CHAPTER TWO
"Diagon Alley," Sirius said, inhaling deeply. It was nearly two weeks after the ill-fated dinner party, and he'd finally convinced me to join him on a trip into London. "Merlin, I haven't been back in years."
I inhaled, too, but the scent of the street was bitter and filled with smoke, and it was all I could do to hold back a cough. Sirius slapped me on the back. "Moony, do you remember all the good times we had here?"
"I don't think I've ever been to Diagon Alley with you, Padfoot," I said, slipping back into his old nickname. "I always went with my parents."
"Oh, I know. But I'm sure you had some good times here alone. I know I did."
"I suppose."
"Did you ever knock over sixteen shelves of wands in Ollivander's?" Sirius asked dreamily. "I did. Twice, actually. Two years in a row."
"I never did that, no."
"Did you ever go into the Magical Menagerie and release all the animals from their cages?"
"Never."
"Oh." Sirius looked at me with his nose wrinkled. "Didn't you have any fun?"
I laughed. "I'm afraid my trips to London were far more boring than yours were."
He shrugged. "Come with me," he said, setting off down the cobblestone streets. "I want you to meet my girl."
The thought of that - of Sirius Black with a wife and a girlfriend on the side - still made my stomach churn. "Right. Your girl. She works in Diagon Alley?"
"Landlady at the Leaky Cauldron," Sirius said, pointing up the street at the pub. "You'll love her. She's quite the handful."
"I'm sure."
I followed Sirius into the pub. "Pettigrew," he said, taking a seat at the bar.
A small man with watery eyes looked up. "Black," he said with a nervous grin. "What can I get for you?"
"The usual," Sirius said, pulling out a silver sickle and bouncing it against the counter. "And a beer for my friend Mr. Lupin here."
"Coming right up," the man called Pettigrew said, and he began to bustle around, dropping mugs and spilling alcohol all over himself.
"Git," Sirius said under his breath.
Then I heard footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later a woman appeared in the doorway behind the bar. She was all angles; sharp cheekbones, thin wrists, straight black hair, piercing blue eyes. "Mr. Black," she said with a slow smile, and she walked through Pettigrew as if he were a ghost. "So nice to see you again."
Sirius kissed her hand. "And you, Marlene," he said.
"Get them their drinks, will you, Peter?" Marlene snapped at the trembling man, who let out a squeak and set their glasses on the counter. "People don't pay to watch you stumble around like an imbecile." She sighed as she looked down at his beer-soaked apron. "Go clean yourself up," she ordered, and Pettigrew skirted around her and ran up the stairs to change.
"I want to see you," Sirius said, taking Marlene's hands. He hadn't introduced me yet.
She laughed. "Go ahead and look."
"Don't play games. I want to see you tonight."
Her gaze softened. "All right."
"Meet me in the usual place. As soon as you close up."
Marlene's eyes glowed. "I'll come if I want to," she said, but it was sensual and sassy and I could see why she had Sirius' attention.
"You'll come," Sirius said. I saw his hands tighten around hers. She didn't wince.
"We'll see." And she pulled away and disappeared upstairs.
"What do you think of her?" Sirius asked as we left the Leaky Cauldron for the streets of muggle London.
"She's a beauty."
"She's more than a beauty," Sirius said with a wink.
"Doesn't her husband notice?"
"Pettigrew?" Sirius smirked. "He thinks she goes out to visit her sister after hours. He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive. Poor bastard."
"Ah." We walked a few paces in silence. "And Lily?"
Sirius stopped. "What about Lily?"
"Does Lily suspect?"
Sirius didn't answer, and I didn't press the matter.
I went home after that - Sirius offered to let me come to "the usual place" with him and Marlene, but I politely declined - and sat at my dining room table, gazing out the window at the hedge that surrounded Mr. Potter's garden. I could hear music coming from his house even with my windows shut. There were cars parked outside his house and all along the entirety of the street; two extra boats were tethered to his dock; and people poured out of every inch of the mansion, from the front door to the balconies.
Before me on the table was a letter. I hadn't been home to receive it, but the owl had been kind enough to wait for me to return from my London excursion with Sirius.
My dear Mister Lupin,
I would be deeply honored if you would attend my little party tonight. I must admit I am eager to make the acquaintance of my newest neighbor. I have seen you several times and had intended on calling on you long before now, but a peculiar combination of circumstances has prevented it.
Very truly yours,
James Potter.
If it had been any other night, my curiosity about Mr. Potter would have compelled me to attend.
But tonight was the full moon.
My first full moon in Godric's Hollow.
And I still didn't have a plan.
