Remus tried his best to ignore the bitter aroma of simmering wolfsbane that seeped under the kitchen door and wafted down the hallway into the main floor of the book store. He performed admirably for the first three hours of his shift, but by the end of the fourth the stench had grown strong enough for the customer he was ringing up to notice it as well.

"Bodolf smoking something a little stronger than tobacco back there?" The shaggy-browed wizard asked with a wheezy chuckle.

"Incense," Remus said lightly, handing him his change with his weekly Quidditch News. "He burns it every now and then to discourage doxies from taking up residence."

"Ahh, he should try doxycide. My wife swears by it!" The customer said, his eyebrows waggling like living creatures.

"I'll let him know," Remus muttered as the man left, bells clanking heavily behind him. "Ulric!" Remus called then, casting about for a glimpse of his younger colleague, who was scheduled to relieve him.

When he got no response, he stepped out from behind the counter to look for him. Ulric had been tasked with shifting some of the stock, had disappeared down one of the aisles, and had not been seen or heard from again. The store was too quiet.

"Ulric?" Remus peeked around one shelf, then another; prepared for an ambush with his wand held at chest height.

He rounded a corner and found Ulric slumped over with an open book on his lap. Remus stealthily crossed the distance between them, snatched the book without the younger man hearing him, and slammed it shut next to his ear to startle him awake.

"What's up, old man?" Ulric asked, stretching and pretending that his eyes hadn't been filled with fear just a moment before.

"It's your turn to watch the till," Remus said gently, tired grey eyes flitting over the title he held. Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. Ulric noticed what he was doing and jerked the book roughly away.

"I was just shelving that," he muttered.

"Of course." Remus was already walking back toward the kitchen, but stopped and turned.

"I don't need any advice from you, if that's what you're thinking," Ulric insisted, as he slumped up toward the front of the store.

Remus shook his head as he walked on. "My only advice would be to stop behaving like an arse."

Ulric snorted. "Nothing in that book is going to work, anyway, when you have no money and two roommates. Might as well go out and bite somebody."

Remus spun around, face white and eyes wide. "Don't even joke about that."

"Of course you would never consider it."

"No, no I haven't. That's … only a monster would do that!"

"Maybe, but that's what we are, aren't we? The Ministry even says so. Anything the Ministry says must be true," Ulric spat bitterly.

"Have you been listening to those fanatics who hang around outside the public clinic?" Remus asked, referring to the band of assorted "half-breeds" who clustered around the doors, handing out pamphlets detailing the dangers of wizard medicine to those seeking care.

"Here we go, another one of 'Professor' Lupin's lectures," Ulric growled. "Why don't you tell me about how 'evil' they are for pointing out how the Ministry is trying to wipe us out."

"By 'wipe us out' do you mean prevent further infections?" Remus said, struggling to keep his voice even. "Merlin knows the Ministry is guilty of many of the accusations they raise – no one knows that better than me – but we're talking about pre-meditated attacks on innocent people!"

"Right, so let's all tuck our tails between our legs and try to go on with our lives like it doesn't matter that we're not even allowed real jobs," Ulric scoffed.

"What alternative do you see at the moment? Harassing people who seek treatment for bites and scratches? Living in that 'commune' by the river? Calling for the abolishment of wizarding schools?"

"Nothing will change if we accept what they're willing to give us, which is nothing!"

"Biting people isn't a solution, " Remus said, the words barely escaping his taut jaw. "Finding people like Bodolf and Maggie who can advocate for us is at least a step in the right direction."

Ulric snorted again. "Maggie ... We're like pets to Maggie. That potion smells like shit, by the way," Ulric said. "Is it just how you remember it? Only a wanker like you would drink something that smells like that."

Remus opened his mouth, then shut it again, lips clenching tight as he turned and made his way back to the kitchen. The smell of wolfsbane grew stronger, overwhelming him as he opened the door. Thick smoke rolled out of the cauldron that Maggie watched over. She looked from the contents to the creased parchment spread on the table beside it. Her face shone from the heat, and her curls had turned to frizz. She looked up and smiled wanly at him as he entered.

"It seems to be going okay so far," she said. "At least, nothing has exploded or melted and it looks more or less like the directions describe it."

"It smells … very familiar," Remus said, jaw still tense.

"What's wrong?" she asked, face going slack. "Have I messed something up?"

"Ulric is saying he won't take the potion, now," Remus muttered.

"Oh, Ulric. I feel sorry for the boy." she stirred the potion once, twice, three times.

"Boy?" Remus murmured, the memory of the way Ulric had spat out pets echoing through his brain. "He is older than you."

