Chapter Nine: Joy Baked In
Dear Elodie,
Thank you again for the rolls. They're delicious, and I'm very grateful for them except for how they remind me of what it was like to be a useful, non-fugitive person, and that makes it harder to BE a useless fugitive.
-I've only just met you, and I know what face you made when you read that. I think it's Remus's influence, because he'd be making the very same face.-
I wanted to ask you how Remus is really doing, since as you probably know, I can't ask him, because he wouldn't tell me. He'd think he was telling me, but we both know he'd fudge the truth. So: how is Remus doing, really?
Also, he mentioned you having a tough few months, and here, I shamelessly say I'm curious about that (this is also how you know I'm already your friend, because a stranger would be horrified to ask this!), but I'll understand if you're not willing to tell me yet. I'll make a pouty face, but I'll understand.
I cast your repair spell but I am not as good at wishing for warm socks as you are. So instead, I have cold feet and boring, un-holy socks, which sounds more fun than they actually are.
My actual purpose in writing was to ask you if you'd be willing to help me with something for my godson. He wrote to me that he's not being fed well, and it's his birthday in less than a week. I'd love to send him a cake, but my cave comes surprisingly sparse with the kind of tools one would use to bake with.
Perhaps it's time to look into living in actual human housing again.
-Your face lit up. Yes, you can tell Remus what I said about houses.-
Please Owl back within a few days about whether you'll help, or I will have to go looking for cakes to steal.
Your new friend,
Sirius Black
Elodie had no way to know when Sirius had sent his letter, as he hadn't dated it. She did know when Harry Potter's birthday was, and so did every history book she'd read about him, so she knew she had just over four days to help Sirius Black with a cake for his godson. She made a note to ask Sirius what his bird liked for treats, as it wasn't an owl, but a really brightly colored exotic bird that she hadn't expected to have a letter for her.
All of a sudden, she gasped. That exact bird was what had given Harry the impression that Sirius was somewhere safe in the tropics! Sirius had stayed in the UK that whole time and simply used an exotic courier service or something, all to give his godson the peace of mind that he was somewhere far out of reach of the Ministry, the Dementors, and the Death Eaters.
"You're one clever devil," she told Sirius's signature.
That was something else, too. She recognized his signature. She'd seen it in one of the books, and there it was, written in a letter addressed to her. Elodie took the parchment roll and held it to her chest for a minute. She didn't have anything of Remus's, though her memories were strong enough, she supposed. This, though. Could she keep this, somehow, even if she ended up going back to her own… dimension? And exactly how ridiculous would that be, if she did? In 2009 you could probably order prints from someone who could approximate his handwriting and would write whatever you paid them to, but this was the real thing.
Feeling incredibly ridiculous, Elodie unrolled the parchment and then folded it, Muggle-style, into a square. Then she tucked it into her change purse for a second before taking it back out and putting it into her pocket.
At least I didn't put it into my bra, she told herself. The problem was, she wasn't so certain she wouldn't, someday. If she had a letter from Remus, she had no doubt that she would absolutely do just that.
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"It's going to be Harry Potter's birthday," Elodie said to Remus, in the manner of a greeting, as she breezed over to sit beside him in the courtyard.
"Yes it is," he agreed. "And hello."
"I got a letter from Sirius about it," she whispered. She just happened to be looking at Remus when she said this, and she watched his face fall. "Oh no! He didn't stop sending you letters, did he? I promise, I didn't ask him to write, he just-"
"Of course he wrote you. You're a-"
Elodie raised an eyebrow and said, "A what?" When he opened his mouth to answer, she raised both. He frowned and tried again.
"It was going to be complimentary, and now you'll never know what it was," he told her, a bit petulantly, she thought.
"This is just 'eyebrow' for 'go on,'" Elodie protested, pointing at her face.
Remus raised his own eyebrow, and she collapsed in laughter.
"See, that was just adorable, which I'm not afraid to say, and fie to your eyebrow!" she said defiantly.
"Yeah, just wait till you've got a handful of letters and see if you still say that," Remus muttered.
Elodie stopped laughing and looked at him in astonishment. "Are you-"
"No."
"You don't even know what I'm asking, how can you say-"
"No."