Oh, there were vague ideas - lock myself away in the attic, tie myself up and lie beneath the bed, contact my neighbors to see if any of them happened to have a wooden shed lying around - but none of it was foolproof, and none of it sounded pleasant, and the last thing I wanted to do was add Potter's party into the mix.
I owled Lily, in the end, asking whether there was a spare room where she could lock me up until morning. The reply came back almost immediately: yes, there was a room; no, she didn't mind if I used it; and was it alright if she told Dora Tonks the truth about me, because she was spending the night and Lily didn't want to come up with a fabrication about my reasons for staying with her.
It was with great reluctance that I wrote back, You may tell her. I'll be over in an hour.
"So you're a werewolf," Dora said without preamble when I appeared on the Black's doorstep.
Lily swatted her friend's arm. "Be polite."
"I'm a werewolf," I said.
"I'm a metamorphagus," she said with a shrug. "We're all freaks, in our own way."
To prove her point, she let her nose grow into an ugly snout with tufts of hair springing from the pores.
"Dora," Lily hissed.
"It's all right," I said, stepping inside and dropping my house keys on the side table in the foyer. "Where do you want me?" I asked Lily, and she described a room at the top of the stairs.
"We'll soundproof it with magic, so Sirius won't hear - if he even comes home," Lily added bitterly. Her fingers crawled up to the pearls around her throat and began to drum. "Is there anything you need?" she asked me. "A pillow, or a blanket?"
I shook my head. "I won't be sleeping, I'm afraid."
"You probably wouldn't be sleeping even if it weren't a full moon," Dora said offhandedly as Lily went upstairs to check on the baby. "What with the party going on next door to you." She pointed across the lake at Potter's house, which looked lively and drunken even from here.
"They go on every night," I said. "I'm used to it by now. That Potter, he throws a lot of parties."
"Have you ever gone to one?"
"No. I've never been invited, before tonight."
Dora raised her eyebrows. "You were invited to the party tonight?"
I nodded.
"Nobody gets invited."
"Oh."
Dora wrapped her hand around my wrist. "If you were invited, we've got to go," she said with that wicked grin of hers.
"I can't. The full moon - "
"It's still daylight," Dora insisted. "We'll Apparate back here before the moon rises. Come on." And before I could protest, she turned on the spot and Apparated us both into Potter's garden.
Potter's house was loud, raucous, and filled to the brim with people I had never seen before. Dora disappeared the moment we landed, swept away by the crowd, and I was left to make awkward conversation with a bespectacled man in the gardens.
"I don't really go out like this," I admitted to him in a voice barely loud enough to be heard over the music. "Haven't been to a party since Hogwarts, I'd say."
"You went to Hogwarts?" the man asked. "I was at Hogwarts. Years ago. Gryffindor House."
"I'm Gryffindor, as well," I said, leaving out the fact that I nearly hadn't gone to Hogwarts at all.
"So you must hold a grudge against Slytherins, then," the man said with a wink. "Every Gryffindor I've ever met does."
"I do," I said with a laugh, and I was about to ask him his name when Dora showed up again at my side.
"Sun is just about to set," she said, pointing at the horizon. "We have at least half an hour before the moon rises. I told you there was nothing to worry about."
I exhaled. "Cutting it close," I said under my breath, and she shrugged and asked whether I was enjoying myself. "It's unusual," I said, addressing both Dora and the Gryffindor. "I've never met the host, you see. I live over there, on the other side of the hedge, and this man, this Mr. Potter, he sent me an invitation by owl."
The Gryffindor looked confused for a moment before his mouth curved up into a smirk. "I'm Mr. Potter," he said.
"What!" I exclaimed. "Oh, I - I beg your pardon!"
Dora was grinning.
"I thought you knew," the Gryffindor said, pushing his hand through the mop of black hair on his head. "I'm afraid I'm not a very good host."
I began to reassure him that he was nothing of the sort, but Dora had her hand on my elbow, she was shouting in my ear about the moon, and then we were spinning and Apparating and falling onto Lily's couch.
"What was that?" I gasped when the room stopped spinning.
Dora shrugged. "Didn't want to cut it too close," she said.
"Who is he?"
"Who, Potter? Nobody knows."
"Do you?"
Dora laughed and shook her head. "He's just a man named Potter. I should be asking you. You're the one who got an invitation."
I shook my head slowly as Lily came in and nervously asked whether I'd like to go upstairs now. "I don't know anything about him," I said over my shoulder as Lily escorted me to the attic. But as the moon rose and the familiar prickle of the transformation began across my skin, I realized that wasn't true:
I knew he'd gone to Hogwarts.
And I knew he was a Gryffindor.