"Yes, and he's still a boy! I let him come out with my friends and somehow he got it into his head that I might be smitten with him. I tried to let him down gently." She shook her head. "I don't think he's taking it well."

"Well, that explains a couple of things," he murmured, nodding toward the cauldron. "So, how long until it's ready to test?"

"Another hour, I think," she said, sounding far from sure.

Raoul and Bodolf gathered in the kitchen to watch Remus drink the first goblet-full of the wolfsbane. Maggie bit at a nail as he tilted his head back and chugged it as quickly as possible. If anything, it didn't taste quite as strongly as he remembered. He still shuddered as it coated his esophagus, and the bitter aftertaste still made him want to wipe off his tongue and rinse repeatedly with water. To do so would reduce the potion's potency, however. It needed time to absorb into his tissue. His insides tingled a bit, and he felt his stomach constrict involuntarily. He covered his mouth with the back of his hand, and for a few tense seconds everyone watching expected him to vomit it all back up. He swallowed the extra saliva that gathered in his mouth, then relaxed as he moved his hand away.

"Not too bad," he said a bit stiffly, managing the thinnest of smiles.

Remus was able to eat a little at dinner that night, and wondered whether Snape had intentionally made his potion stronger than necessary just to torture him. He took it the next day and the next, and managed to keep down every drop.

He grew restless as the full moon approached; they all did. Ulric's morning attacks grew more vicious, sometimes ending in wrestling matches which Remus would barely win. Raoul took to constant pacing in the attic, in the store and outside in the garden. At other times he would snap unexpectedly at some small slight, either real or imagined, from one of the others.

Finally, the night of the full moon arrived. Remus and Raoul debated with Maggie for a long time about whether he should be caged or not.

"It would be wisest, just in case," Remus said.

"But if you keep your mind and they do not, what will happen in there? They could tear you to shreds."

"I don't think so," Remus insisted, not mentioning that he and his friend Sirius Black had always gotten on all right during his transformations, so long as Sirius took his dog form.

"Ulric's been getting more aggressive the last few months, and harder to control," Raoul added. "I don't fancy being alone in the cage with him."

"Physically I won't be any different," Remus said, "It's only my mind that will be affected. Besides, what will you do if the potion isn't effective, and suddenly there's a werewolf loose in your attic?"

"We can lock the attic, so you that can't escape."

"I don't think you realize the type of damage that a full-grown werewolf can do..."

"Are you bragging, Remus Lupin?" Maggie said with a grin.

"What?"

"I think he is," Raoul said with a brief smile of his own. "He's right though, he could tear the place apart. Piss on my bed and I'll kill you," he said to Remus. "I'll completely understand if you want to piss on Ulric's bed."

"No, I've decided. I'm going in the cage," Remus said with a shake of his head. "If the potion works this month, then next month we'll all be sleeping in our own beds."

"All right, but I think I should stay in the room and watch the transformation, just so I can intervene if necessary," Maggie said.

"No!" both men exclaimed.

"Shouldn't I at least observe?" she asked, surprised at their outburst.

"No!" they repeated.

"Absolutely not," said Remus, shaking his head. "You don't want to see that, it's terrible."

"We always disrobe, beforehand," Raoul added, his arms crossed and eyes fixed on a point over her shoulder. "You definitely don't want to see that."

Maggie laughed. "I've seen a naked man before."

"I'm just going to pretend that I didn't hear that," Remus said.

"I'm going to imagine that you accidentally walked in on Bodolf in the loo," Raoul muttered, eyes still turned away.

She turned to leave, laughing still. "Very well, then, I will stand outside the door, listening for signs of trouble."

Raoul grunted.

"Where's Ulric?" Remus asked, forehead creasing as he looked at the clock. It was just under an hour before moonrise.

"He said he had an errand to run, and he'd be back in plenty of time. If he's not I'll-" Raoul growled.

"Kill him?" Remus finished for him.

Raoul appeared not five minutes later, sporting a fresh bruise that he refused to discuss. Raoul was beyond caring at that point, though Remus couldn't stop himself from worrying. Bodolf appeared a few minutes later with a heavy keyring and three mugs of a powerful pain draught. Ulric refused his, causing the older men to raise their eyebrows without comment.

The three werewolves stripped and filed into the cage, which Bodolf locked from the outside. "Sleep tight," he said before shuffling off, the same phrase he uttered every month. Ulric scowled at his inside joke.

