting room, she found them.

Madame Leary was lying on the floor beside Master Leary, their hands held together. Regan dropped to the ground and clasped her hand hard over her own mouth to stop the scream. After that came the heavy breathing and the tears.

When he found her, Sirius knelt beside her and pulled her into his chest. For several minutes he stayed like that while she gripped at his shirt and sobbed. He had no hope of her letting up, but they had to start moving on this. There was no time to wait for Regan to let up on her own. "We have to call the Priory."

Regan pulled away and nodded. She bent over to kiss her mother's forehead and her father's cheek, and that was when she saw something underneath him: a clean sheet of parchment. She picked it up and shook the superficial ashes off it in order to read the words clearly.

"What's that?" Sirius asked.

"When you call the Priory, tell them there's a problem." She looked at him. Her face had gone pale and her eyes were dry with disbelief. "Voldemort came back here, but he didn't leave alone."

Alastor met with Sirius in the drawing room of Sirius' townhouse.

"So you found this letter…"

"She did. With her father. He had written it and was supposedly about to send it. Speaking of, I don't suppose you found Perseus?" Perseus was Regan's owl. She'd left him with her parents when theirs died.

"We did," Alastor said, sinking onto the sofa in the sitting room and resting his…well, it wasn't his leg, the new replacement leg was metal, but the stump was still a little raw and it bothered him, on a footrest with a pillow on top of it. "Poor thing was face up at the bottom of his cage. Anyway, I should tell you it was that damned killing curse that got them, not the fire, so they died swiftly. Not that it will be a comfort for her, but she should know. Anything else you would like to tell me?"'

Sirius nodded, and Alastor shook his head. "Regan's sister… participated in the attack on her parents and left with Voldemort and his followers. It could be a kidnapping. If she had resisted she would have been killed."

"Regan doesn't think that's how it happened."

"Well, Goneril is a nasty thing, I'll give her that. She's cold, and she is smart and understands that it would be easy to pin the murders on her. We'll never find her now. She'll know she's safer off the map for a good while. Best not worry about Goneril right now."

"Regan will."

Alastor sighed, saying, "I know. This has been a bad blow for her. Her sister has just murdered her parents. And she was so close to them too."

Sirius nodded and sat on the couch across from the Priory leader. "This last year has been hard on Regan. She had only seen them a handful of times, and only for a few minutes each occasion. Thank goodness for Harry. Otherwise I think she would have lost it."

Alastor looked to the far back of the room where Regan was sleeping beneath a quilt on the daybed. "Do me a favor Sirius," he said, strapping his prosthetic on getting up to leave.

"Anything, sir."

"Make sure she doesn't lose it now. I need her."

After Moody left, Sirius went and sat on the edge of the daybed not taken up by Regan's sleeping body. He stroked her hair, which felt slightly waxed with the salt from the ocean air and the ash raining down on her head. He should call James and Lily, and have them come over with Harry for the day, to try and take Regan's mind off of things.

But before he did that, he called Toby. When the little elf appeared, Sirius said, "Will you please go into the potions cabinet and bring a calming serum. You know, the one in the light blue bottle and the white stopper. Regan will need it when she wakes up."

"Of course Master Sirius."

Toby scurried away and Sirius thought now was as good a time as any to let James and Lily know. He got up and knelt before the fireplace, grabbing a fistful of powder from a pot beside the cleaning utensils. He threw it into the gently crackling fire and stuck his head in calling, "33 Park Square!"

In an instant, Sirius was looking in on the small family, having breakfast together, laughing and playing with their year old son. James was the first to look up when Sirius coughed to make them aware of his presence.

"Hey, Padfoot," he greeted Sirius with a smile on his face. But it was Lily who noticed something was amiss. "You look awful. What's wrong Sirius?"

"Can you two come over here with Harry today?"

Lily crouched down to his level and wrapped her housecoat tighter around her. "Sure we can, it's a Sunday. Why?"

"Something bad has happened. Lily…Regan's parents are dead." Sirius paused wondering if he should divulge more. Perhaps it was something he should let Regan do. Then, thinking back a moment to her reaction to the letter fingering Goneril, Sirius figured she was acknowledging it quite well. So he continued, saying, "Goneril joined Voldemort last night, we think, and the two of them and a number of his other followers killed Ajax and Ursula before burning the beach house to the ground."

Lily had slowly covered her mouth with a trembling hand. This news had brought James to his knees in front of the fireplace. "She found them, didn't she?" Sirius nodded and James scratched his head, bowing it slightly and saying, "Toby said you were out when we picked Harry up this morning…said you'd been gone for hours but…we thought it was Priory business."

"How is she?" Lily cut in.

"Sleeping, and when she does wake up, I'll be giving her a calming serum. I don't think she's going to be able to deal with this potion-free to start, but hopefully when this week is out-"

There was a wail coming from behind Sirius. Clearly Regan had woken up. "Maybe by the time next week is out."

"We'll get dressed and be along right after we clear the table, mate," James said reassuringly. "Hang in there."

COLLECTING

"What a bloody waste of time. We still haven't got a thing on that creep." Sirius and Regan were walking home from an assignment. They had been tailing Sirius cousin, Narcissa and her husband Lucius for hours and had nothing new to share with the class for it. Regan wasn't discouraged, seeing as she loved gossip of any kind, petty or otherwise, but Sirius was upset over the waste of time.

Regan shrugged, saying in an amused tone, "Oh, I don't know. I like watching your family. They're…interesting."

"You think so? Well, you can watch them from now on then."

Regan shook her head with a smile as they rounded the corner to the house. When they reached the door, however, it stood wide open and the hallway was trashed. Sirius grabbed Regan's elbow and drew his wand. She was right behind him as he entered the house (not that she had a choice seeing as Sirius had her hand in a vice-like grip). Regan drew her own wand, heart pounding and wondering, 'was this a random act?' Likely not.

"Toby?" Regan called softly. There was no answer. That meant the elf wasn't in the house, and since he was a house elf, someone had to have forcibly removed him.

The waste was everywhere. The sitting room and dining room, and the kitchen were all strewn with broken vases various other articles, mirrors lay in shards on the floors, and the stairs leading to the second floor were gouged and much of the rail was completely gone. They went up the broken steps as carefully as possible. When they reached the bedroom, Sirius sat Regan down after making sure the bedroom was clear and went to check the other rooms. When he came back, Regan was rummaging through the dresser.

"What are you doing?"

"Sirius none of your things seem to be missing. But-"

"But?"

She looked at him with a scared expression on her face. "My things are. Undergarments, perfumes…my mother's necklace."

Sirius pushed his hair back and sighed. He thought he knew what was going on. Things had been escalating rapidly since Regan's parents died three months ago. Voldemort was collecting followers en mass and killing those who refused, like he had done to Regan's parents. He was taking over the country and there was nothing that could be done anymore but pray. Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix the Priory were all exhausted trying to keep up, and with more deaths happening every week, between the two, numbers were thinning. Voldemort had expressed an interest in Regan over a year ago just before destroying her family. Sirius guessed he was making his move. Her things were missing, and they weren't just any things. Things like undergarments and personal talismans told Voldemort intimate things about Regan, things only a lover would know. He was planning on stealing her. No one came here looking for anyone; the items were the goal of this raid.

For the first time since he had brought Regan back into London all sense of calculation had left him, and he was scared…genuinely scared.

He went to her and pulled her toward the door. "Come on Regan. We're getting you out of here."

Regan went to close the drawers of the dresser as she was pulled passed it, but thought better to leave the drawers untouched, in case someone came back. She was pulled swiftly out of the bedroom. "Where? Headquarters?"

"No, Godric's Hollow."

She pulled a face as he led her down the stairs. But just as the upper floor was about to disappear Regan held fast and looked toward the study. Her piano sat in pieces. She closed her eyes for a moment and tried not to let the tears begin to flow.

"Regan…come on."

When they were outside they left the door open so that no one could say that someone came back, Sirius pulled Regan into the nearby ally. "Why the hollow?" she asked.

"Because I need to get you to a safe place, and Godric's Hollow is the safest place for you right now." Sirius picked up a tin can and tapped it with his wand saying, "Portus."

"But the Priory-"

"It'll take care of it. Just go." He shoved the can in her hand and she was gone.

After pulling himself together for a moment, Sirius made a left out of the ally and headed straight for the Priory Headquarters at a running pace. This was something he was going to look into himself. He would find the bastard, and he would kill him. This madman who held the world in the palm of his hand now was done screwing around with Regan, and wither Sirius died setting it right or not, this was ending, now.

Regan's feet smacked down on the dirt of the front yard of Godric's Hollow and the force of the landing knocked Regan down sprawling into the earth. She opened her eyes to a dark sky and a soft glow in the near distance. There was a lamp at the end of the walkway just beyond the white picket fence, but Regan could barely register what was going on around her. Was Sirius about to do something stupid? He often acted rashly when something was terribly wrong, but nothing had ever been quite so wrong before, and it was always Regan who got him out again. Who would get Sirius out of trouble now?

The front door of the cottage in the distance opened and someone was running out of the house. "Regan? What are you doing here?" Lily reached her friend and offered a hand, which Regan took reluctantly, as though in a daze. After Lily helped Regan stand up from where she had collapsed outside the house she led her gently by the shoulders towards the door. James sighed in relief and let the girls back inside the house.

When the protection charms around the perimeter of the small home were up again, they all sat in the living room while waiting for the tea kettle Lily put on to whistle. Regan had been given a blanket from where it usually rested draped across the back of the couch and sat on the small sofa with Lily, while James took a seat in the armchair to their right. Regan still looked as though she had suffered a bad shock, and she had, but the thing making her voice take on that distant almost ethereal tone was her mind; it was racing. She was trying to think like Sirius. Where he would go…who he would hurt over this.

"The house was ransacked. Voldemort either captured or killed Toby and a bunch of my things are missing." She looked a little embarrassed, shooting a wry, flushed smile in James' direction before adding quietly to Lily, "Personal things." Lily nodded in understanding and laid a gentle hand over Regan, who, after a sigh that seemed to help her gather her full astuteness back, sat up straighter and concluded, "Sirius is planning on coming back for me soon, I'm sure."

James was uneasy of her final word. Regan rarely left out details of any kind of news, good or bad, unless they would cause some undue distress. "But then where is he?"