"I wasn't going to say 'jealous,' Remus Lupin," she hissed at him. "I was going to say 'accusing me of-'"
Remus put down the book he'd tried to hold up in between each denial, looked straight into her eyes as she was talking, and interrupted with, "No."
"See, now you're just saying 'no' because it makes you look cool to say it three times in a row," she said, crossing her arms. His stern demeanor cracked with a tiny little smile that tugged at his upper lip.
"Yes," he admitted. "But I will say: Sirius is irrepressible. He's convinced he's irresistible, which is fair warning from me, and hopefully all I ever, ever say about that."
"I-" Elodie didn't know what to say. "I'm speechless. Does it count if I can say I'm speechless?" He didn't look back over at her. She sat in silence and thought, without picking up her book, for many long minutes. Finally, she lit on something. "I'm really happy for you, actually," she said.
Remus looked over at her in utter confusion. "What?"
"You've clearly reframed him in your mind back to being the person you knew," she said, quietly enough that she didn't have to worry if she slipped in a detail that would endanger Sirius. "Do you not realize what you did, just now? You warned me off of a man who is a fugitive from justice as a mass murderer. Except you didn't. Because you know who and what he is, again. You did it instinctively. And that makes me really, really happy for you."
Elodie picked her book up and pretended to read it as he stared at her. He stared some more, until he finally shook his head, which she saw out of the corner of her eye. She dropped the pretence and lowered her book to look over.
"Only you could take that whole conversation, flip it upside down, and leave me feeling profoundly touched by the end of it," he said simply. He sighed a long, troubled sigh, as though he were shaking off the yoke of something he'd long wished he could be rid of. "Thank you."
"Anyway, if you're jealous," she just had to throw in there, as impish as she felt.
"Elodie," Remus said, in a warning tone.
"-you could always write me a letter, too! And now I'll run away!" she said, standing up and starting to powerwalk toward the house.
"Don't run away, I'm disgruntled, not angry," he said, catching her flowy shirt and then her hand with his wolf reflexes to stop her as she scooted past him. "You shouldn't go pushing people's buttons just because you can."
Elodie's giddiness from teasing evaporated away, leaving a film of self-disgust behind. She flopped into a metal chair next to Remus's reading spot, completely deflated.
"I wouldn't have pushed it if I'd thought it was a thing, truly," she said, shocked that Remus would even admit to something as private as being jealous of Sirius. If that was really what he was implying.
"For context," Remus said slowly, "Sirius used to act like he had the ability to attract anyone in our sphere of influence. That was back when we were in school, and just done with our NEWTs, and there were many girls around to float into and out of our sphere of influence. I'm not sure he even realized he was doing it, by James and Lily's wedding."
"Oh my God, I don't even want to picture him peacocking at their wedding," Elodie blurted out.
Remus shut his eyes and shook his head, laughing. "I honestly can still picture it."
"Okay, so what you're saying is, our sphere of influence right now consists of you, me, Albus, Sirius, and possibly his godson." Elodie kept her voice as quiet as she could, just in case.
"Yes."
"And far be it from any of us that aren't Sirius to tell him not to be himself after so many years of horror," she continued.
"Yes."
"So I should be ordering a salt lick to ensure I'm taking everything he says to me with at least a grain of?"
"Yes." The last 'yes' was said with no small amount of relief in Remus's voice.
"Did you like how I made sure to pause and frame things so you could look really cool again?" Elodie said, making a show of winking obnoxiously at him.
He paused judiciously, smiled, and then spoke.
"No."
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Somehow, Remus talked Albus into letting the three of them go to Hogwarts and use a kitchen there to bake Harry Potter a cake. Apparently, being Albus Dumbledore and knowing your way around Hogwarts meant he knew where there were hidden kitchens. When Remus told her, Elodie wondered if the older wizard would activate one in the Room of Requirement. No matter where they were baking, though, they would get to the school via the Headmaster's Office Floo.
So naturally, Elodie had a massive fucking panic attack the night before.
Remus found her pacing outside Hollyfield, just out the door from the potions lab, ostensibly watching the sunset.
"There you are! I figured I'd find you freaking out, but I couldn't decide where exactly you'd be," he teased, once he found her.
"I need to transfer some of the potion to the first cauldron in three days. What if something happens to me in transit? I could end up in, in, I don't know. Bulgaria!"
