The way Claire had looked at her father, the way her father had looked at Claire, had made the wolf stir in Remus, protective, angry, and hungry. He couldn't be sure what had occurred between them, and Sirius and Claire weren't saying, but if it was anything like what Remus thought it was, he wanted nothing more than to capture Orion Black, gouge out the man's eyes, remove every body part that had been involved in the act, and then leave him to bleed out and revel in his own pain. It was too kind a death for a man cowardly enough to attack his own daughter, but it was the best justice Remus could dream up.

It was impossible not to feel a bit protective of Claire Black. She didn't admit it, but she wasn't as strong as she would like everyone to believe. Remus had been around her long enough to know that she was naturally shy and very broken up inside. Her boisterous persona was all a front to hide her inward fears and insecurities. He had seen her sneak into Sirius's bed ever since their first year, seen Sirius hold her, pet her, calm her, and rock her to sleep. He had known Sirius was fiercely loyal and a great friend from his own dealings with Sirius, but after watching Sirius with Claire there wasn't a doubt in his mind that Sirius would do anything for his twin.

The details of the twins' home life before running away the previous winter were fuzzy and unelaborated. Remus knew Claire hated going home, that she tended to jump whenever anyone but Sirius touched her, and that she had actually lashed out at some bloke who had tried coming on to her at a party that spring. The bloke latter had the shit beat out of him by Sirius, James, and Remus, but he probably was shaken up enough by Claire's vicious outburst.

But it had been harder and harder to keep boys away from Claire, despite her full group of bodyguards, also known as the Marauders, because she had blossomed incredibly during their fourth year, which was about the time Sirius's crazed fan girls had begun to organize, as well. She had his shaggy, dark hair, his haughty face, and his swirling gray eyes, but she was different, obviously. Remus would never have admitted it out loud, but he liked to watch her body, her chest, her bum, her legs… and he wasn't the only boy looking. She also had all sorts of habits, as well, like chewing on her fingernails that he knew she was trying to break, but she wasn't very good at beating them. Remus didn't mind. She was so adorable when she was mad at herself.

That night, the boys sat up, discussing girls, as always.

"Did she talk about me, Moony?" James pressed, and Remus shook his head, giving his friend a sympathetic smile.

"Sorry, Prongs. She didn't say a word, and when someone did bring you up she got a look on her face like she wanted to vomit. No luck there, mate."

In truth, Lily had gone on a rant about how detestable James was, but Remus felt it wasn't particularly kind to mention that to his already heartbroken friend. James would bounce back in a few hours and be fine to stalk her again in the morning, but too much at once when he was getting back in the swing of things would have been cruel on Remus's part.

"Claire missed you over the summer, Remus," Sirius said slyly. "Kept complaining that she didn't have anyone to discuss Muggle books with. Personally, I think she just missed looking at your ugly mug."

Remus blushed. Had she really said that? He wanted her to miss him, to think about him when he wasn't around, but he wasn't like James and Sirius. Remus Lupin was forgettable. He had been too afraid to make an impact, to be remembered when he first came to school, but his friends had beaten most of his self-loathing out of him. Still.

He was dangerous, it was true, but as Sirius had taken to pointing out and hinting, Remus had become so much more manageable, so much more human, now that he had his friends with him on the full moons, and Claire didn't mind that he was a werewolf. After so long of debating with himself, Remus found he was nearly ready to admit that being with Claire would be worth the risks. But would Claire think he was worth the risk? That was the tricky bit.

"I'm sure Claire had a wonderful time without me," Remus muttered. "She certainly has better company than me around all of the time."

It was true. Claire was constantly with Sirius, James, and Audrey, three of the four most popular people in school. Granted, Sirius was her brother, so she might not always want to be with him, and Audrey was really only popular because she was related to James and a Gryffindor Quidditch player, but what mattered was that the four were rarely seen without at least one of the other with them, and when people talked of the four rulers of the school, people often had to ask whether they were referring to the Marauders or the top two Marauders and their sisters. There wasn't much competing with company like that.

"Nonsense, Remus," James said with a laugh. "Sirius is right, Claire likes you as well as any of us… Better than Peter, I think."

Peter frowned.

"Sorry, Pete," Sirius said with a sharp bark of laughter. "She thinks your devotion is a tad creepy."

She wasn't wrong, Remus thought, but he understood where Peter was coming from. To be accepted in such a group was the stuff of dreams, and for Remus and Peter, they had never dared have such glorious dreams. To find themselves in the Marauders, even after all these years, was a lovely dream that Remus was sure he would wake up from someday.