"The Priory, I imagine." It wasn't entirely an untruth. She imagined that was where he had gone before going anywhere else. The thing was, he would only be there long enough to make a report and collect some hot-blooded young rebels like himself to storm a headquarters no one even knew the location of. He might well be tearing up London right now looking for Voldemort. There was no way she could know for sure what he would do, but he certainly would not sit in Alastor's office and twiddle his thumbs waiting for further insight.

Regan forewent the tea and instead went upstairs to bed after Lily convinced her to at least take a sleeping draught. When the upstairs' guest bedroom door closed, Lily turned to James from her place on the couch, legs curled up beneath her, mug in hand, and said, "You don't think he's going to try and find him, do you, James?"

"Sirius wouldn't be so stupid."

Lily looked into their fireplace, as though Sirius would call through the floo network right then and there. "But it's Regan he's after now. That changes everything."

James didn't want to say so, but she was right. Sirius would do anything for Regan. He would do absolutely anything to safeguard her, no matter how stupid. And this certainly fit that category.

"He better know what's he's doing."

CUT

"Bloody hell, Hagrid. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

Hagrid and Sirius had bumped into one another outside Godric's Hollow. Dumbledore had sent Hagrid to collect Harry and bring him to Lily's sister's home after hearing of the attack. Sirius had come in a rush as soon as he figured out how his own house was ransacked, knowing that the answer could have a deadly effect on the arrangements that had been made for James and Lily and their year old son.

Turned out he had spent a few hours too long thinking his way through this one. Sirius looked up and down the street as he got off his bike. Not a single soul was outside but the young man and the half-giant.

"Sorry, Sirius. Thought you were one of them."

Sirius waved the apology away and rushed inside the house once he noticed the door hanging ajar. Sirius pushed through it and crashed into something on the floor. Sirius looked down and immediately turned his head to vomit. It was James, eyes wide and glasses skewed, lying flat on his back. Sirius moaned out in agony, collapsing onto his hands and knees before Hagrid picked him up by his collar to stand him up. While the half-giant waited on the ground floor, Sirius went up into the nursery. There he found Lily.

She was face down on the floor, flowing red hair splayed around her like a fiery halo. The crib was still standing and inside it…Harry was wide-eyed, and completely alive. There was a crooked scar on his forehead shaped like a bolt of lightening, but he was otherwise perfect. He cracked a smile when he saw Sirius, who immediately picked up his godson.

"Hey little mate, hey it's okay" Sirius crooned. With Harry safely in his arms and wrapped in a blanket, he looked around. Now there was only…Regan.

Sirius crept toward the room down the hall. The door was open he realized when he turned the knob, causing a whole new wave of fear to rush through him. It wasn't locked. Had he gotten her? Finally, had he taken her in the middle of the night? Was she even alive?

The door creaked when Sirius pushed it open. The room was dark and there was a small patch of moonlight coming from the window, and beneath that window, was Regan. She was sitting up, almost lifeless. There was a gaze on her face that told Sirius something was terribly wrong with her.

"Regan, darling," he said, gently, walking around the bed and getting closer to her. And when he did, Sirius saw the cuts on her wrists and the knife that had been left to her by her father on the floor beside her sitting in growing pools of blood. "Oh my…"

Sirius didn't even to finish his sentence. He turned tail and ran down the stairs. "Hagrid!" The half giant looked up from the bottom of the stairs.

"What is it, Sirius. Is Harry all right?"

Sirius handed over his godson. "Get him to Dumbledore. Harry's fine, Regan is not."

"Regan's alive too…blimey. Sirius I apparated here, but I can't apparate to the Dursley house, can I-?"

"Take the bike." Sirius tossed his keys over before running back up the stairs

The real question was, how long had it been since she used that knife? How deep had the cuts driven? Those were the things running through his head as he took the stairs two by two.

Could he do anything for her?

Sirius reached the guest room again and raced around the bed. He knelt in front of Regan and picked up her wrists to examine the damage. The cuts were long, and deep. She had lost a lot of blood. It was hard to tell by the moonlight, but she looked paler than her usual creamy ivory complexion; she looked like death. Sirius drew his wand and started muttering charms to close the skin, tracing the glowing tip back and forth over the cuts as he did.

Regan didn't say anything. But her breathing was shallow. Sirius glanced up and caught her eye. And he held it until her head slumped over onto her chest. "Regan!"

Sirius called her several times. She wasn't waking up. He slapped her cheek lightly…nothing. Regan was running out of time. For a moment Sirius would have to forget the cuts, which were smaller thanks to his ministrations, but still in need of attention.

Sirius sprinted back down the stairs into the kitchen to the potions cabinet. Since James was prone to nosebleeds, Lily had taken to keeping blood replenishing potions in the house.

Sirius opened a cabinet and rummaged through numerous tiny glass bottles and vials. His fingers finally wrapped around an unopened indigo vial and without a moment's hesitation Sirius ran back up the stairs and down the hall. Regan was still slumped over where he had left her a minute ago, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped on it's own. Sirius pulled the stopper of the potion out with his teeth as he used his free hand to lift her chin. He poured the potion down her throat and waited a few seconds. Some color came back to her cheeks. She did not wake up, but Sirius continued healing her.

An hour of chanting and the cuts were finally mostly healed. They were still open, but not bleeding and no longer deep. They would heal on their own now, and that was good, though there would be a lot of scarring. Not many people could get cut with a cursed knife and escape without one.

His healing done, Sirius picked Regan up in his arms and laid her gently on the bed. After staying a minute more to make sure she was breathing evenly, Sirius went back to the kitchen. In the pantry there was a rack, and on the rack were a couple bottles of firewhiskey. Sirius took the one almost empty bottle down. And then he went back to Regan's room. There was nothing worse than losing someone you loved. Seeing as the Potters were the only family either of them had left in all realistic sense of the word, Sirius could understand why she had done it. What was worse was that he would have to tell Regan that it was another friend who had caused it all to happen.

The Secret Keeper of Godric's Hollow.

Everyone thought it was Sirius, but he had convinced James and Lily to use someone less conspicuous at the last minute.

Someone no one would suspect.

"Peter Pettigrew," Sirius muttered to himself examining the amber liquid inside the bottle as he sat down in a chair on the far end of the room and pulled the cork out. He tipped the bottle and downed the remainder of the contents, sighing as the warmth of the drink ran through his body and calmed him. Wormtail, that sniveling traitor, of all people to be the spy. Then again, knowing Pete's affinity for having friends in high places, the more he though about it, the more it was not so surprising.

And the more he though about it, the more he was certain he was right, after all that Priory and Order speculation about who it was, now the answer was finally found. Sirius had used him as a secret keeper for the townhouse as well. How very convenient for Peter. He could go to the most powerful terrible man in Britain and feed him information on the two people he was most anxious to meet.

Peter had betrayed them all, and now it was time for the little rat to fess up.

THE STAND OFF

Regan woke up alone still in Godric's Hollow, in her own room. Her wrists were lightly bandaged, the lamp was on, and there was a note pinned under it, written in Sirius's penmanship.

As she sat up, the room spun a little, indicating she was not only still alive, but not fully replenished yet. She grabbed the letter and read it.

Regan,

I hate to leave this all in a note. I'll be back, but if I don't go now, I might miss my chance. Here's what you need to know, far as I can determine things:

Harry is alive. Dumbledore is going to put him with his aunt and uncle for the time being.

Someone from the coroner has already come to collect James and Lily.

I've taken your father's knife until you get the thought of living back into your head.

You never knew, but I wasn't the secret keeper for this house. I convinced James and Lily to use Peter last minute. He kept for our house as well.

Stay here until I get back and then we'll get you somewhere safer. For now you're safest in a house no one will go near.

You're an idiot. I love you. I will come back.

Sirius

There was only one reason Sirius would tell her three times he would be back. He said it because he wasn't sure he would be back at all. He should be planning on taking Peter into custody. Knowing Sirius, and knowing how he was feeling, Regan knew he would end up trying to kill Peter, not arrest him.

Regan grabbed her cloak from the end of her bed where she had put it two days ago after arriving and swung it over her shoulders. However, when she went to slip on her shoes, they were not beside the door where she had put them two days ago. She sighed in frustrated annoyance. There was no time to find where Sirius had hid her shoes, so Regan sprinted out of the house bare footed and her navy robes trailing. When she reached the gates, wand drawn, she spun on the spot and stopped spinning on the circle where Peter's home stood.

Unfortunately, when Regan got there, Peter was already outside and standing opposite Sirius on one side of the circle and about a dozen muggles had wandered from their homes, curious of a fight. And Regan was in the middle of the street and to the left of the argument, just in time to see the quarrel come to a boil.

"You sold us out! You sold us all!" Sirius was screaming. His face was red and enraged. Peter was standing on the other side of the circle, smiling smugly, as though he were proud of the fact. He wasn't countering, just listening, that ugly smile still stretched across his features.

And then he noticed Regan standing there, slightly to the right of him. "Hello," he said evenly in his slightly juvenile voice. "Glad you could join us, Regan. You're just in time for me to finish off the last of the Dark Lord's troubles."

The wand that had been hanging loosely in his hand raised a little. Regan stepped forward toward Peter, placing herself directly between the two men. She had moved closer to him, but the distance was still too far to be very effective. No chance of a curse taking him by surprise as far away as she was.

Finding her voice, Regan said loudly, "I don't know if you've heard, but your master is dead, Pete." When his wand continued to rise, Regan had no choice but to raise her own wand, but was careful not to raise hers any higher than Peter had raised his: she was trying to keep the playing field as level as possible, still hopeful they could arrest him instead of seriously harming or killing him. "How could we have missed this? You're always looking toward the strongest person in the room to look after your interests. We should have guessed the traitor was you. You're pathetic and weak-willed."

"Regan get out of the way," Sirius called as he trotted closer to her. "This isn't your fight!"

"It's both of ours. He sold us and he sold Lily and James. Who would be next? Remus? Are you trying to kill us all Peter? The boys and I gave you a chance, took you under our wings and protected you when you needed protecting…is this how you thank us?"

There was an odd silence, until Sirius spoke again after coming behind her and placing a hand on her shoulder. "Move Regan."

"No, I won't let him get you too, Sirius."

"Move!"

"No!"

Peter made a slashing motion with his wand, but Regan was ready. She raised her own wand, casting the Protego charm. But the force she used to do this caused the street to crack wide open, creating a huge crater, inside which Regan and Peter both fell. The power of the blast had knocked Sirius backward several feet.

