I watched him disappear, the taste of his last kiss still lingering in my lips, feeling in my pocket for the secret weapon against falling apart. A solemn silence filled the space Remus had vacated.

I pulled out the bottle and chugged a bit of the potion I saved for occasions like this. Instantly, the world seemed a lot more cheerful.

Sirius put a hand on my shoulder. "You okay?" he muttered.

"Of course," I replied. "Never better."

He looked at me curiously. "No, really."

"Really! I'm great! There's absolutely nothing wrong," I told him with utter sincerity.

He appeared dubious. "Nymphy, are you serious?"

I grinned. "No, you're Sirius!" He stared at me. "Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked.

"I'm still alive," he told me.

"Why wouldn't you be?" I asked, befuddled.

My cousin blinked at me, and, without taking his eyes off my face, called for Molly.

"I think something's wrong with her," he informed her.

Molly put an arm around my shoulder and I gave her a big hug.

"How are you?" she asked.

"Great!" I said again, wondering why they were being so pushy.

"How can you say that?" Sirius exploded. "The man you love just left on an extremely dangerous mission, and you're grinning like a maniac? Either something's wrong or you're an unfeeling bitch whose been putting my best friend on!" He glared at me.

"That is entirely false," I informed him. "Worrying about Remus won't to any one any good, no matter how madly I'm in love with him, or that he might die any time and I wouldn't know about it, so why worry? Quit worrying about me, old boy. It doesn't do you any good either." I patted him on the shoulder. If anything, he looked more concerned than before.

"Oh!" Molly said. "You and Remus, dear! That's so cute! You two are absolutely made for each other!"

"Thanks," I grinned. "I quite agree."

"Molly," Sirius said slowly.

"Yes, Sirius?"

"Molly, I just called her Nymphy and she didn't do anything. Then she called me 'old boy'." He sounded like he still couldn't believe what he was saying. I wasn't sure why.

Molly blinked at him. "Are you sure?" she asked. He nodded.

"Euphoria," Snape said drily from behind me. Sirius stiffened, his automatic reaction when Snape was nearby.

"What?" Molly asked absently.

"Euphoria," he said again. "The signs are unmistakable."

"Oh, yeah?" Sirius said. "And why would she take Euphoria?"

"If you don't believe me…" Snape pointed his wand in my direction. "Accio Euphoria Bottle," he said clearly. The bottle flew out of my pocket and into his hand.

"Nicely done," I congratulated him.

Sirius took my arm. "Why don't we go to my room?" he said gently.

"Sounds great!" I cheered.

As we walked away, Sirius looked back over his shoulder. He swallowed. "Thanks," he said to Snape as though the words were stuck in his throat.

Snape raised his eyebrows. "Why, Black, I didn't know you were capable of being grateful," he commented.

"Well, I am, okay?" Sirius said, and pulled me up the stairs. In his room, he grabbed a book from the shelf called Household Potions and Their Antidotes. He flipped through it, muttering under his breath. I sat on his bed and hummed off-key.

"Aha!" he announced. "Horseradish!" A few moments later, a small jar floated into the room.

"Nymphy?" he said cautiously.

"Mhm?" I looked up at him with wide eyes.

"Have a bite of this, will you?"

"Sure," I agreed, and took a big bite. The bitter taste shot down my throat and burned my nose. My eyes filled with tears, cleared, and I stared at my cousin.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Sirius?"

"Yeah?"

"If you ever call me Nymphy again, I will murder you."

He breathed a sigh of relief, and I sat still as the memory of the last eight minutes flowed clearly to my brain. The tears overflowed from my eyes.

"I made a bit of a fool of myself," I managed to say.

"Yeah," Sirius agreed. "Why'd you do it?"

I gave him a half smile. "I was worried I'd make a fool of myself," I said.

He tried to disguise his snort as a cough.

"You really love him, don't you?" Sirius asked softly.

I nodded. "Yeah," I said. "I do."


When I got home that night, I checked my box. It had a small piece of paper saying, "Arrived safely. Miss you already. Will write more later~R." Hardly satisfying, but the knot in my stomach eased slightly now that I knew they hadn't killed him immediately. I wrote back, "Miss you too. Not much to say now. Keep me posted and take care of yourself. 3, me."

Then I went to bed and woke up in the morning and went to work. Anti-climactic, I know. But overall, the way things were going now, no excitement was good excitement.

At work, there was some excitement. Our billywigs bust was scheduled for the next day, and we practiced hundreds of scenarios for getting our guy. Billywigs, in case you don't know, are small winged bugs with overlarge stings. When stung, you levitate for a while. It's apparently quite addicting, and people get rich marketing them. They are, naturally, illegal as hell.

The man we were going after was named Polonius Guggenmeister, and I had no guilt about destroying his business. Besides for the billywigs, he was also a gambler and a pimp, not like the Ministry cared about those. But there's money in billywigs, so we were going in.

According to plan, we were supposed to Apparate directly to a secluded park where he was scheduled to meet one of our undercover operatives to exchange money for drugs. We knew of several defenses he had up, including wards against Apparating, several stationed accomplices and some very mean dogs. They set up an entire room in the Ministry to exactly resemble the latest view of the park we'd had. Some other aurors played the accomplices and we practiced strategy over and over. My job was to take out two of them. An older Auror named Greg was going for Polonius himself, and Christine unexpectedly was going to take out the other two extras. The whole thing was being a huge deal because Fudge wanted an example of something he was doing right to publish a success story since he hadn't had many of those. Loser.

I attended a meeting that night, achingly missing my seat buddy. Sirius sat with me and we whispered a little, added to the discussion some, but mostly sat and listened. I'm not sure what we were talking about; it went right over my head.

There was another letter that night in the box.

Dearest,

I've joined the pack. I have two weeks to find my place here before the full moon. The leader is a bit odd; I don't know if I'll be able to convince him. I probably can get some of the members though.

I miss you.

Remus


Sorry I've been taking so long, but alas, the real world must come first. More to come—for once I actually have a plan for the next few chapters. Please review!