Hermione's mouth formed a silent 'o' as it dawned on her.

"Only this time, in Azkaban," continued Remus, "the wolf was trapped, and scared, and lonely – well, you met him. The wolf is not a thinker, Hermione. He wanted out, picked a fight with the walls, broke half the bones in my body. Didn't stick around for the fun part, the coward."

Years back, during their Patronus lessons, Harry had asked – rather shyly, for him - what Remus remembered when the Dementors came close.

Fair question, he'd thought, given what Harry had shared with him about his parents. Fortunately, he'd remembered he was a teacher, and Harry was thirteen, and boundaries existed for a reason. A number of things, he'd replied, and left it at that, because all of those things were fundamentally tied to what he was (Greyback. The first night alone in the Shack. Sixth year), and who he had been to Harry's parents (the ruined cottage in Godric's Hollow). And they hadn't been there yet, he and Harry.

He hadn't told Harry any of this, and he sure as hell wasn't going to tell Hermione any of the details. But on the train to Hogwarts, with his head too full of memories and his defences still dulled from sleep, this was what the Dementor in their compartment had brought up: Azkaban after the moon.

He'd broken bones before. But he'd never just lain on the floor for days, injured, fading, trying to hide. Let his mind diffuse into sleep, he'd prayed, or death, let his skinny body slip into the cracks between the flagstones.

No such mercy. In the aftermath of the moon, the Dementors had flocked to him like vultures to roadkill. Skeletal hands closing around his neck and wrists, pushing down against broken ribs until he gasped for air, dragging mouldering fabric over his raw skin, rotting grey fingers probing, prying, tracing the new gashes left by the wolf. A bodily mockery of happier memories.

He'd thought about distances, then. Just inches from his face was a mouth, breath on his face like the air from inside a tomb. Hundreds of miles away was the Ministry's questionable control over them, and in-between, still, in the middle of it all: Sirius, two storeys and six doors away, who would know whether this was a dream, or whether they were truly this real, this bodily, and no-one had warned him because no-one sane would let them get that close.

No difference, mate, Sirius'd say. They're in your head. They've got all of you.

But then, so many of the horrors he'd known were physical. It made sense his Dementors were, too. He'd witnessed the memories seep out from him, soaked up by that perpetual, depraved hunger, and what was left felt tainted, poisoned, foul. Outside the bars, the moon shone on, fat but waning, every passing hour chopping off another sliver.

Three days of this, like even Christ himself had had to endure. Only Remus hadn't managed to save anyone.

"Shit," said Hermione emphatically, and he realised he hadn't talked in a while.

"It's not," he stated, "a furry little problem."

He had asked himself so many times what it would take to get his friends take the wolf seriously. His friends hadn't. His wife certainly didn't. Maybe this was the story to tell, if he could ever bring himself to tell it again.

"But surely that was an exception," said Hermione bravely. "That was Azkaban. The wolf was scared, you said it yourself."

"Remember your third year?" said Remus. "There I was, been transforming since I was four, castle full of children, and I forget – forget – about the full moon. Was that an exception, too?"

"Just after figuring out that Pettigrew was alive and Sirius had been innocent the whole time," said Hermione. "If that wasn't an exception –"

"It was certainly educational," said Remus. "It taught me that, after all these years, there are still circumstances where I can just forget. And even if I never make a mistake again, then Sirius's prank in sixth year taught me that I will never be able to prevent other people's stupidity. How many exceptions does it take, Hermione?"

"All of them, if you learn from them," she said stubbornly. "Neville's Great Uncle Algie dropped him out of a second-floor window when he was eight. The Malfoys sold their son to Voldemort in exchange for their sorry lives. It seems to me that, just by virtue of doubting yourself occasionally, you'd be a better -"

"I'm willing to accept the proposition that I'd out-parent the Malfoys," said Remus drily.

"Oh, you are so –"

She didn't complete that sentence, but when he offered her the pack of cigarettes again, she took one. He'd have to buy new ones tomorrow, he reminded himself. In case they survived the Harry Potter extraction, that was.