When the dust cleared, Regan was coughing violently. There was an arm around her waist. Sirius had escaped falling into the crack and through some inhuman power was pulling Regan out of the pit. When they were both sitting on what was left of the pavement, Sirius looked at Regan's wrist. There were some red stains rapidly seeping through the bandage on her wand wrist. "You used way too much power. Your cut is reopened on the wand hand."

"It was a snap reaction, I didn't have time to measure force. It'll close again; no growing injuries this time." Regan pressed down on her wrist with the heel of her left hand to try and stop up the bleeding.

"Where's Peter?" Sirius asked.

Regan looked up and about, as Sirius tore a strip of his shirt off the hem and took her wrist. He removed the bloodied bandage and rebound her wrists with the clean scrap of fabric. Peter was nowhere to be seen, but there were a dozen dead muggles. A few were children. Their opened eyes, still captured the fear they felt before meeting death, and it made Regan want to vomit. "Sirius, I didn't-"

"A Protego charm doesn't do this no matter how strong." He tied off the final knot and looked around for himself. "Peter must have killed them and run. He used the hole and the dust as a cover."

Regan looked down into the pit her charm had made. It was deep enough to expose the sewage pipes underneath the street. Some of them were cracked and were leaking waste. Sirius stood and helped Regan up, and together they walked around, looking to see if anyone had survived. None of them had. When they reached the place where Peter had been standing, however, there was something to be found. A finger.

Peter's left index finger was lying next to his clothes. "Bloody hell…" Regan bent to pick it up. She looked at the clean cut through the bone and glanced once more at the cracked sewer pipes in the street. Peter had become very clever serving the sick son of a bitch, she would have to give him that. She straightened up and said, "He's not through with us yet."

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked. In the distance there was a riot of footsteps descending on them. The aurors, they both realized had been alerted and had arrived. "I mean," Regan answered, "that this is a clean cut. I didn't do this…Peter cut this off himself, then changed and escaped through the sewers. And he's left us here to take the blame for these people…and himself."

"But he couldn't have had more than a few seconds to think this up." Sirius was rarely impressed by anyone else's genius than his own-or Regan's. But the events of about three minutes ago had clearly put him into a state of shocked impression.

Regan knew what Sirius was thinking: they should run. Sirius knew what she was thinking: the truth will prevail. It was the same thing they always fought over when a Priory assignment went sour. Sirius was always the one to want to get out fast and sugar coat the reports later, and Regan always wanted to finish her job the right way and disclose the whole truth. This was different though. This time they were playing with their lives. If they ran they would be hunted and if found they would have the flight count against them. If they stayed, they would either be listened to, trusted, and exalted of their responsibility for what had transpired tonight, or they would be blamed and imprisoned for life. The way it would go would depend greatly on the hearing official.

Sirius took her hand that was holding the finger and wrested it from her. He tossed it on the pile of clothing left after Peter transformed his shape and pulled Regan into an embrace. "Get out of here. I'll stay."

"I'm not going without you."

"Someone has to stay here and tell what happened."

"Then we're both staying." She pulled away and looked up at him, a small smile on her lips. "Knowing you, you'd quite conveniently forget something."

All the stress of the past months had come to a head. Sirius and Regan both started chuckling at her small jibe at his character as a Priory official. It was the last thing they did before being led away by magical law enforcement.

LIFE FOR A LIFE

There was no trial. Sirius and Regan sat together, hands bound, on a bench outside the office of the Sub-Head Warlock of the Wizengamot's office, waiting for questioning. Neither of them had spoken since they had been arrested at the site. Frankly, both of them were shocked that anyone could believe the two of them killed all those innocent people. Regan desperately wished Dumbledore was not in Surrey at the moment. Otherwise he would be the one questioning them.

"I told you to run for it."

Sirius sounded disgruntled. Regan looked his way. His head was dropped to his chest and his face was void of emotion.

"I was worried about you," Regan answered. "You would have lied, and that would have sent you to jail for sure."

"Heh…," he laughed. "I'm not sure it matters what we tell them anymore. Regan rested her head on his shoulder.

"How did it come to this, Sirius? He did we lose so much?"

"No…we didn't lose anything. It was taken from us."

The door to their right opened. Regan lifted her head. "Speaking of taking."

The Sub-Head Warlock of the Wizengamot, The Human Sneakoscope, as they all called him down at the Priory, was stepping out of his office door accompanied by an auror, who would be sitting beside Regan while Sirius was being questioned privately. Thomas Plaice was a tall man, thin, with a harsh face and a straight posture. He was known for being shrewd and ruthless. He always knew things no one else did somehow. Needless to say Plaice was not an easy man to speak to, and something told Regan that this was not going in their favor.

The auror removed the bonds from Sirius' wrists and handed them to Plaice who then gestured toward the door as Sirius stood and walked toward the office. Plaice led him in, shutting the door sharply behind them. Sirius had shot a glance over his shoulder before disappearing into the office that Regan could not place. It was an odd look on his features, some mix of apology and assurance perhaps.

The auror sat down on the bench next to Regan. She slumped a little, letting her elbows rest on her knees. Regan tried to assure herself the worst was over. Still, her head seemed to gently shake itself in disbelief over the night's events of it's own accord.

The auror was sitting rigidly and looking straight out ahead. After a minute or so, he said quietly, "I shouldn't speak to you at all, but I just wanted to say…personally, I don't think you or he are capable of committing this crime."

Regan lifter her head and looked toward him. He was very young. Still in training, probably, but that made sense since the volume of aurors had depleted since this war began. Everyone in training had been promoted several months ago to make up for the losses. He couldn't have been more than eighteen, just out of school.

He kept talking. "You and Mr. Black…I mean, I idolize you both. You're so talented and I always thought anyone would be happy just to know you. From what I hear, you're good people. You're heroes. Heroes people don't kill the innocent."

"Thank you," Regan said quietly, "but we should probably stop talking now." As small smile crossed her lips as she let her head droop again towards her chest. It wasn't that she minded the chatter, but she felt a slight shame over what he had just said. Heroes, he called them. The Order of the Phoenix had certainly cast her and Sirius in the role in the last year, but the Priory was their bread and butter, their sanctuary. The Priory was not filled with heroes; it was infested by thieves and spies. The Priory were people who knew the inner working of institutions and prided themselves on discovering the secrets of wizard society. Every one of them was a liar and a cheat. A marauder.

And there was that title. She would always use it to describe herself, not only because of her school years with the boys, but also because it was the least incriminating word she could come up with. If anyone knew about the Priory's inner workings, if anyone knew the gritty work that they did, ends justifying their means, no one would call her or Sirius a hero. They would be forever hounded by the very people they worked so hard to safeguard.

But then that was the blessing. Priory members had covers. They had jobs they pretended to care about in order to hide their true employment while at the same time providing a vital service to society. For example, one of their members was a bookkeeper in the Hall of Records at the Ministry. Another ran a rather specialized apothecary in Diagon Alley while another was a department head at St. Mungos.

And then there were Sirius and Regan. They had refused to take on cover jobs. The Priory was the only passion Sirius had as far as a work ethic went. Regan hated to admit it, but she loved her work at he Priory. She had many interests, but she couldn't see herself doing anything but what she already was doing. Compared to Scott who worked in Gringott's for his cover, Regan and Sirius' refusal to take a cover based on nothing more than plain disinterest was beginning look like a stubborn and childish act, and Regan knew it. It was also dangerous, as everyone in the wizarding world knew they were members. All it would take would be one bad article, one anonymous tip leading to a story in the Prophet about their work, and Regan and Sirius would be in real trouble.

Regan sighed again and promised herself that if she got out of this she would think some more on what else she wanted to do with her life. She looked to the door. Want…well, at the moment she wanted to hear what was going on in the other room. There would be people who would never believe that they could have done this, of course, but there would also be people ready to convict a million times over without a second thought.

Regan was betting there would be more of the latter, given the circumstances, but she wondered which way The Sneakoscope would swing…

Sirius was rubbing his wrists where the iron cuffs had chafed, making the skin redden and sting as he entered the room. It smelled musty, probably from all the old books lining the walls on dusty shelves. He sat in one of the two hard wooden chairs set up in the middle of the room, and Scrimgeor sat in the other, facing Sirius and sitting erect. Sirius sat, arms crossed over his chest and slouching into the chair back, meeting Plaice's eye.

And then the questioning began:

"So…tell me what occurred tonight Sirius." Plaice was keeping his voice very even and controlled. He was angling, Sirius could tell. The tone told him that the Sub-Head was being very careful about how to open this discussion, and he would be carefully measuring how Sirius answered them.

Sirius responded in a matched tone. "I found Lily and James in Godric's Hollow, dead. After assuring Harry's safety, I grabbed a near empty bottle of firewhiskey and sat in one of the spare bedrooms for a drink. After a couple of hours I went to find Peter. He was their secret keeper, and ours, and he betrayed us."

"Now there's your first lie." Plaice's tone changed very suddenly. He was no longer treading eggshells. He was now confident in his line of questioning and had obviously planned several routes depending on Sirius' first answer. Now he knew what direction his questioning was headed. "You were the secret keeper for the Potters. I have record of that from the Priory who ordered the charm."

Sirius did his best to sound earnest without inviting a pleading undertone. "There was a traitor in our midst; Dumbledore had warned a select few of us. I decided that I couldn't trust that knowledge to be general amongst my peers any more. I had to look out for Regan, and my friends. Me dying doesn't exactly fit that bill." Sirius paused, analyzing his sarcastic tone, and then adding a slightly more reverent, "sir," at the end. "I switched it to throw the traitor off. Turns out all I did was hand everyone over."

"So you stand by simple tragic coincidence. Very well, continue." Plaice clearly didn't believe him, as his upper lip was a little curled over his teeth in amusement, like a cat that has cornered its mouse and was now watching it try to escape before pouncing.

"When I reached Peter's I started an argument."

"And at what point did Miss Leary come in?"

"She came in after it was over."

"What was her role?"

"She was an innocent bystander, come to stop me from making a mistake I might later regret. She was too late to help the situation any."

"Oh dear, another lie. No, not just a bystander. Her wand tells us that she cast a protection charm in the street several minutes before you were apprehended at the scene. And her wand also tells us that she apparated to the street a few minutes before that. She was there long before the argument reached its breaking point. Who was she protecting? Herself? Peter, maybe?" Plaice raised a salt and pepper eyebrow, deeply interested in this next answer. Sirius didn't blame him; how he answered the next few queries would determine who went to jail tonight. Sirius wet his lips, thinking very carefully for a moment on how he wanted to word his answer.

