Number twelve, Grimmauld Place was not what William had expected. He had imagined Lupin's place as much smaller; a quaint little cottage somewhere, perhaps, with rooms filled with bookshelves of dusty old tomes and a heavily fortified basement. Certainly plenty of peace and quiet, anyway. Number twelve appeared to have at least four floors, and there were signs of other people living there - the first of which being a high-pitched infantile wailing almost as soon as they had crossed the threshold.

There was no key to the door but a series of intricate charms that Lupin performed with expert accuracy. The door clicked ominously shut behind them while the insistent crying grew even louder. William resisted the urge to put his hands over his ears.

"I've got it!" someone shouted from upstairs, and there were running footsteps

William turned to stare up at Lupin. If the man had a family, he had never mentioned them. You'd think something as life-changing as a newborn child - grandchild? Just how old was Lupin, anyway? - would have come up in conversation.

Lupin, however, showed no sign that he even heard the crying. He took William by the shoulder and steered him into the kitchen, where he began to make tea while William sat and stared around at the pots and pans all fastidiously lined up on the shelves.

"Mum, is that - oh, hi Remus." There was a young woman standing in the doorway, with a pixie haircut as Weasley-red as Quin's. "I thought you might be Mum coming back. I think she might have forgotten about us."

"I doubt that very much," Lupin said, in his usual soft tones. "I expect she wants to spend more time with your father."

The girl sighed. "Yeah, poor Dad. Must be lonely in the Burrow all by himself. Shame it's too risky for him to come here, what with him having to go to and fro from work all the time." She turned to look at William, a friendly smile coming across her face. "Hi," she said cheerfully.

"Hi," said William.

"You must be William. Nice to meet you finally - I'm Ginny. I'm a cousin of your friend Quin's - Ron's sister. Oh, cheers, Remus." The girl sighed with relief as Lupin put three cups of tea on the table and sank into a chair. "You're a lifesaver. Sirius has been fussy all last night and all day today." She rubbed at her eyes. "How Mum did this seven times is beyond me."

Lupin sat down in an available chair and nursed his tea between his hands. There were dozens of visible scars on them, William could see, and a thicker one toward the base of his left wrist. He shuddered inwardly, wondering how he was going to look by the time he was Lupin's age. The only really bad scar he had was the one he had received with the bite, six years ago, and at least that was where no one could see, unless he was careless in the bathroom, and he never was. "How's Harry doing?" Lupin asked gruffly after a moment. William suddenly became very alert to the conversation. Were they talking about Mr Jenson?

The girl seemed to pause for thought before answering. "Better, I think," she said, lowering her voice. "He's been sleeping in Sirius' room."

Lupin raised his eyebrows. "That's progress, I suppose."

"I'm not sure. I think he just doesn't trust Dumbledore and the others to protect him, so he's decided to do it himself. You know what he's like."

Lupin shook his head. "Does he even have a wand?"

"Ron got him a spare from the Ministry, but it doesn't work for him as well as the old one. That he can remember, anyway."

Lupin's eyes narrowed. "Still no memory of you?"

The girl's expression turned sad almost immediately. She shook her head.

Lupin looked disappointed. "Well," he said, and there was silence for a while. He turned to William and observed him keenly with amber eyes the exact same shade as William's own. "This place," he began. "It's somewhat of a safe house. You've heard of the Order of the Phoenix?"

William nodded. "They're a sort of secret society. Except everyone knows Dumbledore's in charge of it."

The girl called Ginny snorted, and William flushed. "Sorry, he mumbled. "Was that rude?"

Lupin looked mildly amused. "Not at all."

"Are you in it?" William asked, unable to help himself. Lupin nodded.

"This is the place where the meetings are held. It also has numerous protections on it, which makes it one of the safest houses in Britain for hiding from Voldemort or his men."

William's eyes widened. "But then… why…?"

"Why are you here?" William nodded. Lupin sighed and put his serious expression back on. "We've had word that Voldemort is about to start rounding up werewolves again. He did a sweep at the start of the war, after Harry -" he paused momentarily, and then went on - "went missing. Mostly feral wolves back then, those that didn't have much to do with society, those that had nothing to lose and everything to gain by joining forces with him. This time, though…" He tapped the side of his teacup with a fingernail, making a ping sound with each tap. "It seems he has seen the downside of discrimination. He's going to try and round up every dark creature he can find, men women and children, and force them to work for him."

"Not that you're a dark creature," Ginny said quickly to William.

Lupin shot her a look, then waved a hand. "Dumbledore suggested you stay here for the foreseeable future, and I agreed with him. I've reached out to other families, offering sanctuary for their children, if nothing else, but there haven't been any takers so far. Apparently the atrocities of the last four years have yet to impact on some people." He said the last words with an almost audible growl in his voice.

William's heart was currently sitting at the bottom of his stomach. He stared down at the tea which was slowly going cold in front of him. "Oh," he said softly.

"You're perfectly safe here," Ginny assured him. "And its only precautionary, until you go back to Hogwarts."

William was about to say that locking him up in the Headquarters of the society directly opposed to Voldemort didn't seem very safe, but he was cut off by a ghost entering through the ceiling. He and Ginny both jumped. Lupin, to his credit, didn't even flinch.

"Malfoy," Ginny muttered, clutching momentarily at her chest. "Why can't you just use the door like everyone else?"