"I don't think you could say 'Hogwarts, Headmaster's Office' and somehow turn that into anything that resembles 'Bulgaria,' but I guess that depends on how many syllables you plan to milk out of one single place name," Remus said, leaning against the wall just outside the door.
"I've got a list of-"
"Of course you have," he interrupted her fondly.
"Of the things that need to be done, in order, for the Wolfsbane, to give to Horace if something happens," Elodie said, more loudly, as though he hadn't spoken at all.
"I could conjure up a fireplace for you to practice in?"
"Living as a Muggle was really, really realistic, okay?" she said anxiously. "The big stuff, the really mystical magic stuff, the things that are obviously magic and can't be anything else-they're really intimidating. Like when I could see the gold in your eyes, the night of the full moon."
"You what?" Remus straightened up, his eyebrows furrowing.
"I didn't think you remembered," she said. It came out more sadly than she had intended, so she rushed ahead with anything else she could think of to say. As usual, she chose poorly. "You were busy being upset with me about something, anyway."
"I owe you a discussion about that, you know," he said, looking cross. "Maybe not while you're this stressed out about something else, though. Don't you remember ever using the Floo before?"
"No," she admitted in a small voice. "I know I'm being silly."
"Not silly," he said. Then, with a look of determination, he held out a hand. "All right, I can fix your distress for you right now. Come here, please."
Elodie dithered, and he shook his outstretched hand in a way that all children recognize from a parent's insistence. She took a deep breath and stepped forward, taking his hand. He pulled her over to stand in front of him, then took his own deep breath.
Then, Remus angled an arm around her, and whispered in her ear.
"I actually do remember, vaguely, you whispering in my ear just like this." Elodie shut her eyes and shivered, popping them back open in shock when Remus then said, louder, "Ready?"
Then, he Apparated them both into Hollyfield, right into his own bedroom.
It felt like her entire body had been crammed into a single molecule and then allowed to expand back into its normal size with no care or sense as to how traumatic it might feel. The sound was fantastically loud, and she stumbled, when they landed, right back into Remus's waiting arms.
Before she could even catch her breath, he said, "I wanted to take you to your room, but I didn't know if I could picture it properly. Are you all right?" He let go of her and sort of hovered, his arms stretched to either side of her as though trying to gauge whether she would topple over again.
"I. Am. NEVER-" Elodie started to say when a great sense of being suddenly sick took over, and she covered her mouth.
"-trying that again?" he prompted, looking a little chagrined. She shook her head, angry, but knew that with how wobbly she looked, it could look like she was preparing to retch. "-letting me anywhere near you?" was Remus's next suggestion, which Elodie waved off, one hand still cupped over her mouth. "-trusting me again?" he offered, his eyebrows at such angles of worry that she nearly laughed.
"Baking for you. Ever. You've lost me," she gasped out.
"Oh, if that's all!" Remus said, clearly relieved.
That was the last straw. She came at him, arms flailing. "You! You scared the living SHIT out of me with that! Why on Earth would you think that would help!"
"It did, though, you'll see. You won't be nearly as frightened, once you've forgiven me," he said, dodging her blows with his ridiculous reflexes.
"Ugh! You and your nonsensically fast-HA." She landed one, right at his shoulder. "I don't even care that you let me hit you that time. You've turned me into a violent bitch, see if I ever recover," she fumed.
"It will be-" he started to say, then stopped.
"Nope, out with it," she demanded. When he shook his head, she widened her eyes in her very best imitation of her mom's scary 'Do It Now' expression.
"-worth it," he said in a very small voice.
"Cut to the quick," Elodie said dramatically, staggering backwards while holding her hand to her chest. Then she straightened, dusted her hands together, and told him, "You don't know what you just lost, buster. Just for that, I'm going to look up the most well-respected, most famous, most celebrated chocolate biscuit recipe there is. I'll make some, and then I won't share."
She stood there, actually pointing at him, until both of them realized the sheer ridiculousness of both of their behaviors.
"Your face, though!" Elodie gasped out through the laughter.
"You called me buster," Remus said, shaking his head as he laughed along with her. "But at least now you know what your alternative is, tomorrow."
"Gee. Thanks." Elodie was proud of just how dripping her sarcasm sounded, there.
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Taking the Floo wasn't anywhere near as traumatic an experience as Side-Along Apparition.