"I had words with him, it climaxed, the street split open I look up and he's gone, save for his finger and clothes and a dozen people are dead. I don't know how he did that. Regan was protecting herself." In retrospect the lack of detail was not likely to work in his favor; and that little tone of panicked pleading was starting to surface.

"What would Peter Pettigrew need the street split open for, dear boy?"

Sirius did not want to answer this. They were entering into the realm of speculation, and he wasn't ready to out himself in order to catch the little rascal; admitting Peter's animagus form would lead to admitting his own as long as he was answering questions for this man. "Peter needed a distraction. He must have slipped away into the woods before the dust settled."

"Well, I think the evidence says differently. Even if he could have escaped why cut off the finger?"

"To make it look like I killed him."

"You? Not Regan?"

"Regan had nothing to do with it, I told you."

"We're going in circles. Let's try another question. Who broke the street apart?"

"Peter did."

"I hear Regan is gifted with a certain affinity for wandless magic. Convenient. An Incendio spell with much strength could wield enough force could break the street open, and blow your friend to bits. Likely all those people as well. Now if we only had concrete proof…convenient ability, yes indeed."

Plaice was being very cunning now. It was clear from early on he was trying to get the blame pinned on either one of them. But Sirius refused to incriminate Regan in any way so Plaice had decided to paint Sirius' hands with the blood. Regardless, Sirius had to make sure the message got across that they were innocent. Desperately he tried to redirect the questioning.

"They're dead, and I am grieving, but Peter is not. We should be looking for him right now."

"If he's not dead, where would he go?"

Sirius hung his head. He had no doubt Peter was a Death Eater, but without Vodemort around they would all have hidden themselves among common folk. There was no where else for them to hide. That meant Peter could have gone anywhere. "…I don't know."

"The knife we found in your possession, it's a very finely crafted piece of magical toolmanship. But it's not your family crest on the handle. It's Leary's. Did you take it from her?"

Sirius hesitated, but decided he could answer this question about her without any harm coming to her, if he used the right words. "Yes."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Who are you trying to protect, you or Regan?"

"Sir, can I be honest with you?"

"Please do."

"I'm trying to prove our innocence like any other man not guilty of performing a crime sitting before you. But there are some things about tonight I am omitting from you. I'm not doing it to change anything about what happened in the circle, and the omissions don't skew my answers in that matter. I just need you to believe that Regan had nothing to do with it."

"Did she?"

Plaice was wearing thin on patience. Regan's actions were the best evidence he had. He was looking to incriminate her through this hearing. "She did nothing wrong. Neither of us did. As far as your evidence against her, all you have is a protection charm. A protection charm cannot kill anyone, not can it cause so much damage, so no matter how you spin it she is exalted from responsibility in the matter. You shouldn't be asking any questions concerning events leading up to the quarrel anyway. It's out of character. You're a man concerned with actions not motives. It makes me less inclined to answer your more prying questions when you decide to stop gunning for Regan and try and pin this on me."

Sirius watched the Sneakoscope's face closely at this. Sirius had just made a decision. He was inviting the blame of the evening's events to get put on his shoulders, since Plaice seemed to have no interest in blaming anyone but Regan since her charm was all the evidence he had. Sirius continued on, hating himself for every word, knowing the outcome would see him to Azkaban. It would kill Regan, but she would be free. Azkaban was no place for someone like her.

"I know if I tell you what happened from Regan's standpoint tonight, she will be released into the custody of no one with her best interest at heart. Either that or you'll likely believe I'm lying and lock her up anyway."

"So you're omitting things to save her, and you claim that they have nothing to do with the scene in the street." Plaice paused, thinking. He added in a careful voice, "Your omissions are also making you fall onto the sword for her, you must know that."

"You are filling in blanks because someone has to go to jail for this or you'll face a riot, and since I've opted to be uncooperative, if only slightly, I'm the prime choice." Sirius moved for he first time since they started talking. He sat forward clasping his hands and resting his weight on his knees, looking through his eyebrows directly at Plaice, trying to calculate his response.

Plaice nodded. It was not ideal, but he did get his job accomplished. "Fine. I'll lock you up for the treachery of James and Lily Potter, Regan Leary, and the murder of Peter Pettigrew and twelve muggles." Scrimgeor stood up and closed the gap between him and Sirius. As he re-bound Sirius's wrists, Sirius continued to talk, quietly.

"It doesn't matter what I would have told you, does it? In your mind someone has to go to jail to keep the public from in siding a coo. I'm here. I'm convenient."

"Or it could be because you're guilty, and I have judged you as guilty."

"As long as Regan is free and her record is clear, then guilty sits just fine by me."

Plaice said nothing about this. Truthfully, he wasn't surprised it turned out this way. When he was finished he stood Sirius up and turned him towards the door, saying, "The auror outside will take you to Azkaban where you will be processed. Merlin help you, Sirius Black."

He led Sirius out the door back into the hallway where Regan was waiting. She stood when they came, a look of nervous expectancy on her face. Plaice spoke. "Release her Cowley. We have our man."

"Sirius?" Cowley took her hands and untied them by taping the bonds with his wand. The leather strappings fell from her wrists and Regan rushed to Sirius, clutching the robes at his chest and trying to make him look her in the eye. "Sirius, what have you done?"

Sirius looked toward the Snekoscope as he was instructing the young auror. Seeing he was busy, Sirius answered lowly, "I lied for you. Told him there was no way you were involved in Peter's death or any of those people. He can blame me for everything. He asked about what you were doing before hand, but I abstained from answering."

"Why? If you had been willing to tell him everything then he would have understood the big picture better."

"I told him everything I could to make him understand. If I had answered his questions about you, you would have been condemned to the mental ward in St. Mungos for treatment or sent to the asylum indefinitely. Neither one is a good place for you. Someone has to be blamed; otherwise there will be a riot. I can't give him Peter, so he would have taken me either way. The difference is that this way, you can move on unscathed."

"I don't want to move on, Sirius." Plaice had finished talking and began leading Sirius away by the elbow. "Sirius…I'm not moving on! I'll make this right!" The auror stood beside her, watching them go down the corridor and around the corner.

"How are you going to do that?" Cowley asked.

Regan shook her head to herself, and said lowly, glancing a little toward the kid, "I don't know." Regan then turned her back on the scene, took a deep breath, and with her head held high and a sense of purpose in her step followed the corridor in the other direction. The Department of Mysteries was a twenty-four hour department. Hopefully the head of the department was pulling a late night. She was going to need his help.

WHAT CAN YOU DO

"So, there's nothing you can do?" Baron sighed and removed the glasses from the bridge of his nose. He began cleaning them with his sleeve and glanced at Regan with an uneasy eye. It was for the best for him to be wary, Regan knew; she could very well seriously hurt the next person who stood in her way of setting her life in order. "My dear, you know I would do anything for a Priory agent, particularly you, but Alastor and Dumbledore have both ordered me not to do anything about Sirius' capture."

"Why ever not?"

Baron replaced his specs and clasped his hands together, resting the fist on his desk. "Because there's no point. Sirius is right in what he said. Someone has to be blamed, and the one person responsible is gone. Probably hide forever, limey bastard."

Regan stood up from where she was sitting opposite her friend and started pacing his office. "Then why aren't we finding him? If we had Peter and a vial of Vertaserum Sirius would be released."

Baron looked at the young woman with a wry, crooked smile, almost sad in it's essence. "Regan, Alastor asked me to tell you that if you want to investigate this crime and take on Sirius' case, then you're more than welcome, but you are not to bring it into the Priory. He doesn't want any more time being wasted on the past when we have more than enough to worry about for the future."

Regan sighed and collapsed into the chair again, head hung in defeat. Alstor was making this difficult for her because he was worried about further distractions. Truthfully Regan had to admit he was right; in the grand scheme of things it was only a distraction if there was nothing they could do.

Regan refused to believe that was the case. So there was only one thing to do.

"Fine." Without looking at him, Regan said in a calm voice, "Is your library open to the daughter of an old friend?"

BROKEN HEARTS

Remus stood on the front porch of a cottage on a lake being rented in a muggle community, nearly deserted in this December month. What in the world was he going to be able to do about her? This was one relationship he did not want to step in the middle of…not again.

Nevertheless, this was a favor Dumbledore had asked, and he would be damned if he ever went against a request from the headmaster who had been so kind to him when he was a boy. Even if he had no desire whatsoever to see this woman.

Remus didn't bother knocking. He thought he would find trinkets and dust collectors inside. Instead he walked right into a war zone. There were clippings from newspapers everywhere, on the floor, pinned up on walls, and in all different languages. Books stood on every table, some stacks as tall as he was, some open, some closed, nearly all of them marked on some of the pages with a bookmark. Dumbledore wasn't kidding. Regan had lost it.

When he reached the living room, there were more papers, more books, and Regan. She was asleep on the couch, clutching a book to her chest in one hand and her father's knife in the other. For a moment Remus panicked. She did look rather pale, and he knew what happened at the Hollow the night James and Lily died. But when Remus drew closer he could see she was perfectly fine. But her body had wasted something terrible. The bones of her collar were protruding more than was natural, or at least more than he remembered; she had always been very thin. He looked to her hand again. In fact the knife was not even drawn from its sheath. He sighed once more, this time in relief, and touched her pale cheek. Regan stirred a little and opened her eyes. They looked darker…tortured almost.

Two months, he thought. How could they let this go on for two months?

"You look terrible."

Regan pursed her lips and sat up. "Thanks. And thanks again for all your help."

Remus felt slightly abashed, but held his ground. "Regan, you're trying to free a guilty man. He's just…not who you thought he was." He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away.

Regan set aside her book and swung her legs to hang over the edge of the couch. She clasped her hands tighter around the knife, the bodice of her black robes hanging open at the bust from days of lacking adjustment or tightening of the stays, and looked him right in the eye with a cold stare. "He is not guilty. Sirius could never do this to innocent people…or to me. He loves me."

Remus sat down beside her. "Think of his family, Regan. They weren't good people. Maybe he was never wired to be a good person."

Regan stood up and waked to the window overlooking the lake, slightly frozen over in the frosty morning. "If you won't help me, Remus, then go."

"I am trying to help you Regan." Remus stood and took a stop or two towards her. "I'm trying. Please turn around."