Hermione leant forward, head in her hands, thinking, or despairing. Probably wondering if this was her future, this bleakness, this loss. He had to remind himself that it was his past.

"How was it, being the only one left?" she asked finally.

"You really are preparing for all eventualities, are you," he said.

"… Have to," said Hermione. "I'm not stupid. I know there's a good chance not all of us are going to survive this, and -"

She paused, then picked up again. "I don't believe in prophecies, but Voldemort seems to, so there's that. I don't know if Harry is meant to live, even if we win. It's like all he's ever done, his whole life, was in preparation for this. The endgame. He's the brave one. And Ron, Ron has so much to prove. There'll be grand gestures, there will be stupid risks, there will be improvisation, every rational fibre in my body is stressed already. And me?"

"Someone has to be the clever one," said Remus.

"Sure," said Hermione. "I'll do the thinking. I'll be clever. I'll stick to the plan. If any one of us is going to survive without the others, it will be me. But you know what that's like, don't you?"

"You can't prepare for everything, Hermione," he said gently.

"Not with that attitude, no," said Hermione. "Sorry. I didn't mean to be snippy. I've got to know, Remus. I've got to know what to expect. I'm sorry. It's painful, but please. Help me."

"Well then," said Remus. "It's shit. But you're clever, you know that."

"… I was hoping for more details than that," said Hermione. "I'll need to know how to –"

"You realise this is rather personal," he pointed out, just in case Hermione had missed the fact at any time during the last hour or so.

"Every tragedy is personal," said Hermione. "And every tragedy is pointless. Unless it can help someone else. Right?"

Remus sighed. His wife, in the brightly lit kitchen, still didn't look as if she was about to come save him. And in any case, they were already nearly there, at the heart of it all. He might as well.

And of course, there was the chance that there had been a point to all this. That this might truly help Hermione.

"Where were we?" he said.

"New Year's Eve," said Hermione. "1981."

"1982," he started, "was, on the whole, not much better. Same bleak shit, only the celebrations had fizzled out by then. They were rounding up the last of the Death Eaters. Closing missing person cases. Pretending everything was normal. They came down vicious on Voldemort's supporters, and everyone they thought was in league with them."

"Werewolves?"

"Yes," he said. "They've always been bastards about werewolves, but now they got out the bureaucracy and that really made things tedious. Registration laws. Supervised transformation in Ministry facilities. Not only that, they were discussing taking our wands away, too, like they had with house-elves and goblins. Put a trace on us, have our movements tracked."

"That is entirely illegal –" Hermione started.

"That's just what Muggleborns like you are facing if the Death Eaters win," said Remus. "I tried to slip through the cracks best as I could, but it was getting harder, and I cared less and less."

"Only the Death Eaters hadn't won," said Hermione.

"No," said Remus. "We. We won, at great cost. But this – this didn't feel like victory."

"Weren't there others?" said Hermione. "Others you could talk to?"

Marlene McKinnon, he thought. Dorcas Meadowes. Edgar Bones, Benjy Fenwick. Alice Longbottom. The list was too long.

He supposed there had been others, at the time. But when he tried to remember it, all that came to mind was prying eyes, helpless silence, pity. He'd never been sure what was worse: That someone didn't understand what he was going through – or that they did. He never knew how to respond to either.

"I wasn't feeling it," said Remus.

"You were depressed," said Hermione.

He laughed. "Oh, come on now, Hermione. Depression is for Muggles."

"If by that you mean that it's not taken seriously in the wizarding world -" said Hermione.

He sighed. "Of course I mean that," he said. "I hide truths inside technicalities, haven't you noticed?"

"You didn't get help," she concluded. "You couldn't."

"And what was the point?" said Remus. "It wasn't going to bring them back. Worse, me being happy felt like -"

"Like a betrayal," supplied Hermione. He wondered how she did it. How she could identify this choking guilt from the sparse information he provided. This resentment he had felt towards a life he didn't even want anymore and yet continued to live, while James and Lily lay dead in their graves, their only son abandoned by everyone they'd called friends.

"Yes," said Remus. "Happiness was a betrayal. Living was a betrayal. It wasn't how we had thought it'd go down. We thought we'd do this together."