The men stood in a line like strangers in a public washroom, staring straight ahead so that they wouldn't have to look at one another. Raoul remained motionless, arms crossed across his chest, while Ulric bounced nervously on the balls of his feet. Remus stood with is hands at his sides, feeling the wolfsbane and werewolf hormones coursing through his blood, battling for control.

He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, felt the familiar itch in his limbs. The change could come at any moment. He flexed his fingers, anticipating that they would soon mutate, bones and ligaments breaking and reforming into wolf's paws; his shoulders pulling back and up towards his spine as his arms remade themselves into forelegs.

"I'm taking you both down tonight," Ulric growled, his voice already becoming rougher, more animalistic.

Raoul snorted derisively in response.

"Then I'll be the alpha."

"That alpha business you've been spouting is rubbish," Raoul growled.

"If anyone's the alpha, it would be Bodolf, anyway," Remus said in a tired voice. "He's got the key."

"Master is more like it-" Ulric started to retort, but broke into a howl as the moon peeped over the horizon. His howl of anger shifted to a howl of pain as his skull stretched and flattened, his jaws lengthening, his teeth extending farther from his gums. He shook his head back and forth as silver-white fur sprouted from his face. He dropped to all fours.

Remus and Raoul dropped as well: the changes to their spines made standing upright too excruciating to bear. On all fours – feeling his blood surging in his veins, his heart hammering against his ribs, his lungs burning as they filled with air – Remus looked down at his hands, watching them sprout grizzled fur that had once been the color of honey. He opened his jaws and howled as his joints popped and shifted themselves to accommodate his new stance. He felt his tail bristle out from the end of his spine.

Despite the pain, and despite the howls resonating on either side of him, Remus felt a moment's elation that he still had his mind. He was man's conscience in wolf's body. For a moment he could imagine how it must have felt for Sirius to run through the forest all those years ago. Back then he'd possessed the youth and recklessness to appreciate it, but not the mind.

Then he thought of Clio's gentle caresses, followed immediately by Ulric spitting pets. No, he thought, Clio had never considered him a pet. He meant to frown, and instead growled deep in his throat as his memory was tarnished by Ulric.

The transformation entered its final phase, and he felt his mind begin to slip away from him. He was suddenly very aware of the wolf to his right and the wolf to his left. He smelled two humans on the other side of the attic door, sensed their hearts beating, their blood pumping through fragile bodies that would be so easy to tear, to rip, to shred. Prey.

No! He shook his head, fighting the wolf for control. He turned and saw Raoul to his left, growling at the pale wolf to his right. He turned to his right and saw Ulric, staring at the red wolf to his left. They were wolves, and yet he could recall that they were men. He growled. Why was he growling? He didn't want to bite anyone. Remus felt confused, stuck as he was halfway between man and wolf.

The other wolves turned, both sniffing at him with suspicion. Ulric crouched to attack, but Raoul sprang first. Suddenly they were a tangle of red and silver fur, and flashing white fangs. The noises rising from their throats sounded demonic, but Remus could see that the teeth were all for show, raking each other's bodies without biting down. He watched from the side, tail held out straight, until at last Raoul emerged victorious. The older wolf's sides heaved as he stood over Ulric, who'd rolled onto his back.

Raoul walked up to Remus and growled. They stood facing each other stiffly for a moment, Raoul not sure what to think of this man-wolf, Remus tensing for a fight if one came to him. The door squeaked open behind them. Ulric jumped to his feet, growling, and all three whirled to face the delicate blond woman who entered now, walking hesitantly toward the middle of the room.

"Hello boys," she said softly. Remus hesitated for a moment; this girl smelled familiar. She'd been kind to him. Then he smelled her salty, metallic blood. Instinct kicked in and he leapt at the cage bars, transitioning fully from placid man-wolf to savage beast. He flung his body against the cage, his jaws snapping at the air, howl after blood-curdling howl rising from his throat. His fellow wolves followed suit.

Maggie stood wide-eyed, watching the three werewolves fling themselves repeatedly against the bars. She could tell them apart by their hair color and builds. Remus was the rangy grey-brown wolf in the middle, the one who had been first to fling himself against the sides of the cage. His long white fangs scraped against the bars, trying to chew his way through to her.

"Oh, my," she said. Obviously, her potion had not been strong enough.


It was a cool, moist evening; Clio felt it creep into her bones, chilling her from within as she checked her watch for the umpteenth time. She guided her eyes resolutely away from the sky, not wanting to see the moon in its fullness or to think about its power. Her footsteps thudded dully against the leaf-coated dirt road as she speed-walked to the Hogshead. She hadn't told Charity where she was going, assuming that her friend would try to dissuade her from venturing there alone. She hadn't told anyone, therefore, that she was on her way to meet Broderick Bode.