Regan did and Remus drew closer. She backed into the window behind her, but Remus kept coming until he was less than a few inches from being body to body with her. It was so reminiscent of a moment they had shared in Hogwarts, Regan could have sworn she was fifteen again, and choosing between the two men she adored. He took her hands in his. She still held tight to her father's weapon in one of them.

"I miss you. I miss hearing your voice. I miss how it feels to hug you, and how we used to sit for hours when we were young and just talk." Regan broke her gaze and cast her eyes downwards. "Everything will be okay again one day."

"How can things be okay without Sirius? Without James and Lily and Harry? It will never be okay again." She said this without emotion. Her face was set and her voice was completely deadpan.

Remus could see he was going to need some serious work to get her back to reality. All this was going to kill her if she didn't leave it behind. He'd lost her once, but this time there was something he could do about it. "Come on," he said soothingly, wresting the knife from her grip as her hand relaxed into his. "Come on. I'm taking you home. You can clear your head there."

That wasn't the plan. In fact he was supposed to be handing her over to St. Mungos healers. But Remus could see that being prodded and poked was not what she needed at the moment. And, much as he hated himself for this thought, this was an opportunity, as Remus saw it. This was an opportunity to mend his heart. It was his chance to fix something that broke a long, long time ago.

A CHANGE OF SCENERY

Remus woke up early and looked out is window. The sun was beginning to rise and a dash of pink streaked across the dove grey sky. After swinging himself out of bed and pulling on a housecoat that had seen better days in Hogwarts, Remus made his way down the hall of the little cottage he had been living in out in the forests of England.

As he passed Regan's room, Remus looked toward the door, surprisingly open. It was about a month ago when he had awoken the morning after a full moon by a knock in his door. Alastor Moody and Albus Dumbledore had come to ask a favor of him. A friend of his had gone and let loose a secret which killed two other of Remus's friends, left their child in the hands of muggle relatives, and followed up by a fantastic performance of killing another friend and twelve muggles directly.

'It would seem', Dumbledore said to Remus at the time, 'that Regan has lost more than anyone in this war. And it has driven her over the edge.' Remus was told all that was known about the past months while he had been shunning both Regan, for her choice in men, and Sirius, for being the man she had chosen. Regan had tried to take her own life. Now she was locking herself in a cottage in the North country, at a lake, surrounded by muggles, not using her magic and barricading herself in a rented house studying wizarding law as though she was preparing to take the Foundations Of Wizarding Law Exam (F.O.W.L.s). He was never upset over Regan's choice in Sirius exactly, but he was hurt by it. Sirius was a perpetual child, and Regan had a similar streak of mischievousness in her, but it was tempered in her teenage years by an ambition to become one of the Priory Masters one day. They were fifteen when Remus had discovered his love for her. And by the time she was fifteen he was ready to say so. Sirius beat him to it. And after several months of the old friends having turned lovers it seemed as though she would never leave him. The graduation ball was the last time he spoke to her outside of the Order of the Phoenix when it was necessary. There would be get-togethers with friends and either Regan would forego the event or ignore him on the few occasions she did consent to come.

And last month had been the first time he had spoken to her privately in a little over four years. Truthfully he hadn't needed to go and rescue her. Maybe it was the fact that her parents were dead, her sister was in all likelihood a murderer, James and Lily were gone, and so was their son for the time being, she had tried to end her life, lost Sirius to the jail and Peter was gone. She had no one. Remus thought he had done it for a much more personal reason though, now that he revisited the event. He knew he loved her then, and he loved her still. This was an opportunity, he had thought as she dozed on his bed that first night, to finally put things right between them.

And ever since then they had shared this space. Regan had made remarkable strides in her mental status in that short amount of time. The first week she barely sat up long enough to eat. After that she began reading. Following that there was a period where Remus would walk by and hear her get up walk around her room, though she always left her door closed. The only time Remus ever saw her was when he was bringing her something to eat or drink. And in the past few days he began to notice something: things in the cottage, though few, were changing their positions from where he would leave them. One night he had set down a copy of the Nightly Prophet on the kitchen table. The next morning it was folded more neatly than he had left it and resting on the arm of the squashy sofa in the small sitting room. Another morning he went to water the garden in the back of the house only to find the soil on the edges of the flower boxes and the soil laid for the vegetables was already soaked, and there were roses cut from the bushes, sitting nicely arranged in a vase on table in the hallway. She was wandering around at night, learning how to live life again while Remus slept.

This morning, as he passed her room, the door was open and Regan was nowhere inside. He also noticed the distinct scent of fresh coffee wafting to his nose from down the hall.

Regan was in the kitchen pouring two mugs of coffee from the pot. The only thing was she was using the muggle device to make it. There had been a few things left behind by the previous owners that Regan knew how to use. Did this mean she was still neglecting her magic? Remus was curious but decided not to say anything too pointed about that right from the off, just in case she wasn't doing as well as she seemed.

"You're looking well," he said cheerfully as he wandered in.

"Miles better than from last month. Thanks for letting me stay here, Remus." She handed him one of the mugs without adding anything, and took a sip from her own. They both drank their coffee black.

"You're welcome." Remus took a sip and smiled.

As they drank and watched the sun rise sitting on their porch swing beneath a flannel blanket to shield them from the crispy air, they discussed some things Regan was eager to speak about.

There was an owl received several a days before saying the Priory needed her help, rounding up evidence against the followers of Voldemort who had evaded the aurors. Remus knew she had read it, but she hadn't answered. He knew she was on the cusp of some important decision. And this was what they discussed now.

"I don't think I can go back," she said. "I won't be able to take one step in that place and see anyone without thinking of him, and the last thing I need right now is that."

"What will you do instead?"

"I'm not sure. But whatever I do, I need some time before doing that either." She looked him in the eye as though she were ashamed of her decision; "I just can't do the Priory anymore. I'm not abdicating, because there might come a day when I really am needed, but…for now it's not a place for me."

Remus nodded. He could respect that without question. He himself had turned down jobs before when they didn't suit his emotional well-being.

"I've Decided to get a new wand. Mine is part of what brought Sirius' conviction around. I can't look at it without thinking about what happened."

"Do you still think he's innocent?"

Regan shrugged apologetically. "I knew he was not the secret keeper for our house, so whoever sold us out sold us both. Maybe it was Peter maybe not, but knowing that he framed us and ran says a lot to me. I know Sirius is innocent. He saved me and put himself in jail for me. Who would do that after selling me out?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe he thought it better you be left to wreak havoc on the world for what they did to him."

Regan smiled to herself. "Dumbledore really did tell you the whole story." She paused for a moment, unsure of how her next statement might go over. "I'm petitioning a right to visit Sirius."

Remus didn't react much at all, on the outside. Inside, he was screaming. "Just once?"

"No, as often as I can. Forever, if that's how long he's there. It doesn't matter what I find no matter how I study, he will never be free by law. She if he can't come to me I'm going to him."

"If that's what you want."

That's not what Remus wanted for her. He waned her to start fresh and new…with him, if it suited her. Though it would never happen of course. She and Sirius were more tied to one another than any two things in this world. A cell and bars could never keep them apart. Nothing, it would seem, ever could.

NEGOTIATIONS

"I am in charge of these criminals Miss Leary, their visitation is at my discretion." Otto Scott was a short man, portly, and pompous as all hell. They were meeting in his Azkaban office in the evening. Otto was many things, one of which was a man of principle. He was someone more than a little difficult to manipulate. And he was the man she had to convince of this scheme. It's not like she had never done it before, but it was never for something long term and regular. And when this was brought up, all she could say was the carefully constructed speech in which she begged. Not that it was sincere; in fact it was fantastically manipulative. But convincing all the same.

"You're a persuasive person, Miss Leary."

"I'm just asking a favor of you, not trying to persuade you, Otto." This was true, manipulate really was the better word in this case, and Otto really should have used it.

"Regardless, Miss Leary, I hear you resigned from the Priory, therefore, you no longer have unlimited rights."

"I did not resign. I'm working cases at home. Researching. Every time I go anywhere near the place or people in it I can't get him out of my mind. Surly you must understand that."

She stepped closer to the desk behind which the man was sitting and leaned over it slightly. The cut of the neckline of her dress was very low, and a little extra persuasion never went amiss with Otto, particularly of the biological kind. "I'm not here to try and break him out. It doesn't happen in this jail, particularly when pervy old men like you take such pride in wresting my wand to hold hostage and frisking me for extras every time I come here to speak to one of our arrestees. I was going to marry him…I have a right to see him. Besides, the more I'm around the more you get to stare at my chest. I know that's not an opportunity you'd like to let slip through your fingers."

Fortunately, Regan had done her homework. He was not only a pervert, but a victim. The man's brother in law was in lock up on another level for committing a crime to keep someone from torturing his mother. Not that Otto much cared for this particular relative, but he understood the anguish Regan felt, and he did have a special fondness to her, without a doubt. "You get one hour a week."

"I'll come whenever I want and stay as long as I choose."

"Can't be done."

Regan was expecting that answer. Otto was difficult, by his very nature. And she was ready for it. This wasn't the first time the two had haggled. "Here." She drew a bag out of her cloak pocket and dropped it on the desk between them. Otto took it and as he pulled the drawstring Regan turned her back and simply listened to the intake of breath at the amount of gold. "This is just the first payment. One month of visitation, that's twenty-four hours. You get twelve of these payments a year."

"This is terribly illegal, even for the Priory," Otto said hesitantly. But he continued after a momentary pause, divulging in his own greed. "For how long?"

It was more like a demand than a question, really. Regan didn't turn around. "I'm willing to pay you enough gold up front to cover ten years."

Otto was silent for a few second, then there was the clink of coins being pocketed and Otto said in a low voice, "Deal."

RESIGNATION

"Regan, what are you playing at? You're looking better, so you are better, so you can come back. We need some extra leadership around here since we lost Brutus. Come on, suit up and get going I need you to visit some houses."

Regan stayed right where she was sitting. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap and her expression was wracked with guilt. She was finding it hard to speak. But when she opened her mouth she knew an acceptance would come out and she would obey. She had been in service of the Priory for three years; it was a hard wired response.

Remus who was standing behind her chair was ready though. "Alastor, this is the best thing for her. She's still willing to work at home preparing cases and researching suspects, she'll collect any information from the Hall of Records you need her to, but she is not willing to lead anymore stakeouts, arrests, missions, and she won't set another foot inside this house when she leaves here today."