"You tried to kill yourself," said Hermione simply.

Of course she'd get there, he thought. It was but the logical end of the story he'd told. Funnily enough, it didn't feel invasive, coming from her. It felt like affirmation. It hadn't just been his sad and tired mind, half a lifetime ago.

That scared him. She shouldn't be able to understand. No-one her age should.

Remus grimaced. "It's the eve of a new war," he said. "One would think you'd be looking for motivation. Look elsewhere. It was not a good time."

She was silent, just watched, and he found he couldn't do it. Couldn't tell a comfortable lie, something that'd make her go into war with her head held high. She had to understand there was a price to pay.

"I was beyond trying," he said. "I was done. I was reckless. Walked London at midnight without my wand, picked fights with junkies. Lost. Let drunks in bars pick fights with me. Lost those, too. Crossed so many streets without looking. Didn't eat for a week before the moon, and the wolf was pissed. But he never killed me, and I never did, either."

"I'm glad," she said earnestly. "What then? How are you still here? What happened after 1982?"

"You wouldn't guess from knowing me then, but," said Remus, "1983. Then 1984. And so on. I was surprisingly busy. Had a few jobs here and there. Dumbledore sent me on a handful of missions. I could look up into the night sky without looking for him. I didn't heal. I just sat very quietly and let time move me away from it all. Eventually, the pain became just another old friend I never talked to anymore."

He looked directly into her eyes. "In case it isn't incredibly obvious," he added, "when dealing with depression, this is not an approach I recommend. But you know what they say about hindsight."

"So it was always impossible, finding a job?" said Hermione. "Even before Umbridge, I mean. You are one of the cleverest people I know."

"A mystery, isn't it?" said Remus. "The jobs I wanted all came with thorough background checks, this short after the war. The jobs I didn't want but needed still came with the expectation to turn up every day. But you know what that's like, Hermione, don't you? To be the cleverest witch in your year and still –"

"Yes," said Hermione. "Somehow it's still not enough, because O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s don't weigh up blood."

"Yes, I remember your Boggart," said Remus. "Hard to ever be good enough when the cards are stacked against you."

"But you found a job, eventually," said Hermione.

"Oh, I found so many," said Remus. "Could never stay long, see. Did some contracting work here and there. Cleaned up infestations, mostly. Crime scenes. Protective enchantments. Kept the defence skills sharp, at least."

"Finally," said Hermione. "An explanation for the Boggarts. I was wondering."

"And Redcaps. And Grindylows. And a number of pests not suitable for a third year classroom," said Remus. "I also tutored a handful of Pureblood brats during the summers, but the longest employment I had was six months in a second hand bookshop. It was heaven. Sold Sartre and Marx to university kids and read my way through the collected works of William Shakespeare."

"You like books, do you," said Hermione.

He was surprised. "Who doesn't?"

Hermione laughed. "I swear, Remus, if you were twenty years younger –" Hermione's hand flew to her mouth.

He paused. "And the whole being married bit doesn't deter you at all?"

"It does deter me a lot," said Hermione. "I just have a Pavlovian response to declarations of book love. It'll pass in a minute."

"I'm not that old, by the way," said Remus mildly. "Gilderoy Lockhart is what, four whole years younger than me? And that never stopped you."

Predictably. Hermione was slightly offended. "That was in second year, and people are still bringing it up!" she said. "How did you even know?"

"Staff room," said Remus simply.

"… I should have known gossip goes both ways," said Hermione. "Who told you?"

"Why, your esteemed professor of Muggle Studies, Charity Burbage, of course," said Remus. "First day, she looked me up and down, and said 'Thank God you're not a pretty boy like the last one.' Said I looked like I was into grunge and if I could explain flannel to her."

Hermione laughed. "That year, she played Pearl Jam and Nirvana for us, in the section on contemporary Muggle culture," she said. "I think she just liked guitars, she had about six."

"Oh, that explains the grunge comment," said Remus. "I think I looked very offended, because she took me out for hot chocolate."

Hermione giggled. "Not Madame Puddifoot's, surely?"