"Where's the fun in that?" the ghost demanded, shrugging. William realised with a jolt that he recognised him. It was the same ghost that had arrived at Hogwarts with Jenson - no, Potter. He had been at Ynys Addoed.

"You were a lot easier to deal with when you were alive," Ginny snapped.

Lupin made a low, sniffing noise and a jerking motion with his hand which to William read clearly: I beg to differ. Body language was considerably easier for werewolves than it was for humans. It gave them insights that occasionally made people uncomfortable.

"Hey," the ghost said, turning to stare at William. "I know you."

William swallowed and nodded.

"You were on the island."

He nodded again, not sure what he was meant to say.

"Gryffindor are you?"

Another nod.

"Figures."

"This is our guest for the summer holiday, Draco," Lupin said wryly. "William Ross."

"Oh right, wolf boy. Harry mentioned it."

Ginny interrupted before either Lupin or William could object to 'wolf boy'. "What do you want, Malfoy? It's been a while since I've seen you in the kitchen. Don't you usually just haunt the upper floors these days?"

The ghost sneered and ran a hand through his bloodstained hair. "I wish," he muttered. "I just wanted to ask you if you've heard anything on Zabini," he said, turning to Lupin hopefully.

Lupin glanced briefly at William, then shook his head. "Nothing so far. I'm sorry, Draco."

The ghost grimaced. "Doesn't look good. Poor old Blaise... I hope he's dead."

Ginny looked appalled at this suggestion. "How can you? He was your friend - a spy, like you - how can you say that?"

The ghost turned slowly to stare at her with a chill that made the hairs stand up on William's arms. "If he's on the island, then death is infinitely preferable to life," he said, low. "Even with the Lestranges gone… I would not wish a day in that place on anyone, especially a friend. Particularly if he knows nothing of use to them. A waste," he added, almost to himself in a low mutter. "A damn waste."

William was lost. He had the feeling that this was not a conversation he ought to be privy to. Luckily, at that point the ghost seemed to decide that he had heard enough, and disappeared up through the ceiling again. William thought he must be quite a new ghost, and not just from the way Ginny spoke to him. None of the Hogwarts ghosts zoomed around like that - except for Peeves, of course, but he didn't really count. "Come along," Lupin said, putting down his teacup. "I'll show you to your room."

"All right," William said nervously, wiping his hands on the sides of his trousers. Lupin led him out of the kitchen and up a gloomy sort of staircase. "This is my room," Lupin said, gesturing to one of the doors. It didn't look particularly different to any of the others. He pointed to the one next to it on the left side. "That one is yours. This one," he added, gesturing to the one on the right side of his own. "Is Harry's. I advise you not to go in there unless he invites you. He gets… jumpy."

"Mr J - I mean, Mr Potter is here then?" William asked quickly. He thought it mustn't be wrong to ask now, since Lupin had brought it up. "Last time we asked Professor Granger, she said he was still in recovery."

Lupin raised an eyebrow. "An answer worthy of Professor Granger, I think. He was in a secure ward at St Mungos for several months, but came here a few weeks ago. His son Sirius has been here with Ginny and her mother since he was born."

"You mean the baby we found?"

Lupin's expression was pained. "Indeed."

William frowned. "Um, no offence, but should you be telling me all this? I'm not in the Order. Obviously."

"We could hardly hide it from you, since you're going to be living here," Lupin sighed. The way he said it made William wonder if that was all to it. They'll probably Obliviate me before I go back to Hogwarts, he realised glumly as he went downstairs to get his trunk and dragged it back up again to his room. A secret this big and important could never be trusted to a mere fourteen year old. Still, it wasn't as if he wasn't already quite good at keeping secrets. He'd managed to keep a fairly significant one for nearly three years at Hogwarts.

He put his stuff around the room, which was big, but quite bare. It had the look of a room that had been recently emptied. There were lighter patches on the wall where pictures might have hung, and while the sheets on the bed were clean and new, the bed itself was obviously very old. It was quite like the dormitory room in Gryffindor tower, except that there was something a lot more… well, Slytherin about it.

"Hello."

William looked around. A man was standing in the entrance to his room. It took several seconds for William to recognise him, considering the last time the man had been unconscious and convered in blood. "Um, hi," he said, scratching his ankle with the back of his other foot. "I'm William."

"Beth's friend."

"Yes." William regarded the figure. He was still very thin, but he looked less skeletal than before. There was certainly a lot more life to his face and colour in his cheeks. And standing upright was certainly an improvement. "We were um… worried about you," he added, after a significant silence that felt like it needed filling.

"Draco told me you were on the island. Three of you. You saw…" the man paused, and William saw his adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed.

"Yes," William said again, quietly. The sight of Rodolphus Lestrange writhing in death, snake fangs embedded in his flesh, was enough to give him nightmares for the rest of his teenage years, except that instead he dreamed about Bellatrix and Potter collapsing in a pool of blood after accidentally stabbing each other. He shuddered.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," the man said, low, not quite meeting William's eyes. "But… I know you got us out of there… me, and… and my son. I just wanted to say…"

"It was Beth, really," William interrupted, feeling slightly ill at the memories. "Beth looked after the baby. All I did was get nearly killed."

To his surprise, Mr Potter actually smiled. It was a small smile, but it was there nonetheless. "Still," he said, and strangely washed-out grey eyes came up to meet William's. "Thank her for me, when you see her, then."

William nodded. "I will," he promised.