Alastor scoffed at the young man. "So you're her keeper now. She was easier to deal with when Sirius was around. She was responsible for the job and him. It gave her a backbone"

He spoke so easily of Sirius, as though he were simply gone on vacation. It made Regan almost want to cry. She held her tears though. Alastor would never agree to let her do this if she was not putting up a strong, insistant front.

Alastor, his nose bandaged from a recent fight, sat and rested his stump of a leg on a cushioned footrest that sat beside his office chair in the headquarters these days. The wound was not exactly recent, but even after months on end the man was still feeling some of his phantom limb. He sighed and took a swig from his hip flask. Unlike some of the other things that seemed to make Alastor Moody somewhat crazy these days, this habit was an old one. The eccentric behavior was nothing new either but it had been accentuated by the war.

"Fine, do what you want. I suppose I should just count my luck. Lots of them are leaving. Scared that the world will never get back to normal I suppose. They're seeing every suspect as a dangerous threat and they don't want to risk it. As least if you stay on part time I've got a chance of using you in your job description again some day."

Regan nodded and stood up. As Remus led her out of the office down the hall and out the door, the tears started falling. When they were outside on the muggle street the headquarters stood on, Regan sat on the stoop and let it all out. After a good ten minutes, after her sobs had quieted, Remus lifted her chin and said, "Ready to go home?"

Regan took his hand and stood again. She was ready to go home.

VISITATION

Sirius had been taken from his cell, which had been home to him for the past few months. Otto was leading him up to what seemed to be the office levels, with two dementors behind Sirius and one alongside Otto in the front. They never seemed to have any great effect on the man but at the moment Sirius was imagining all kinds of terrible things, mostly the idea that Regan would never light up the room for him again. Or maybe that was his own doing. It was a confusing sensation.

He was led through a door at the end of a hallway. The dementors stayed outside and inside there was something much resembling his cell, but cleaner, and it was furnished. There was a simple bed on the left side beside a small window and a desk with a chair on the right. And sitting in that chair, dressed in an ivory country gown adorned with a pattern of green ivy and a Kelley green cloak was Regan. He hair was curled and her pale skin stood stark against the dark room, grey despite the fine sunrise.

"He's yours as long as you'd like, I'll have the tenants bring in breakfast in a couple of hours, lunch at noon, and dinner at six. Whenever either of you need the lavatory call for an attendant and they will escort you, likewise for whenever you leave Miss Leary. You're to be out by nine this evening."

Otto left, closing and locking the door behind him. Sirius stood on the very spot he had stopped at for a moment, wondering if he was really seeing what he was seeing. Before he could break his stance Regan rushed into his arms. He held her as close as he could, lifting her off the ground and allowing himself to succumb to the rush of emotion that came over him. She pulled back a bit and placed her lips onto his. They staggered backward until they reached the bed and fell down together onto it. Sirius looked at Regan and saw his own tears mirrored in her eyes. But the happiness he felt quickly turned to concern.

"How on earth did you arrange this?"

They lay together on the bed for a couple of hours. Breakfast came and while they ate they discussed things. Sirius lay on his side, head resting in hand and other arm draped over Regan as she lay beside him. After Regan had explained everything that had happened in the past two months Sirius needed a moment. Regan had told him everything, from nearly losing her mind to quitting most of her fieldwork for the Priory, and about living with Remus.

"I'm glad you found someone to move on with Regan," Sirius said in a crestfallen tone.

"I'm not with him, Sirius. We've resolved our argument, and he helped me get back on my feet. He took care of me, and we're going to continue living together. It's easier for him; since he left the Priory to pursue jobs a little more wholesome money's been tight and I'm not going to be making what I used to make either. We can afford to live better if we're pulling weight together."

Sirius wasn't entirely convinced, but he thought it was better to drop the subject in favor of another one. "So how much did you pay Otto? What does one of these visits cost you?"

"I paid him for ten years of unlimited visitation. I'm uncomfortable citing the number."

"So, what can we do when you visit?"

"Basically, I paid enough so that we can do whatever we please. I can't come every day, though, since I'm still working with the Priory."

"That's wonderful, Regan. I'm glad you didn't out and out leave."

"Alastor wasn't happy, but he has been a little cranky. If you'd recently lost a chunk out of your nose you would be too."

"A chunk of his nose?"

"Rounding up someone who was ratted out during an inquisition. I don't remember exactly who. He's thinking about quitting the Aurors. It seems like every time they send him somewhere he comes back with a little less himself. Anyway, while you're here the dream team is pretty much over. I can't do it without you."

"Well, I could be sitting in my cell constantly without you for the rest of my life. Any little bit of you is enough for me."

Regan smiled and pushed her chest upward towards him. "Any ideas on which bit of me you'd like to see first?"

DECISIONS TO MAKE

She seemed gloomy whenever she returned. Remus noticed that lately. After nine years of doing gopher work for the Priory and visiting Sirius every day Regan had finally decided to work. She had consented to Help Ollivander the wand maker with his work in Diagon Alley, as he was getting arthritic in his hands these days. Remus had been so happy that she was recreating her life after nine years. The thing about that was that it left less time for visiting Sirius than she used to have. And when she did have time it was often over a lunch break. Sometimes working with the company did not allow time for certain activities when she would visit, and on those occasions Remus could hear her moaning in her room late at night when she no doubt thought he was asleep.

For almost a year she had been like this, and Remus often felt lately he couldn't take it anymore. He listened to the moaning now as he tried to think of something else. Remus sighed and looked out his window.

It would be a full moon in a couple of days. And the heat of the moonlight ran in his veins. His love for Regan had reawakened almost the minute he found her in that cottage. And lately he had found it harder and harder to ignore her at the full moon's approach, her slender waist, the slight, gentle curves of her breasts, the clean icy coolness of her skin, looking as though it would feel as soft as satin were he to merely touch it.

Remus had never exercised his ministrations during the moon on a woman he loved. In fact he had not performed any ministrations in quite some time at all. No contraceptive known to wizard kind could stop the potency of a werewolf in heat during the moon. But Remus thought about making her his all the time, especially during the moon and to hell with the consequences. He wanted her to belong to him.

She quieted. Remus could imagine that Regan was lying among twisted sheets in a post coital glow. How hard would it be for him to just walk down the hall and…

Somehow, that's exactly where he found himself. Standing naked in the hallway, knocking on her door.

When she opened it she was merely holding her sheet in front of her nude form.

Regan smiled with lust and dragged her eyes down his scarred chest all the way down to his erection. Remus, looking abashed, turned to go. Regan dropped her sheet and reached for him, taking him around his chest from behind. She pulled him inside, and shut the door behind them.

She spun Remus around and kissed his lips. She was ravenous in her desire for him, and in a moment he retuned her passion. His hands ran down her sides, finally resting on her perfectly taught butt. He pushed her backwards until they hit the bed. As Regan fell back onto the mattress she pulled Remus down with her. They continued kissing as Remus moved his hands over her body, from her slender neck to the swell of her breasts and down her stomach. Breaking their connection, Remus moved down her jaw with kisses, finally taking one nipple in his mouth. He rolled his tongue over it, biting lightly as he did, while his hand gently caressed the soft flesh between her legs. Regan opened her thighs wider to invite his touch. Remus returned his mouth hers as he inserted a single finger, then two, eliciting a moan from Regan. He stroked slowly at first, but picked up speed, spurred along by Regan's groans, which were steadily growing louder. She came, seeping her juices onto his hand, and while she breathed heavily and lay back limp, Remus sheathed himself in her, causing a gasp from Regan. She bucked into him and grabbed onto his shoulders. Laying his weight into his one hand he pulled her closer to him with the other, wrapping his arm around the small of her back. Remus started pumping into her, going more slowly than he would have liked. He didn't want to hurt Regan, but he did desperately wish to pound her as hard as was physically possible. She beckoned him on, moaning "Faster," and Remus obliged. She moaned louder than ever and using his shoulders for leverage began bucking in time with him. They screamed one another's name. Remus and Regan came together in a riotous moan of pleasure. Breathing hard and drenched in sweat, Remus and Regan stared into one another's eyes. Gently Remus laid his weight on top of Regan as she held him close to her, stroking his hair.

"I don't suppose this will ever happen again?"

Remus and Regan lay on her bed entangled in one another. Regan lifted her head from where it lay on his chest, and smiled sadly at Remus. He was smiling with his free hand tucked up behind his head. He was trying to seem calm, but Regan knew that he was thinking about what they had just done and how it effected them. He was trying to read her reaction.

"Remus…you know it's always been a struggle for me. You and Sirius. I've always loved you both, and in such different ways. I'll never regret this. Only I feel bad going against Sirius this way."

Remus nodded. He felt bad about taking Regan like this. Somehow even though he was no longer friends with Sirius he felt he had stolen something from a friend. Then he reminded himself that Sirius was never adult enough to ask Regan to marry him.

"You know Regan, Sirius loves you, but he'll never be able to give you what you'll find you need someday, if you don't realized you want it already. I know you want someone dedicated, willing to raise a family with you, and love you with all his being. I can be that man."

Regan rested her head back on his chest and sighed. Remus was right. And not only because he was out here and Sirius was on the inside. She knew Sirius would never have settled down with her. And her biological clock was ticking. Twenty-nine was none too young after all. Even if Sirius were out here, when would he marry her? Thirty, thirty-five, forty? Simply put, Sirius was great fun, but he was the kind of man women date just for that fun. That was the purpose of a woman dating a bad boy. Then they come home and marry the good guy. Regan realized that was all her confusion ever was. She had a decision to make: the bad boy, or the good guy.

What was left to be gained with the way her life used to be? Prison or not, he was always going to kill her dreams of family and a normal life. The Priory did enough of that in itself.

Without looking up again, she said softly, "When's the wedding?"

THE PRICE OF AN OLD GRUDGE

Regan was on her way to tell Sirius the news. It was great for Remus, bad for Sirius, worst for Regan at the same time. Regan could only be with Sirius a couple of times a week in the past year, and in the last month less than that. Regan and Remus had decided to stop fooling themselves. A wedding was set for the spring. It had been over a week since Regan and Sirius seen one another at all, mostly because Regan had been doing some of the more tedious planning for her nuptials so as to get it out of the way early and she had found out some very exciting news: Regan had discovered her pregnancy. Remus was ecstatic that he was going to be a father, and Sirius would be…well, she wasn't sure how he would be, after all she was marrying one of his ex-friends and having his child.

As she neared the checkpoint outside the jail where she usually let Otto take her wand and pat her down, she noticed that Otto wasn't there. Instead there was someone else. Someone she knew very well and was in no mood to ever know again.