It helped that it was literally a dream come true for Elodie to be going to Hogwarts. When she said the words 'Hogwarts, Headmaster's Office,' she'd had to fight the powerful pricks of emotional weight pushing tears into her eyes. She managed it, and fancied that she only looked overcome by the experience of traveling. That lasted for about as long as it took for her to open her eyes and really look at her surroundings.
Unlike most rooms with a fireplace, this one was not oriented around the hearth. The fireplace itself was larger than normal, but it was in proportion to the room. A high, vaulted ceiling hung over them, with columns and internal buttresses of marble and carved, rich wood arched around them in curves and angles. Elodie felt like the effect was as if the room was reaching around to comfort her, easing her into the grandness that was the office of the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Sconces and other light sources, magic and practical, hung and jutted out all over the place, leaving interesting shadows and pools of light everywhere. The portraits of previous headmasters hung along a wall that was also decorated with light and fabric, though nearly all of them were sleeping. Elodie felt like she was looking at a picture of a room that had been enhanced in a computer's image editor, with multiple hidden layers and graphic effects that weren't all possible to pick out with the naked eye. She supposed that the reality of this room wasn't far off from that, as there were undoubtedly wards and magical enchantments cast all across and around the walls and spaces between.
A tapping noise that Elodie instantly recognized as a bird's beak-and wasn't that a fascinating development, to recognize a noise so wholly not magical, but to recognize it because of the presence of magic in her life-caused her to look over to see Albus's majestic desk and Fawkes the Phoenix's open cage sitting elegantly atop it.
"I'm sorry to tell you, Albus, but your phoenix is still the most impressive part of this room," Remus said. His voice sounded relaxed and almost joyful, and Elodie looked over to see the two men shaking hands. Albus reached over with his free hand to clap Remus's other shoulder in obvious affection.
"Elodie, welcome!" the older wizard said next. She walked over and reached an arm out, but was engulfed in a huge hug full of tassels, beard hair, and the soft smell of lemon. "I haven't been able to fully express my regret at the loss of your mother. I was so very pleased to get to meet her, even in such a state. She was delightful. You have my abject sympathy."
"Your sentiments feel all the more valuable because I know how sincere they are," she told him. "I can honestly think of no one else I could have asked to be with her other than myself, and my late father."
A thump noise caught both Elodie and Dumbledore's attention, and when they turned toward the noise, they caught Remus rubbing at his shoulder. He looked apologetic.
"That sack isn't actually heavy, but the strap ends up digging in. Sorry Elodie," he said to her as he picked up the bag he'd dropped.
"Oh, I'm sorry! It's probably the jars, do you want me to carry it?" she asked without thinking.
Remus raised an eyebrow, something she was starting to find was a trigger of attraction for her-his looking slightly cross, that was-and cast a quick levitation spell.
"You could have done that off the shoulder, too, so don't go looking too clever," she pointed out.
"Hmm," Albus said with a calculating look at the two of them. "Off to the kitchens, I think."
He led them toward the winding stone staircase that led out of his office. Elodie couldn't resist running her fingertips along the curved marble, wondering whose fingerprints had also slid across there. Neville Longbottom? Fred or George Weasley? Lily Evans?
After the gryffin that guarded the office slid back into place, Albus walked with purpose down a hallway that opened up into a larger space. An immense staircase lay in front of them, each alcove and turn of the steps decorated with a portrait. She rushed to keep up with Albus and Remus, as they had moved with the ease and confidence of men who knew exactly where they were. It was a good thing she'd rushed, too, because after she'd stepped down no more than two of the stairs, the was a loud resonant boom, and the solid staircase under her feet seemed to slide toward the middle of the room, and then glide sideways.
Elodie rested a tentative hand on the thick marble bannister and started down, her eyes captivated by the symphony of moving parts as the entire staircase adjusted seamlessly around her. She wasn't really watching where she was going, but she wasn't worried, given that the shape of the bannister under her fingers would undoubtedly change when the steps widened out to a landing. It seemed like this hadn't occurred to Remus, though, because he reached out and caught her hand when she passed where he'd stopped to wait.
Her momentum and sheer captivation was such that she didn't even register that he'd clasped her hand in his until she reached the landing and the connection tugged at her.