"The very same," said Remus. "Neither of us had ever been and we were morbidly curious. The musical sugar bowls were fascinating and Charity thought the floating kiss cam was genius – if your ambition is to ruin the budding relationships of fourteen-year-olds, that is."

"Oh, I forgot about the kiss cam," said Hermione. "Have you noticed it starts hitting you over the head if you're not snogging within twenty minutes?"

"How would I know?" he said innocently, then laughed. "Personally, I'm not convinced the novelty of the place is worth the diabetic coma. Or the traumatic brain injury, thank you, it was a joke. Anyway, over said hot chocolate, Charity mentioned she was looking forward to teaching a class without having to confiscate terrible love poems to the dashing Defence teacher."

"And you were even more offended?"

"Deeply." Remus smiled. "That she thought me unworthy of poetry such as, Oh, those cascades of wavy golden hair / I want to brush it right then and there / Oh, those eyes of lapis lazuli / I can't think of a rhyme for lapis lazuli / Life is hell."

"…I swear that wasn't me," said Hermione.

"Thought so. Yours would have had better spelling," he said. "Charity had a whole collection, recited them on pub nights."

He saw the look on her face. "Yes, we had pub nights. How did you think we could deal with the lot of you every day?"

Hermione was still trying, and failing, to hold back laughter.

"Hah, joke's on her," she said. "Mandy Brocklehurst fancied you. So did Sue Li. Padma Patil. Anthony Goldstein. And that's just my year."

"…Jesus, that's a lot of Ravenclaws," said Remus.

"What can I say, they like nerds," said Hermione. "At least Ravenclaws are clever enough not to leave written evidence."

Then she became serious. "Have you seen the note in the Daily Prophet today? That Professor Burbage resigned from teaching?"

"Something tells me it wasn't voluntary," said Remus grimly. "Don't worry just yet, Hermione," he added. "Chances are, someone warned her not to come back. She's probably out there somewhere with her six guitars and metric ton of Muggle detective stories. The Order will track her down."

"I hope you do," said Hermione, then drew herself together. "Okay, Muggle bookshop. What are we up to, mid-eighties? What changed?"

Still on a mission, then. He couldn't help but admire a mind that organised. "What makes you think anything changed?" he said.

"You, now," said Hermione, and counted it out on her fingers: "Mild mannered, tea-drinking, aging bachelor. Hogwarts teacher. Badass Order agent. Respectably married. Patronuses left and right. You didn't get there by sitting still and ignoring everything. What happened to picks-fights-with-junkies?"

"Oh, that," said Remus. He grimaced. Part of that very persona Hermione had laid out was not admitting to weakness, but they'd come this far, and, he repeated himself, if it helped, it had to be worth this terrible trip down memory lane.

"Two things, actually," he said. "One, since I was working for Muggles, I had to get a national insurance number, and the lady who owned the shops encouraged me to seek therapy."

It was clear that this wasn't what Hermione had expected. "How did that work out?"

"Well, I lied a lot," said Remus. "Had to, the therapist was a Muggle, so I told her stories that she could follow and that wouldn't get me committed. Magic is just a detail, after all."

He'd liked how the therapist hadn't got hung up on Greyback, his Muggle pendant anyway – There's two things in this world you can't change, lad, and that's the past and other people. Now tell me five things you can do this week that'll make you smile. He'd appreciated the pragmatism. He did the five things. He made it to next week.

"But depression is what it is," he added. "The NHS is what it is. Therapy didn't fix me, but it was way beyond what St. Mungo's had to offer on the subject."

Hermione snorted. "Cheering Charms and Dreamless Sleep potions?"

"Exactly." He smiled. "Two, in 1987, Dumbledore sent Emmeline Vance and me on an assignment to Azkaban."

"Bet you were overjoyed," said Hermione.

"Not as much as Emmeline," said Remus. "After seeing my Patronus at work, she refused to take me unless I could conjure a perfect Patronus with a second's warning, no matter if drop-down drunk or just woken up. She actually moved in with me. Wore a creepy black hooded robe of her grandma's and kept surprising me in all sorts of circumstances. Did you know how many shots of Firewhiskey it takes for your Patronus to get tipsy?"