Lawrence Delaney was an ex-Priory member. He frequently accompanied Sirius and Regan on missions and was a decorated Priory member, like they were. He had quit for no reason, or least he hadn't given one, when the war began. Some thought he did it because he had actually moved to the other side. Regan knew the real reason, though she promised herself she would never refer to it ever again, for her own sake. Regan was always a popular girl with the boys. Even when she was in school, after thirteen, even after Sirius and she began going together. But Lawrence had been more than obsessive. He had tried to kidnap her once. Alastor and Sirius were the only ones who knew about it. Alastor told Lawrence he had the choice between resignation and a report in his file in the Aurors' office. Their records effected the jobs they were put on, and a legitimate crime being committed without redeemable cause on record made it likely that Lawrence would never get any work sent his way every again. That meant no pay. He chose the former.

Now he was standing at the checkpoint just inside the boundaries of the compound with what seemed like an army of dementors and wearing the official robes of the keeper of Azkaban and a familiar, sinister smile.

"Good morning Regan."

Regan nodded a hello and drew her cloak closer around her against the morning chill. It was November, and while snow had not as of yet hit the ground, this morning it certainly looked like it very well could happen today, and the lack of the last of autumn's tepid afternoon air was doing nothing to indicate the contrary. That, and while it was one thing for a frisky old man who only liked to look at her breasts to check her for weapons or tools, Regan did not want this man laying a finger on her. "What are you doing here Lawrence?"

"I've taken over for Otto, who now finds himself too old to manage this facility anymore."

"How nice for you. Here, take my wand and let me upstairs."

"I'm afraid under my new regime things have changed. Otto may have been a soft man when it comes to gold and…luscious women, but I am not going to run my jail this way. Oh no…no more visitations for you."

Regan went to push past Lawrence but the dementors stopped her. "Because you committed a crime at this location I can't let you through, and make no mistake your bribery was a crime, since you're not full Priory anymore. I could call the aurors right now, and admire you or not, they will have to arrest you. You'll have marks on your records rather unbecoming to someone looking to go back to her old position someday. But I don't think of that punishment as quite refined enough for payment for what you did to me."

"You can't do that. Gopher work or not, I'm still a member and I outrank you."

"Oh I can, see something like this on that pristine little record of yours could make it very hard for Alastor to re-promote you someday."

Regan wouldn't have cared had this been a year ago, but lately she had been trying very hard to make sure there was always a spot open for her to take over a team again. She didn't exactly feel like giving up that life anymore. She enjoyed it too much. But where had Lawrence heard about it? Alastor was being very good about keeping the intentions hushed. Regan decided it was something to worry about later. "What will you do then? It would seem the ball is in your court."

"Glad you asked. You see I have control over this jail, and the guards in it. These creatures do what I tell them, when I tell them. If I weren't careful with my words, I might just say I wished a kiss upon Siruis Black. Completely on accident of course. But there is something you can do to ensure that there's nothing I could say to ever cause that kind of pain on you."

"What might that be?"

"He said himself on that night ten years ago that it wouldn't matter who they imprisoned, as long as someone was and he fell on the sword for you."

"There was reasonable evidence against him. They would have tossed him over me anyway."

"And evidence against you as well, and with the track record you now have stacked for yourself... He convinced the Sneakoscope to let you go. He's spent eleven years in this place for you, now I think it's time you returned the favor. His freedom, for your imprisonment."

Regan sniffed at the threat. "You would never kill him. You're not that cold."

"Try me."

Regan looked in his face. There was something there telling her that he was not kidding. Not this time. He wouldn't hesitate to kill Sirius, and he had probably been waiting a long time to spring some kind of revenge on her, just waiting for the right opportunity. And so the right one had presented itself.

"You have twenty-four hours to decide. Come back in that time and we have a deal. If not, well…" he nodded toward one of the hooded figures. "Twenty-four hours."

And he left Regan standing in the grey afternoon, as the snow began to fall.

SACRIFICIAL LAMB

Regan and Alastor were talking quietly in the private meeting room behind Alastor's office on the Priory HQ. Actually it was little more than a literal hole in the wall, but regardless it was the only place in the house to speak with the guarantee no one is going to overhear.

"Why so sudden a change of heart Regan? You've been happily doing gopher work all these years and now you're telling me you've discovered someone of interest and you want to spearhead the investigation. I thought you were going to ease into it. It must be someone very interesting indeed."

"Lawrence Delaney."

"What's he done now?"

"Gone and put me in a terrible position. He says he's going to sick one of the dementors on Sirius in a day if I don't do something terrible."

"What?"

"Take his place."

Alastor stood still for a moment, saying nothing and breathing heavily in the darkness. "What's he playing at?"

"Either Sirius dies tomorrow or he's turned loose, which I assume is when Delaney will alert the aurors and he'll be hunted and kissed when they catch him anyway and my ass will still be sitting in jail."

"Maybe not. Sirius is clever enough. You can't do this, though."

"Don't try and stop me, I had my mind made up by the time he had finished his ultimatum."

"I mean not now. You have to make him wait until the baby comes."

"I'm going to steal that eye from you someday."

"I wish there was another way. What he's doing is illegal, and I could have him ascertained and questioned on this basis…but you don't want that, do you?"

"He'll only deny everything I say and bring up the deal I made with Otto, then it's two untrustworthy people calling one another untrustworthy. The Chief Warlock won't even open the file and if he did he'd rule on Delaney anyway. I have the chance to do something to let Sirius live, and really live. I'm taking his deal."

She wanted to go back to the jail and talk to Lawrence, but something was hanging on her tongue that needed saying. "I'm taking a huge risk doing this, Alastor. Am I doing the right thing?"

"I'd rather arrest that creep, but you're right, it would be word against word and given what the Wizengammot knows about your status here and the reason why, odds are not in your favor."

Regan felt him pull her into an embrace in the cramped space. "You've sacrificed for years for the greater good of the world. I think it's about time you got to focus your habit on someone closer to home."

"The thing is Lawrence, I'm pregnant. The baby will be born in the end of July and after that, I will take Sirius' place."

"Not what we agreed on. But I wouldn't want to be the one to hardwire your child for fear the rest of their life. I'll accept this."

"And you will not touch him for this time. Not a single hair on his head."

"Of course not."

"And I want to see him before we swap places. I want to be able to say something to him, and I don't want you to interfere or overhear."

"I can arrange that."

"And you are not to call the authorities-"

"They must be alerted. His chance for freedom does not come freely."

"-until he's been gone for a week. I want him to have time to figure this out. I want this trade and the contingencies on it to be as fair as possible."

"I'll make sure all of your requirements are met. I'll see you back in this office in nine months, Regan."

"Yes, I'll see you."

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Healer Smyth was checking Regan again. It had to be almost time now. Regan had been in severe pain for hours; since the morning, and now it was dark outside. The tiny cottage was like an oven in the July heat wave, and the breeze coming off the ocean was doing little to help even as it wafted in through the open window.

"It won't be long now, Regan. You're ready."

Smyth removed his hand. Remus tried not to notice what was going on down there. He was more concerned for Regan. Her heart was already racing. She could very well lose it if she didn't deliver soon. Suddenly Remus was hit with a pang of regret over not pushing her harder to have their child in St. Mungos. At least there would be a whole host of healers there. As it were there was only Smyth, and though he was more than qualified, should something go wrong it could be more than he could handle.

Regan began pushing around eight that evening, and it wasn't until ten that the cries of her son filled the room. And that was the point that Regan passed out.

"Regan! No! Smyth, do something!"

Smyth, handed the baby to Remus and checked Regan's chest. "She's breathing. It must be her heart."

Smyth pulled out his wand and used charm after charm to attempt to revive her. She was getting ashen and her breathing got shallow. When nothing worked he pulled out emergency vials of potions and elixirs. After pulling one in a black opaque glass bottle and emptying the contents into Regan's mouth she started to breath normally and color came back to her face.

Smyth nodded in satisfaction after taking her pulse for the fifth time in an hour. The baby was clean and dressed, wrapped in a swaddling blanket and sleeping in his father's arms. Remus had been holding his son since his birth, able to do nothing more than look on Regan, still unconscious but apparently doing fine. He'd never been so scared.

"She'll be fine, Remus. Don't worry," Smyth said, placing his hat on his head at the front door. "But to be on the safe side, I'm not sure this experience should ever be repeated. Her heart may not be able to take another child." Remus nodded and Smyth left the little family alone. After seeing him out, Remus returned to the room he and Regan slept in and sat with his son in the armchair.

"So little one," Remus said quietly, one eye on his son and the other on Regan. "This is the beginning of the end."

INNER CONTRADICTIONS

It had been the worst day Regan could remember in a long while. And the best. And even though it was a two in the morning feeling at the moment and she still felt certain her down-there area would never look the same again no matter what Smyth told her, she was thrilled to have her son lying in her arms for the last time before leaving.

And at the same time she was extremely sad. The game had begun. In the morning she would have to haul herself over to the prison, and she would see Sirius for the last time. At least she hoped it was the last time. And she didn't. It had been almost nine months already, and she had missed him.

Everything was in contradiction right now. Regan was so happy her son was here and healthy and wanting all the time in the world with him, but he wanted the days to fly so she could see Sirius, but for obvious reasons she wished she could stay behind. But this moment, this moment she was in right here, this was perfect.

Remus came in and made himself comfortable sitting beside Regan in bed. "Lucan," Regan said quietly, not taking her eyes off her son, trying to drink in every expression, every coo, every sneeze. Everything she could before she was gone. She said his name often, as it made her feel like she could bond stronger with him. "Lucan Ajax Leary."

They had decided to give their son Regan's name, since she and Remus still weren't married yet and there was no telling what Sirius would do if he found out somehow before anyone had the nerve to tell him.

"I'll be fine with him, you know. I've even got Mrs. Selmer down the street to help on the moons, and she's had plenty of grandkids to know."

"I'm not worried." That was the truth indeed. Regan couldn't let herself think of everything that could happen to Lucan when she was gone. She would rather think of ways to get herself out of Azkaban once she got herself in. In nine months she hadn't been able to come up with anything for blackmail, but perhaps she would think of something sitting alone in her cell with nothing else to think about. She hoped that would be the case. No matter; she didn't intend on staying put anyway.

"You don't have to do this you know."

"I can't let him die."

"Why not? He did some unforgivable things."