Elodie looked up at Remus and smiled with as much joy as she'd ever felt in her entire life. Remus almost looked like he'd been knocked sideways with the force of her emotion; he met her gaze as a person taken aback, then he tipped his head sideways, narrowed his eyes as if studying her, and then walked down the steps toward her.
"What is it?" he whispered, as if afraid to burst her bubble of happiness.
"It's Hogwarts' moving staircase!" she whispered back.
Remus shook his head, his eyebrows knitting together, bemused. "Yes, yes it is," he said.
"No, I mean... Remus-" Elodie turned in his direction and reached down to pick up his free hand in hers, the levitated bag of supplies still hovering a pace or so behind him.
She opened her mouth to try to explain just how completely amazing everything was, everything, down to the way the carpet snugged itself against the newly made connection beside them as the staircase settled. The danger of being too truthful just seemed lessened here, and she decided that she could explain herself as closely as possible to being honest that it would make sense, and not feel like deceit.
"I wanted to tell you: I think, before I went to sleep the night before I woke up years of memories older, I must have been reading Hogwarts, A History, because-" she looked around them, craning her head back so far Remus tightened his grip on their joined hands as though he were afraid she'd continue her tilt until she fell backwards. "All of this, it was… how do I explain? Like a book, it was fiction in those Muggle memories." She drew on everything she knew about this universe and hers to try to paint as close a picture as she would ever let herself reveal to Remus of what had really happened. "So there was a Hogwarts, in that world, an imaginary one. And I loved it, Remus, I loved it, but it wasn't real. Everything that's real about this place, it was part of a story set here. You could see how easy that would be to picture, don't you?"
He nodded, still bemused, his hazel eyes lit up with intelligence and imagination. "I can, actually. It's pretty fantastical, even for a magical place," he said.
"Right? But here I am!" As she said this, she let go of his hands, stepped back a step, and spun, throwing her arms out in an expression of delight. "I can't get over it!"
"You'll 'get over' the side of the stairwell if you're not- Elodie!" Remus said, and suddenly he reached out and grabbed her, not quite completely picking her up, but sliding her toward him, to safety. The staircase was moving again.
"I think even First Years are more aware," he said, looking down at her. She had her forearms pressed to his chest, and his hands were linked behind her, at the small of her back.
She didn't think there was any more happy she could ever get.
"It's real," she whispered to Remus, undaunted. She could feel his heartbeat under her hand and tried to pretend it was beating faster, maybe, because of her. Remus didn't pull away like she thought he would. He just looked down at her, his breathing a bit more heavy because of having to grab her, most likely.
"So are you, somehow," he marveled.
Something about the way he said it snapped him out of whatever spell of wonder she'd woven around them, though, and he moved his hands from holding her close into a stance of steadying her, instead.
"Oh, thank goodness," Elodie said, turning away from him in an exaggerated act of relief to hover a hand under the levitating supplies. "We didn't lose this, though I think we lost Albus."
"You lost Albus, I think you mean," Remus said to her, pointing across the staircase to a landing unconnected to a set of stairs.
"Just because you've lost the wonder of a First Year doesn't mean you have to judge," Elodie sniffed. "I'm literally living in a story book."
"Ah, but does that make you the heroine?" he asked, reaching out instinctively to steady her again as their staircase moved sideways, this time toward where Dumbledore stood waiting.
"Are you ready to joke about fairy tale implications, Mr. Big Bad Wolf?" she said in a voice too soft for anyone but him to hear. "It's fine, if you're not," she felt compelled to say. Maybe someday Tonks would push, but how much of his later desperation came as a result of that? Here, now, Elodie wasn't prepared to do that to him. "I would never try to make you say or do anything you didn't want to, you know," she added, smiling gently.
Remus looked slightly horrified and slightly relieved, all at once. "Elodie," he said, reluctance writ large on his face. It sounded like a warning.
"Except baking. You are contractually required to help me with this cake, so no backing out, you got it?" she said, knowing that he would rise to the genre change with gratitude unspoken.
Without looking back, she grabbed one of the handles of their levitating supplies bag and rushed off of the grand staircase, prepared to follow Albus and let Remus deal with his own issues in peace. He'd follow her, or he wouldn't. He'd either acknowledge whatever tension that was growing between them, or he wouldn't. Elodie was prepared to be grateful either way.