"Always the scientific method," said Hermione, giggling. "… Emmeline Vance, Remus?"

Oh lord, grant him patience. "That is not the story I am telling right now," he said.

"Forgive a girl for getting curious," said Hermione. "It's all one story, anyway, isn't it? I just hate missing bits."

He sighed. "Remember what I told you about there being more things on God's green earth than just gay or straight? Because Emmy was pretty damn gay."

Hermione, however, was learning fast. "Are you perhaps hiding the truth inside a technicality again?" she said.

He raised his hands as a sign he declined to comment, and Hermione smirked out of what was by now, probably, habit, but the expression was edged with frustration. But then, she didn't have to know everything.

1987 had been full of exceptions, and Emmeline Vance'd had nearly as many scars as he had. If he had to be anyone's drunk mistake, being Emmeline's was an honour.

"My second visit to Azkaban," he said after a while, "couldn't have been more different. And it wasn't Azkaban that had changed. It was still a place where happiness came to die. But I was in control. I learned that the same memories that had once made me vulnerable now made me invincible. I could pull them up, turn them into a space where Dementors could not exist. And when it was done, I could tidy them away. More than any other spell or charm, mastering the Patronus truly changes you."

"How so?" said Hermione.

"Your sense of self, your present, your past," he said. "It becomes more connected. It changes the way you remember."

"Harry said something similar once," said Hermione. "I didn't notice anything." She sounded disappointed she'd somehow missed a learning opportunity.

"For some of us, the change is more apparent," said Remus. "Memories have utility now. You take them out to protect you against the darkness. Or to learn from them. To see how far you've come."

She thought about this. "Or to help others?"

"That is the point of this exercise, is it?" said Remus. "And most importantly, you put your memories away when you're done. You stop dwelling, because it weakens them. You collect new memories instead."

"That just sounds like healing," said Hermione.

"Just," said Remus with a thin smile. "It was time, don't you think?"

Something inside him resisted telling her the details, because happiness, to him, had always felt private, especially in those years when everyone had lost so much. It was unfair, because if he warned her about the bad things, then she needed to hear the good things, too, without that protective layer of abstraction.

So he drew a deep breath and told her about the trip back from Azkaban.

They'd crossed the North Sea on a fishing boat, he and Emmeline Vance and the two men they'd saved from a terrible fate in prison. Halfway across, with the Scottish town of Wick just becoming visible on the horizon, she'd called him to the bow, where she stood, straight-backed and serious, braving the wind and the surf and the bloody October rain as if it existed on a lesser plane of existence.

This is my favourite bit, she'd shouted over the noise.

Which bit? he'd said.

Wait for it, she'd replied.

Moments later, it hit him. The pressure on his mind lifted as behind them, Azkaban and all the horrors it contained dropped off the edge of the sea. But this time, something came flooding back into the void, something that hadn't been there in a long time.

Happiness. Hope. A sense of future.

The misery horizon, she'd said.

I didn't notice that when we came here, he'd said.

Because you were already miserable, she'd replied. The way back is different. Like you finally get a break from all the - She had turned to him then. I know what it's like, she'd said, and he'd been thankful for the rain on his face, and they'd held on to each other for a long time.

It had been gone by the next morning, but it had left a message, a memory, a perspective: That this was possible – that he was, in fact, still capable of feeling happiness, hope; hell, anything but perpetual misery, that he was not as broken as he'd thought. That maybe he could be okay.

The way back is different.

"She sounds remarkable," said Hermione.

"She was," he said shortly, and they were both silent for a moment. Emmeline Vance had been murdered a year ago.

"You know how to conjure a Patronus," he said finally. "You learned the value of memories much earlier than I did. Memories are not the enemy. Not even happy memories. Not even when they're over. Not even when what you remember will never come back. But you have to handle them with care."

He sighed. "If I could give you just two pieces of advice, then, the first is this: Hold on to what makes you happy. Keep your friends by your side. Don't be alone. And if, God forbid, you do end up alone, remember your friends well, because they deserve it. You deserve it. But don't dwell, and don't become stationary."