His terse reply to her letter had arrived in the owl post at breakfast. He'd scribbled only a few runes over an article about the impending Triwizard Tournament clipped from the previous day's Daily Prophet. She had time to read the coded message twice through before the characters faded away, leaving only the article behind.

Hogshead 10 o'clock tonight

This was her second time stepping foot into the Hogshead. The first time had been with a crowd on Remus' birthday the year before. The pub felt much drearier without friends to cushion her from the despair that seemed to be all that held the crumbling building upright.

Clio hesitated just inside the door, surveying the tiny room with flagging hope, while trying to avoid the piercing stare of the tangle-haired barkeep. She pretended to contemplate the drink menu (which didn't look like it had changed in several decades) on the wall, while surreptitiously glancing in turn at the three wizards lined up at the greasy bar. Their backsides seemed to have attached themselves permanently to their battered stools, making it difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. They were all a bit gloomy looking, but otherwise none of them looked remotely like the wizard who she'd spied in the Department of Mysteries over the summer.

"I'll have a ginger beer," she said at last, forcing her voice to remain cool as she slid a few coins across the smudged and battle-scarred bar top. Perhaps Bode was late, she thought. The proprietor didn't take his eyes off of her as he pulled a dusty bottle from below the bar and flicked the cap off with a detached swipe of his wand. There was something familiar about his bright blue eyes that she couldn't quite place.

"Thanks," she muttered, wiping more dust from the sides of the bottle as she took it and turned to look out at the rest of the dingy room. One of the rough-hewn tables toward the back was occupied by a dour-faced wizard. She couldn't believe that she'd missed him before, and wondered whether he had been concealed by a disillusionment charm. Maybe he had just apparated quietly, popping softly enough to have been concealed by the bottle cap popping from her drink. Or perhaps her eyes had just needed to adjust to the dim light before she could distinguish him from his shady surroundings.

His large colorless hands, faintly illuminated by a stub of candle planted on the table before them, wrapped around a foamy mug of what could be butterbeer or something stronger. His dark eyes tilted down, his mouth drawn into what looked like a permanent frown. She walked haltingly over to his table, agonizing over what to say to him.

"Is this seat taken?" she asked lightly, gesturing at the empty chair directly across the table.

"Sit down before you attract any more attention," rumbled her long-faced drinking companion in a solemn voice.

Clio did as she was told, taking a sip of her drink as she did. The ginger burned her throat, and she choked back a cough. He stared at her for a moment with droopy-lidded brown eyes that could give Nox a run for her money in a "pity me" contest. He appeared to be in his late forties, with worry lines etched into his face and once-dark hair that had faded to iron gray.

"Thank you for meeting me," she began, but was cut off before she could continue.

"I came here to warn you," he droned mournfully. "Sending one letter is risky enough, sending two makes you suspicious."

"Suspicious? To whom?" she asked, eyes widening. "The Ministry?" She'd been concerned that her letters to Croaker and Bode could cause them grief; she hadn't thought that they might cause trouble for her. Moody hadn't expressed any concern when she'd mentioned it to him, either.

Bode stared at her for a moment, appearing to consider his words carefully before responding. "If there were a watch list, then your name would appear on it. I would avoid subjecting myself to further scrutiny if I were you."

"How would I accomplish that?" she asked, eyebrows arching.

"Don't send any more letters. Don't ask any more questions," he replied, his eyes fixed steadily on hers. He didn't seem to have blinked once since she'd sat down.

"For how long?" she asked, a heavy weight settling in her gut.

He stared at her, saying nothing.

"Forever?" she spluttered, then shook her head. "I can't do that."

He sighed heavily.

"Is that the only reason you came all the way out here?" she asked, disappointment rising bitterly into her throat.

"That was the idea, yes," he said, before taking a long draught from his mug. Then he whispered, "Didn't you read the note I sent?"

Clio stared at him blankly for a moment. "Of course I read it. How else would I have known to come here?"

He sighed again and took another long swig. "All of it. Didn't you read all of it?"

Clio felt that sinking feeling in her gut one again. His message had disappeared so quickly, was it possible she'd missed something? "A time and place, that's all there was," she murmured, before remembering the paper that it was scrawled on. Had there been more clues buried in the article? She tried to remember what she'd done with it, and began patting the pockets of her robes, hoping that she'd tucked it into one of them

Bode rubbed a waxy hand over his grooved forehead. "Your grandfather could never remember where he put things, either," he moaned.