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Elodie was happy to see that the kitchen Albus led them to was nowhere near as grand as the more famous of Hogwarts' rooms. It was actually a disused staff kitchen, used back when more of the professors had been married with families who lived on site. Albus and Remus both cast spells to refresh and cleanse the various appliances and bowls that she would use to bake Harry Potter's cake. Elodie was glad that Remus had agreed to come with her, because for all her confidence in her own abilities, most of those abilities had come from doing things the Muggle way. She could certainly figure out how to use magic to power things like the oven or use spells and charms to measure ingredients, but when it came to how much magical energy a mixer could take before burning its motor out? She had no idea.
"Thank you, Albus," Elodie said, when the wizards were finished prepping the kitchen. She turned to thank Remus, but he had stepped up to talk to Dumbledore, and so Elodie took a large bowl, the magical mixer, and conjured up a mixture around the same consistency as that she'd need to be mixing for the actual cake.
"Elodie? You haven't even opened the supplies," Remus said when he came back over to her some minutes later.
"That's okay," she said, concentrating on her wand and the increments of speed she was figuring out.
"But where did the ingredients come from for what you're making now?" he asked her, sounding baffled.
Elodie looked down at the black, gloppy mixture she'd conjured. "Oh! Yes, I can see how that would be confusing," she said. "I haven't baked the magic way in, let's say, at least 15 years, it feels like," she told him. "So I don't have a sense memory on speed for this thing." Elodie held up the mixer, the deep black batter dripping from its beaters. "So I conjured up something that's about as thick as I'll be making, so I could try it out, first. It's black because I wanted to make sure I cleaned it all off before we start, so I made it extra noticeable for if I miss any."
"That's really clever," he said, taking the jars of ingredients out of the supplies bag. "You have a really intuitive way of looking at magic, sometimes."
"Yeah, well, don't get too complimentary-it took me five minutes to realize I could spell the mixing bowl to hold it steady, instead of trying balance everything. I am honestly surprised I didn't try to conjure myself a third arm, first!"
Remus laughed with her, and they had a nice talk about all manner of things while Elodie prepared the cake, then mixed up her own icing and decorations. When they were done, she had made a chocolate two tiered cake, covered in green buttercream icing, a chocolate 'collar' around one side that looked a little bit like a spectators' stand, and chocolate icing Quidditch goalposts on one side.
"Would you spell it safe for travel please, Remus?" she asked him, and Remus nodded and did so. "I just realized-I have no idea how to contact someone in so large a building!"
"Well, if you're looking for Albus, he told me we were fine to walk back to his office without him," Remus said. "As for messages-that was often what we used students for."
"Fair enough," she said, thinking of how enthusiastic someone like Colin Creevey would be at such a prospect.
Remus was kind enough to offer to hold the cake for her when it came time to Floo back. They planned to meet Sirius the next day to hand it over, and Elodie had a surprise for the two wizards when it came time for the hand over. Once she was safe in her own room again, with the spelled imperturbable cake glowing faintly on her rolltop desk, she pulled a hidden imperturbable package out of the supplies bag.
Inside were two chocolate cupcakes, each with a fondant decoration on the top. One was a Bludger, the black fondant shaped to look mostly smooth except for a few slight indents, as though the cupcake top had been taken from a real Bludger that had been used for over a hundred years. That cupcake was for Sirius. The other cupcake had a red, leather looking appearance, with one flatter segment, like a Quaffle. She'd had to rush the decoration for this one, as the fondant she'd used for the Bludger at least could conceivably look like un-dyed fondant for the Golden Snitch she'd made for Harry's cake, if Remus had suspected anything. Still, she was pleased with Remus's cupcake. She supposed that, given her promise never to bake him anything, she might have to keep it to herself.
{Author's Note: I use a lot of m-dashes, and it's a toss-up whether the FFN site allows them or not. The ones that some programs auto turn into an extra wide dash is definitely edited smaller, but then, sometimes the two dashes beside themselves are edited down, too. It's driving me crazy, and there's nothing I can do about it, so if there are times when something is meant to be a clause separated by two dashes and they end up looking like a hyphenated word, I'm very sorry. I'm out of options for how to fix it without fundamentally changing my writing style, which I'm not going to do because someone coded a website a certain way.}