"And the second?"

"Don't end up alone," said Remus. "Don't be the last to die, it's shit. See? I'd be a terrible guardian."

"I'm starting to see it," said Hermione. "Not that you'd have been terrible. Just how impossible the whole situation was. I'm sorry, Remus."

He stubbed out his cigarette. "Here's the truth as I know it," he said softly. "Memories aren't enough. You'll need to move on eventually, or they will drown you."

Well then, he thought. That had been the story, in almost its entirety, and almost entirely truthful. Just one fact left to set right, but that was the hardest.

"I regret not taking Harry," he said, not looking at her. "With what I know now. He's grown up and he's okay, but he deserved so much better. The fact that history proved me right – that it would have in fact been impossible – doesn't change that. I was wrong not to try. And Harry suffered because of me."

Silence. Then Hermione said, "You know he'd never ask for an apology. He never asked for anything."

"It's good that he has you to fight some of his battles," he said. "But I'm not asking for forgiveness. Just – possibly – an opportunity to make up for it."

At this, a strange, daring idea made its presence known, but he willed it away. It was idiotic, and, he knew in the back of his head, untimely, and there was this other thing he needed to think about first, if he ever got a quiet minute to himself.

"You know, with everything progressing the way it does, I have a feeling one will come," said Hermione drily.

She followed his eyes now, towards the kitchen.

"What did Tonks have to do, to crack through all… that?" she said. "Your world is complicated. Hers is anything but."

He grinned. "You'll want to be like her when you grow up," he said lightly.

Hermione sighed at that. "I'll be the complicated one," she said. "I think we already covered that. How do people break through all that?"

Remus felt this, now, was so far outside his job description it was probably inside someone else's – but then, he wasn't a professor anymore.

"Marauding thieves will find a way," he said, referencing their earlier conversation. "But enough with the metaphors," he added. "Love is not a breakthrough, and it is not an ambush, and it's not an affliction. It is what it is, beautiful and compelling and inherently simple. Even in a complicated world, you will find it."

"Simplicity," she said.

"Yes. Whether you allow those moments to change your life – well, that's up to you."

Half-truths again, he thought, and until she learned to ask the right questions, this was what she'd get. The question wasn't whether this was love. Whether it was simple, or compelling, or even beautiful. It was all these things.

The question was whether he was being an idiot to let it change his life. And he was still unable to answer it.

"That's very abstract," said Hermione.

"Has to be," said Remus. "It's different for everyone, and it's different every time."

"… You realise you're making me more curious, rather than less," said Hermione. "What was it this time? For you and Tonks?"

He gave an involuntary noise of defeat. "Sod-the-lord," he said.

The expression on Hermione's face told him that this was not what she had expected. "What?" she said, affirming it.

"Or Oldiemort. Trolldemort. Hold-the-fort. We were guarding something for the Order," said Remus. "I believe it was a bridge. A very boring bridge, and very shaky evidence that the Death Eaters were going to attack it. Yes. It was an eight-hours-in-the-London-rain, guarding-a-railway-bridge, starting-to-reevaluate-your-life-choices sort of assignment."

"I believe you painted the picture," said Hermione.

"To kill some time, Nymphadora suggested a game of Voldemort-based puns. Free pint for the winner, bonus points for referencing obscure Muggle subculture – all in all, exactly the sort of thing Voldemort would commit genocide over. Between Loldemort and Voldieshorts, she won fair and square."

"I can imagine," said Hermione with a laugh. "So Tonks made you laugh. You always loved a good Riddikulus."

"Later that night, she also took down three Death Eaters with a single spell, then tripped over air and fell in the Thames," said Remus. "She is a woman of many talents, most of which I find impressive – although I'd have preferred not to get so very wet rescuing her."

"Tonks needed rescuing?" said Hermione.

"She fell in the Thames," said Remus. "No, she didn't need rescuing, but I wasn't going to stand there shouting helpful advice from the waterfront, was I?"

Hermione smirked. "You saw simplicity," she said.

"I saw," he said, with a grin, "a Grindylow."