"It doesn't matter what I think of her or what she thinks of me," Remus whispered. "Someone like me has got no business pursuing a steady girl, much less someone as special as Claire. She deserves the best, Sirius, you know that. I can't give her anything she deserves."

Sirius scoffed.

"What are you referring to, Remus? The fact that you're a beast once a month? She knows that, and she doesn't care. She's still your friend, isn't she?"

"Friend is one thing, what you're asking is a completely different situation," Remus argued.

"No, it's not," Sirius snapped. "If you're talking about the money, she doesn't need it. Claire and I have both seen what wealth and power can do to people, and we're not keen to go back. You're a smart guy, Remus. Even if you aren't able to provide for her how you would like, you ought to know she's more than capable of providing for the both of you. Even if she doesn't, she wouldn't mind having a hard go of things. Claire's not some spoiled little princess, you know." His eyes darkened. "Not anymore."

Remus shuddered a little at that. It was true, when he first met Claire, she was the absolute queen of the earth and anyone who thought differently had to be put in their place. She walked around with her nose in the air, her head held high, and the unmistakable air of someone who had been both spoiled rotten and taught from birth that they were the sun, moon, and stars and should be treated as such. And Remus had worshiped her.

But each successive holiday left her looking a little less majestic and a little more broken than she had been before, until last Christmas, when Remus had come back to learn that Sirius and Claire had run away from home after, as Sirius put it, "Father did something so horrible Claire refuses to let me speak of it." And Remus still worshiped her, but instead of worshiping, wanting to fall at her feet and kiss the very ground she walked on, Remus wanted to hold her, cradle her, and make all the pain disappear.

She was no longer the majestic princess demanding the sun, moon, and stars. She was a broken little angel who had been beaten into the dirt until she had cried tears of blood, and her very presence demanded pity, compassion, and love. And Remus loved her more than he could say.

"And as far as the stigma you think she'd have for being with someone like you, well, she's a little runaway, isn't she?" Sirius sighed. "What sort of a stigma do you think she'll have anyway?"

Sirius was right about that. Rumors had already made their way around the school about Claire. Once someone made a bold move like she and Sirius did, the way people looked at them changed. Sirius was more loved for it, a rebel, a rugged, tough individual who didn't stand for being pushed around. Claire was still adored, obviously, because of her company, but it didn't stop the whispers.

Whore. Prostitute. Slut.

They were all wrong, all lies, and everyone knew it, but Remus supposed it made some of the other girls feel better about themselves to think that was all Claire, the absolute goddess she was, would only ever amount to a whore.

"All she needs is someone who is going to love her and care for her and respect her," Sirius whispered. "There's nobody on this planet who can do any of that better than you, Moony. I already know you absolutely adore her, and I want what's best for my baby sister. Trust me, there's not a boy who's better for the job. And I know you'll make her happy."

"I don't deserve her," Remus countered weakly.

"No one does," James chuckled. "Even I know that. But you're as close as it's going to get, and that's something we can all agree on. We already know you love the girl, Moony. Stop being so stubborn and selfish. Can't you see she needs you?"

"Don't say that," Remus snapped. "She doesn't need me. She needs Sirius. I'm not her brother."

"I'm flattered," Sirius said dryly, "but the fact of the matter is that I can't and won't be around to pick her up forever. I've got my own life, and she's not going to want me to babysit her. She needs to stand on her own two feet. I'm hesitant to let her, and she's going to need help."

"But not me," Remus said weakly.

"Actually," Sirius said with a small smile, "you're exactly what she needs. Now you two need to figure it out."

The following morning, Remus couldn't help but watch Claire at breakfast. Her pretty black hair flowed around her face, framing her aristocratic cheekbones. It fell into her face just a bit, and he fought the urge to lean across the table and brush it out of her sparkling gray eyes.

"You all right, Moony?" she said with a concerned sort of smile. "You look a bit out of sorts."

"Just a little tired," he said sharply. "Didn't get much sleep last night."

"That's too bad," she remarked, helping herself to more sausage. "Good morning, Audrey!" she said brightly as James's sister sat down beside Claire, smiling sleepily. "How was your night?"

"It was just like any other night," Audrey said with a shrug. "You know me, I just don't like being told when I have to wake up."

Audrey was very pretty too, Remus said to himself, but not in the obvious way Claire was. Audrey was honest, almost a bit plain, but the true beauty in her was her ever-present smile and the sparkle in her eyes. Sirius slid into the seat beside Remus.

"Where's James?" he muttered, piling sausages onto his plate.

"Shower," Remus said as he sipped his pumpkin juice.

"Merlin, he's like a girl," Sirius growled. "No offense, ladies."