Clio gave up her search at the mention of her grandfather, and met his eyes. Unlike Nox, the sadness she saw there ran deep and true, she realized. What had he witnessed over all of his years as an Unspeakable? "You worked with my grandfather," she said quietly, her left hand fiddling with the ring on her right.

"Not directly," he said, eyes dropping from hers to the black ring as she twisted it around once, and again, and a third time. His eyebrows drew together.

"Do you know-" she began.

"No," he said firmly, dark eyes moving back to her face.

She stared back. She'd still not seen him blink. "You don't even know what I was about to ask."

"I can tell you nothing," he said, then finally blinked: slowly, deliberately, as if this inconsequential action was suffused with a purpose.

Her brow furrowed as she considered the phrasing of her next words carefully. "I've heard that terrible things will happen to any of … your kind who say something they shouldn't."

He grunted, dark eyes fixed on hers once again. "I suggest you read the note that I sent."

"It was about the Triwizard Tournament," she said, confused as to what the article had to do with anything.

"Yes," he rumbled. "And about the people involved with running it."

Clio nodded, her mind frantically replaying the events from breakfast that morning in an effort to remember what she'd seen in the article, and what she'd done with it. She knew she hadn't thrown it away. She thought she remembered folding it. Had she put it in the bag with her lesson plans?

He continued to study her over the edge of his mug, mouth drawn into its permanent frown and a free hand rubbing at his creased skin as if watching her caused him physical pain. Finally he sighed once more and asked, "I gather you're not much of a quidditch fan?"

She started at this sudden change of subject, and shrugged. "I didn't grow up with it."

"I saw your father play for the Magpies a time or two."

"He only played for three seasons before..." she trailed off before adding meeting my muggle mother. Bode had his touchy subjects, and she had hers. Her parents had met during the Magpies' exhibition tour of North America. Soon after her older sister Calliope was born, her father had hung up his beater's bat and taken a regular stiff job at a Glasgow broom shop.

Gran still grumbled on occasion about him wasting his brain on mindless work, though the very few memories Clio had of visiting him in the shop were all happy ones. Even after they'd fled to America, he'd spent hours tinkering with his racing broom in the garage, adding enhancements to it for his daughters long after he'd quit riding it himself.

Not a day went by that she didn't wonder how the lives of all of her family members would have turned out if Voldemort didn't exist, or hadn't come to power, or had not caused – directly or indirectly – her grandfather's death. She pictured Dad slouched in a chair with the newspaper after a day of selling muggle insurance or appliances or whatever it was he'd found work selling that month while Mom stared out the kitchen window, dish rag in hand, washing the dishes without the aid of magic or machine because that's how her mother had done it.

"Beaters all tend toward short careers," Bode droned, rousing her from her thoughts. "Your father was smarter than most, got out before all those knocks to the head took their toll."

"Maybe," she said crossly, wondering why he was so eager to talk about her father. Is that why he'd come? Was he some quidditch fanatic?

"Like I said," he said, looking her directly in the eyes as if he knew what she'd been thinking. "That article talks about those running the tournament."

She frowned, frustrated that he seemed to be handing her a clue that she couldn't quite decipher. With nothing to write on, she attempted to file away everything he was telling her. She nodded slowly, eyes wilting under his continued gaze and going to the ring on her right hand, which she continued to twist.

His eyes followed hers down to her ring. "Your grandfather gave that to you?" he asked softly.

She nodded, the fingers of her left hand closing over it protectively.

"Perhaps you will find an answer there," he mumbled, the words barely escaping his mouth.

She opened her fingers and stared at the ring, reading the Greek word inscribed on it. "Agape," she murmured to herself. "How was he with locks?" she asked, thinking suddenly of the locked room in the Department of Mysteries. Her question was met with silence, and when she looked up he was already gone. His completely-drained mug was all that he left behind. She turned just in time to see the door to the pub swing shut, then turned toward the filth-covered window through which she thought she saw his departing silhouette. She left her own barely touched bottle on the table as she ran out after him, hearing a faint pop as she burst through the door to the empty street beyond.

Clio ran the entire way back to the school grounds, replaying his every word in her head as she did, trying to pin every detail of the conversation to her memory. She never noticed the bedraggled black dog that emerged from the shadows beside the pub, and trailed behind her all the way back to the school gates

While changing for bed later that night, she rediscovered the newspaper clipping in her righthand pants pocket. She unfolded it, and then had to sit down by the fire and read the entire thing with shaking hands. Ludo Bagman's name appeared over and over again. The former Wasps beater had recently replaced Hamish MacFarlan as head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, and would be judging the Triwizard Tournament. He'd be coming to Hogwarts the very next week.