He remembered. It had probably been a sign of him getting old, but he'd assumed people were done after a night like this. Not Tonks. All in all, not my worst first date, she'd declared over her three a.m. victory pint. By then, he had been sore with laughter. In what universe was this a date? he'd replied. It is now, she'd said, and taken him home.

"Are you happy?" asked Hermione. "After all this – after the war. Can you be happy?"

That was a big, uncomfortable question, and he was disappointed himself that he would have to give her such an unsatisfactory answer.

"Happiness is fleeting," he said. "Always has been, always will. And yes, I am."

"But you don't expect it to last," said Hermione.

"Shh," he said. "Don't wake the monsters. It's a beautiful summer's day."

"Oh, Shakespeare again," said Hermione. "Remember what he had to say about summer days."

Before he could answer, the kitchen door opened on the other side of the garden. Outlined in the warm rectangle of light stood his wife, finally, saying her goodbyes to Molly.

"They pass," he said eventually. "And tomorrow is upon us." He checked his watch. "Quite literally."

He knew Hermione was looking at him quizzically, but some lingering restraint kept her from questioning this. He wasn't sure he understood it himself.

They watched Tonks bouncing down the kitchen steps energetically – not tripping this time – before crossing the garden in wide strides.

"I should go," said Hermione, getting up from the bench.

"Probably," said Remus. "You'll want to be well-rested tomorrow."

"I won't tell Harry," she said. "It's probably all too – too much to take in right now. He might not know how to react."

He shrugged. "I don't mind," he said. "Or I wouldn't have told you. Hope it helped."

"It did," said Hermione. "Thank you."

"It was a privilege," he said softly. "Teaching you. Take care."

He got up himself, and together they walked to meet Tonks in the middle of the garden.

"Wotcher, Hermione," said Tonks. "Wow, will you look at your hair! I didn't think it could get any bigger."

"Flying doesn't seem to agree with it," said Hermione, a tad self-consciously.

"Oh no, I love it! Might have to steal the look for the wedding." She smiled, before turning a smidgeon more serious. "Mr Tonks, I'm taking you home. Thank you for waiting up."

"I'm all yours, Mrs Lupin," said Remus. In his periphery, he saw Hermione smirk.

"Thanks for letting me borrow him, Tonks, I'm slightly less terrified now," said Hermione. "Of flying, at least," she added after a moment's thought.

Tonks laughed. "It's only fair," she said, "seeing as I'm taking your boyfriend for a spin tomorrow."

"Ron's not my –"

"Could have fooled me," grinned Tonks around a bright green bubble gum. She was electric today, her hair an eighties rock mop of blue-black hair, framing her heart-shaped face.

"Guess I'll see you guys tomorrow then," said Hermione. "Good night, Tonks. Good night, Remus. And thanks again."

"You're welcome, Hermione," said Remus politely, suddenly feeling more fatigued than he had in a long time.

They watched her walk back towards the porch before they spoke.

"So what do you think?" said Tonks.

"She'll never be a professional Quidditch player," said Remus. "But she can do a mean Patronus while hanging upside down in a raincloud, so there's that."

Tonks whistled through her teeth. "Impressive," she said. "How many tries did that one take you?"

"Four?" said Remus. "But I was distracted."

Next to him, his wife grinned mischievously. "I remember," she said. "However, that's not why I sent her here and you know it."

"You didn't, did you?" he said. "They're going into war," he added after a moment. "Nothing I could say made that fact any better."

"Oh, love, were you being your usual cheerful self?"

"Did you not expect this?" he said, resisting the urge to raise an eyebrow at her. They'd had discussions about the eyebrow. She'd said it made her feel like a school girl.

"Well, she got the pep-up talk from me," said Tonks. "Looks like she got the dose of reality from you. Between the two of us, the kids will be all right."

And then she took his hands in hers and a much-awaited chill went down his spine.

"We need to have a talk," she said. "A big, serious one."

He remained silent for as long as he could bear. Eventually she stood up on tiptoes to look straight at him, daring him to say it.

Remus sighed. "I know, love," he said. "I know."

To be continued.