Sirius winked at the girls, and Claire rolled her eyes, but Remus couldn't help but notice that Audrey blushed a little bit. Girls did that when Sirius smiled or winked at them, and some of them visibly swooned if he did both at once. Remus couldn't help but wonder if Sirius learned the skill somewhere or if he was just a natural.

There was some amount of learning involved, he decided, because Sirius only seemed to get better at it as he got older, but the fact that Claire had a similar effect on boys told Remus that they were at least born with a basic ability.

As the day went on, Remus found himself watching Claire more and more, aware of Sirius and James watching him do so. He was aware of all of her movements, all of her conversations, every little time she so much as exhaled more forcefully than usual. The words from the night before bounced around in his mind. He didn't deserve her, that was still true, but he did want her very, very much, and he seemed to have her brother's blessing. In fact, her brother was practically begging Remus to make some sort of move.

The problem was Remus wouldn't know what to do. Maybe she would be happier with someone who knew what to do, knew how to treat a girl like her.

And then when he walked into the Great Hall at dinner, he spotted Claire dishing up her food and speaking with a Ravenclaw seventh year boy who was very clearly flirting with her. Remus had never felt so much like he wanted to rip out someone's throat on such an innocuous part of the moon cycle, but that Ravenclaw boy was unknowingly flirting with danger as well. Remus could feel his blood boiling, and the wolf in him wanted to rip the boy limb from limb for even looking at Claire like that. He turned to Sirius, who seemed very aware of Remus's reaction to the scene and was actually smirking at the aggressive look in Remus's eye.

"I need your help."

"Oh?" Sirius said, amused. "And what would it be that you need?"

"I need you to teach me how to woo your sister," Remus snarled, "because she's mine. It's about time people knew that."

"It's about time you figured it out," Sirius snorted. "Yeah, all right, we'll work on your flirtation and stuff, but you have to promise me that a week from now, no matter how much progress we've made, you'll ask her out."

Remus felt the fear and uncertainty sinking into his stomach, but he turned his eyes back to the smarmy Ravenclaw who was trying to make Claire laugh and it set his resolve.

"Of course."

"Right then," Sirius said with a smile, "you've got yourself a deal!"

Remus hadn't realized that he'd effectively signed up for romantic boot camp. Sirius had never taken much in life very seriously, but Remus felt as though he was being drilled worse than Professor McGonagall in N.E.W.T. level Transfiguration. They went over how to talk to a girl, how to look at a girl, how to ask a girl out, how to kiss a girl, and the whole day before Remus had to ask Claire out Sirius was lecturing him on the ins and outs of a quality sexual experience.

"This is really important with Claire," Sirius added, "you need to move slowly in the physical realm, make sure she's comfortable. I know the wolf might make that hard sometimes, but you've got to be extra vigilant, or not only will you lose her but I will rip you up into tiny pieces and feed you to the giant squid. Are we clear?"

Remus had agreed, although he wasn't sure exactly why this was so important with Claire. After all, she and Sirius were so alike he would have thought that she would move as fast as her brother. He had been worried she'd expect Remus to move faster than he was comfortable with, but instead Sirius was suggesting that Remus might be the one making her uncomfortable.

The night before the day of reckoning, Remus lay awake, staring at the ceiling. He wondered what was going to happen, how his life might change, the following day. His thoughts were interrupted, however, by the sound of someone slipping into the dormitory. Claire.

She slid into her brother's bed and Remus watched her shake him awake, noticing that she was shaking a little and covered in sweat.

"Sirius?" she whimpered, and Remus felt his heart clench at the pathetic sound of her voice. "Sirius?"

Sirius shifted a little and sat up.

"Baby?" he muttered, wrapping his arms around her. "Hey, hey, shh, come here. It's going to be okay. I'm right here. Come on, get under the covers."

Remus felt a little awkward, feeling like he was intruding on a private moment, but he couldn't help but watch and listen.

"Tell me about it, baby," Sirius whispered, stroking his sister's hair. "It's good to get it off your chest."

"I – I just keep seeing him, seeing his face as he's hitting me, as he's… Sirius, I think I'm scared of the dark now. Every time the lights go out I think I see him in the shadows. Am I going mad?"

"No, love," Sirius whispered, hugging her tightly. "Absolutely not. You had horrible stuff happen to you. You've handled it better than most because you're strong. But he can't hurt you anymore, baby. I'm never letting him touch you again."

Remus watched as Sirius soothed and calmed her, holding her tightly as she began to relax enough to fall asleep in his arms. Remus could see Sirius watching him in the dark. Sirius knew that Remus knew, and they simply watched each other until they were too tired to keep their eyes opened. Remus dreamed that night of holding Claire, of kissing away her nightmares and fears and fixing her.