"He did nothing. I will not let him stay there for slaughter."

"You gave him nine more months with your deal. It's a long time in that place."

"Not long enough. He deserves his life."

"Don't you?"

"I'll be back before you know it." She gave him a smile and a wink. "Don't you worry about that."

Remus trusted she would have come up with some sort of plan. He just hoped she wouldn't commit any truly horrendous crime doing it. The Priory protected her from her actions on the outside as a free woman, but as a prisoner she would be no different than anyone else behind those bars.

"I love you, Regan. I don't want to see you hunted and killed or worse. Whatever you're planning to do, please be as legal as possible."

"I'll keep that in mind," Regan said, as she handed Lucan off to Remus who got up and placed in the bassinet. Now all she needed was a plan.

There was a reason she was not able to think of a plan…because there was no good way out.

THE TRADE

Regan sat in a room waiting for Lawrence to bring in Sirius. There was only one other chair in the room. She had already been processed, and was trying to make herself comfortable in the threadbare striped gown. Remus had charmed her hair before she left early in the morning so that it would remain tangle free. In spite of the seemingly hopeless situation, there seemed to be a lightness in Regan's heart; she felt glad to give something back to the man she once loved.

The door opened abruptly. Regan stood and turned to face the men coming inside. Lawrence led, and Sirius followed. He looked terrible. He was as thin as a ghoul, and his hair had started to mat. There were tattoos on his arms and hands. Ancient symbols they both knew and used to use to write to one another without anyone being able to read what it said. Clearly he had been making some use of his time since they last met.

Lawrence sat Sirius down in the vacant chair and looked to Regan. "You have three minutes." He walked back to the door with a cool arrogance letting everyone know he had won. When the heavy oaken door shut behind him, Regan all but fell into Sirius' arms. He held her, but was more interested in asking questions.

"What happened to you? I haven't seen you for months. What were you arrested for?"

Regan pulled away and knelt before Sirius, sitting him down in the extra chair. "Listen to me," she said taking his hands. "Otto retired. Lawrence Delaney took over for him, and he threatened to kill you…unless I took your place here. The thing was is that the day he found out about my visitations, that was the day I was coming here to tell you that I was pregnant. I convinced him to wait until after I gave birth."

She paused to let Sirius soak this in. It was a lot. And she wasn't sure how sane he was anymore, not having her visit in so long. Actually when he answered he was more than sane, he was sharp as a tack.

"A boy or a girl?"

"A boy, Lucan. Now listen, you're being released, but Lawrence is going to report it or else someone will notice and his reputation will be forfeit. He's not telling anyone I'm here, my cell will be out of the way in the old parts they don't use anymore, and he's waiting a week before letting anyone know you've escaped to give you a good sporting chance. Lie low, and don't go try to go to Remus' place. He thinks you're guilty as charged still, even though I'm doing this. He's keeping Lucan for me. Stay hidden until there is no longer a search for you. And then you might be able to go to Remus and convince him, and he can help you make your life anew elsewhere. I'll find you when I get out of here."

"With our son?"

Regan wasn't sure how to answer the question. Now was certainly not the right time to say anything about the affair or the fact that she had moved on. Fortunately, Regan wasn't given the chance to say anything.

The door opened and Lawrence came back in. "That was a quick three minutes," Regan said coldly.

"Things to do, people to see."

He stood up Sirius and handed him over to the dementors. "I suggest you change your form until you're outside. Let's not tempt them, I did after all make a deal here."

Sirius said nothing as he was led from the room and when he was gone, Regan sank to her knees, one hand on the chair he had been sitting in and one hand over her mouth. Tears streamed down her face.

UNCALLED RESCUE AND THE AFFIRMATION OF STATUS

The cell was cold, and her feet had been wet since Regan first sat behind her bars. The skin was peeling from her heels and toes. She scratched at her inner forearm again. The place where she had been tattooed with her prisoner's number still itched something terrible. 0711904. That was it. She had memorized it in the past month. That was really all there was for her to do. She sang sometimes, thought about her son often and pondered on how she was going to get out. Still nothing had yet come to her.

Regan lay in a fetal position on the straw mat that was her bed, gently pulling at the coarse fibers as she thought. After everything that had happened, she would relish in the opportunity to be clever enough to escape. But she was here so Sirius could live and uncomplicated life, and that was worth it.

The door to her hallway, void of any prisoner but her as agreed, opened at an unusual time on the thirtieth day. No one came in between meals…unless she was going mad and had lost all perception of time.

After a long thread of footsteps ending at her cell, the last cubicle on the left, Regan looked up, and there was a tall man standing there, with spectacles glinting in the limited light though the sliver of a window, and his long silver beard and mane of hair pouring down from his face and from under his cap.

So, the headmaster knew, then.

"What are you doing here?" Regan sat up and rubbed one of her eyes that had been watering. Her voice was raspy from several days' negligence.

Dumbledore smiled, hands folded before him. "It would seem someone wrote an anonymous letter letting me know about a rather illegal imprisonment. Lawrence is being held by authorities as we speak." Regan smiled a little. She hadn't thought of a way out, but Remus had thought of a way for her.

The man drew a key from one of is many pockets and unlocked her door, offering a hand to her as the iron bars swung open.

Regan struggled to her feet, even with the headmaster's help. Together they walked out of the prison. It was bright outside, and Regan had to shield her eyes form the sunlight. With the headmaster's help, they apparated together off the island.

Dumbledore brought her back to his office at Hogwarts where they sat by the fire, Regan wrapped in a blanket to keep warm. And they talked.

"I collected these things from Remus before coming for you," Dumbledore said, handing Regan her Priory badge and her wand. "Alastor is looking forward to having you return at full force. In fact, there's a special job he has for you."

Regan took her old badge and shined it with the pad of her thumb with a smile. There was a familiar feeling of pride and importance that came with those words, and Regan realized now how much she missed that. "What assignment?"

"You don't really think Sirius would have been set free and not be hunted."

"Not, but I provided for that in my deal."

"Indeed, and he hasn't been found yet, but I don't think that will be a problem for the Defense Departments anymore after this morning's announcement."

Dumbledore handed her the Daily Prophet from that morning. On the front page was a photo of Sirius during his processing. "Read onto the tenth paragraph."

Regan did, and to her surprise the article cited that the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge was planning on placing dementor guards at Hogwarts. "He can't be serious, Albus. Besides, why would Sirius come here? I told him to lie low and wait until it was safe to travel and then get out of Britain."

"And since when does that man listen to you? He'll be looking to prove you're both innocent now he's on the outside, and the only person who might listen and help him aside from you, who has no biased opinion because he's still in the dark -"

"Harry."

Albus nodded. "Exactly."

"What does he look like?" Regan asked, deviating from the subject for a moment.

"Like his father, with Lily's eyes," Albus answered.

"I missed him the day he went into Ollivander's for his wand. I heard about it afterward." Regan looked disappointed at the memory, thgh she tried to wipe the sadness off her face and remind herself that there would be plenty more chance in the near future to get to know the by.

Albus continued. "If Sirius sets foot near here, he'll be taken into custody."

"So you want me to intercept him first," Regan's face fell. "I can't. If I had some back-up maybe, but without help…I can't raise my son and keep an eye on the boy at the same time."

"That was my thinking. Would you please bring this request for employment to Remus when you go home?"

Regan wrinkled her brow as she took the parchment and read the context. "The defense post?"

"Naturally."

"You know the curse set on that position is more real than anyone will ever believe. No one but you and I know the true story behind Voldemort and his power. Something is going to happen to Remus. If I can't be there all the time something irreparable or fatal could happen to him." She thought for another moment. "…but Sirius…"

Albus smiled. "It's not fun is it? Trying to choose between the father of your child and the man you devoted your life to."

Regan sighed. "It's not like I planned for this to happen. And really I do love them both, I just can't have both." Regan wasn't trying to make what she had done okay in the headmaster's eyes, but then... "Who told you?"

"Alastor, who else?" The headmaster leaned forward in the armchair opposite Regan's and took her hand. "I know what you're going through right in here," he placed her hand over her heart and withdrew his own. "Trust me, the time will come to make the final choice, but now is not it. You should focus on keeping your family together and getting Sirius arrested rather than captured. After that you can fixate on what to do about everything else."

Regan looked hard at the old man. Most people would tell her not to worry so much about the offer, hers or Remus', and would insist Albus wouldn't offer if he knew what he was doing. The fact was Regan knew the headmaster better than that. He was scheming, yes, but he was also slightly blind to some of the numerous outcomes this could have, many of them not good. She and Dumbledore had always been close him being a friend of the family and all, and they both knew that being the brilliant man he was, sometimes his mistakes turned out to have consequences of equal "brilliance". Speaking of brilliance…

"What about Severus Snape? How will take having the two of us here?"

Dumbledore smiled an almost wary smile, like he was unsure of how to answer, and of course indeed he was. "I'm sure he'll take it just fine."

Regan hesitated; not really because of Severus, more like she was thinking. This plan would likely not turn out the way any of them wanted, even if they managed to get to Sirius first, there were so many more layers to this story, there was no telling what could happen, and the unpredictability was making her hesitate. Regan would need to know the location of every coral reef in her way in order to steer this ship in the right direction, so to speak.

On the other hand, she had been put into unpredictable situations before, most of the time willingly, even voluntarily. What had changed? She used to get a rush from the fear and mystery. Hesitation, that was something new.

'You had a child,' she reminded herself. Yes, as a mother Regan had to think about her self-preservation more than she used to. But there was something telling her that no one else would be able to catch him before a team of dementors, and she had to have Remus here. They knew him best, recognized his tricks…knew things about Sirius that were as of yet undisclosed to the Defense Department, to the Aurors, the Hall of Records; even Albus Dumbledore himself didn't know everything. If they didn't both take these jobs, Sirius would likely meet a dementor with a kiss waiting for him under the hood.

"You knew I was going to come back to this job one day didn't you?" Regan asked Albus, who merely smiled, eyes twinkling. "That's why you sent me all those memories to look over. You were planning n using me again in the events to come, when the war starts again." Regan wasn't fond of trickery when she was the subject, but she couldn't be mad at Albus or Alastor. She was being asked o come back to a job she once loved, and was finding it difficult to now find a reason not to take the offer.

"Well," she said with a tired smile and a sigh, handing back the newspaper and picking up her wand from where it was placed on the table between them, "it would seem my hands are morally tied. We'll be on the train on September first, sir."

They shook on it.