DISCLAIMER: ALL OF THE CHARACTERS AND SCENARIOS BELONG TO JKR AND/OR WARNER BROS.

A/N: Please review and let me know what you think!

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The man's day had been a tough one. Lost in the melee of financial transactions and deals he had done it was not surprising that this man had a lot on his mind. The First Municipal Bank had called to check on a deal with offshore trust funds and he had had an excruciating two hours in tight negotiation with a Scottish bank entangled with a pension scheme in the Isle of Man. It was another deal however, that was playing on his mind. That deal, he recalled, had been set into play almost a week ago and had culminated in a set of instructions that had burned in his hand as he sat in his car on the Brighton seafront.

The words, as clear as day, were burned into his brain as a brand on livestock…what he must do, and when. The book that had arrived the next day: that was still incomprehensible. How that related to the telephone call he had originally received was totally bewildering.

But this…

The lack of the material did not make the instructions any less potent, nor did it lessen the need for him to be in touch with his sister. What had he got himself into?

The first part he could handle; a few trips to a library (somewhere out of his locale), and a surf on the Internet at a cybercafé should do it. He could check a few things with his sister when he could…that would be enough…

But what he had to do first…

The man was not, by nature a physical being, having spent more than a dozen years sitting behind a desk arranging financial transactions (and doing under the table deals as often as he could). He was not below bribery, employer larceny or money laundering.

But what they were asking him to do was…

Terrible. There was no other word for it. If he'd have known they wanted him to do something like that he would never have become involved. He had expected the job to be like any other money crime – fraudulent bank accounts, letters, companies that only existed on paper…

But now...

What choice did he have? Money had been transferred to his bank account in lieu of locating people to extract certain information. The details that had been written down had been scant, consisting of four words, two names, one place, one date. And one unspoken instruction. There was a reason these people contacted him. Sighing at the blank computer screen he knew what he had to do.

The office was now empty; those who had spent hours on overtime had long since departed. A wave of nausea swept over the man as the terrible deed that he must do hit home violently and unexpectedly and he got to the gents just in time to vomit into a toilet.

Wiping his face with a cold paper towel and looking at his slightly manic appearance in the large, well-lit mirror the man recalled the second name. Perhaps he should find that telephone box near Garrick Street and Bedford Street. It was time to contact his sister.

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The local weather around Hogwarts changed with the seasons as one might expect. Summers were bright, warm and often humid, bringing all manner of insects and small mammals out into the safety of the deserted school grounds. Winters brought with them first biting cold, inducing the blue hue of exposed hands, legs and arms, and then snow, a blanket of which often covered the grounds like permafrost, often refusing to budge until sometimes well into March.

There was one constant feature out of all of these, something that Tabitha Penwright had almost forgotten and which she had been reminded on more than one occasion since she had returned to the school. No matter what the season, no matter the outside temperature or time of year, it was always windy. And not just the blustery gusts that removed your hat in an instant either. These winds blew down the corridors of mountains, funnelling their energy around the school so that if you were in the lower grounds heading towards either Hogsmeade or (if you had a death wish) the Forbidden Forest, the strong airstream would catch your clothing, making you work much harder. Of course, the longer you stayed at the school the more used to them you got, until you hardly noticed them. Other people, Tabitha self-corrected quietly.

It was this pocket of air that Tabitha was doing battle with as she returned to the school. The castle was alight and alive with voices, some of whom she would have the pleasure of meeting, she supposed, in the morning. As the wind whipped past her robe again, pulling with it her frock Tabitha cursed like a muggle as she tried to smooth it down.

Why had she volunteered to take Umbridge back to the broom-sheds? The woman clearly knew where they were. But it wasn't as if Tabitha had exactly volunteered. Now she was heading back to the castle, where she would seek out her bedroom and spend the night before standing in front of students and getting them to learn about muggles. Not entirely a recipe for rest and relaxation, Tabitha concluded as she pushed against the rocky outcrops that littered the landscape.

As she made her way back Tabitha's mind was filled with thoughts of the conversation that had filled the air on her outward journey and she realised that her accompaniment of Dolores Umbridge was not entirely for the Undersecretary's geographical benefit. She had confided to Tabitha that she believed Dumbledore to have allied himself once more with his secret Order which consisted, Dolores speculated, of the wrong sort, those who the ministry was endeavouring to control and contain: werewolves, fugitives such as Sirius Black, and even muggle-borns.

Tabitha had not reacted to Umbridge's theoretical inclusion of herself on the black list: long ago had the Mysteriour disconnected herself from the word. Instead, as Dolores's list grew more outlandish Tabitha's thoughts had turned to her task. As a Mysteriour to find out exactly what this so-called Universal Link actually was, this was part of her motivation for being at Hogwarts (the other being she didn't want to face Umbridge's wrath otherwise).

But the double-edgedness of the sword of discovery meant that when she found out what it was Umbridge would use it as a weapon to use against Dumbledore's supposed re-grouped Order and Cecilia Frobisher herself. It wasn't as if the Undersecretary had said that to her, nor would Tabitha object to meeting this muggle if only to talk to her about the link. But to plan to use the solution of a mystery in such a base way made Tabitha Penwright feel uncomfortable and a traitor, by association, to her profession.

"…and I expect the details of the aforementioned Wizard Magic and Muggle Science to be fully revealed to our representative who will not only be teaching Muggle Studies but will be undertaking the research role formerly occupied by the muggle…"

Umbridge's voice broke into Tabitha's consciousness as a random sentence that her boss had spoken at the staff meeting the morning before echoing around her mind. The teachers knew why she was there, as did Severus Snape, with whom she would be working. As too did Harry Potter, whose presence at the Muggle Studies classroom that evening had been both unexpected and brief. He had mentioned Cecilia Frobisher too and had said about discussing what he knew with her and this had taken Tabitha by surprise, not least because interacting with this young person had been one of her major worries.

Before her now Tabitha recognised the base of the rocky outcrop on which Hogwarts was built Tabitha ran through her mental "to-do" list once more, a strategy that she used to settle her mind when things were awry:

…get the information she needed, about Cecilia Frobisher and about the Universal Link. Find out what was known about science and investigate the potion that Dumbledore had given to her in the trial and ascertain its construction. Report all of these things to Fudge himself via Umbridge. Oh, and teach muggle studies as well.

The wind whipped past Tabitha again as she made her climb back up towards the school as she contemplated the future. It was a futile task anyway for she had made her choice. Pulling her robe closer to her body Hogwarts' new muggle studies teacher banished all thoughts of her old life and focused on her new, if temporary, one.

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Cecilia Frobisher sat in the living room of the cottage staring at her notes. Upstairs Remus was in the bathroom, relaxing after work…his work for Dumbledore with the Order, his first destination each evening on coming, as regular as clockwork. Above her the floorboards flexed, and she heard him climb into the old enamel bath that was about very old and always made Cecilia feel that she was firmly in the 1950s. The décor therein was faded flower wallpaper with the lavatory having a tall cistern above with a long pull-chain. Despite its age however the plumbing seemed to be relatively new and was muggle friendly (no magic-controlled taps, thank you very much) and as much as she loved a bath at Hogwarts the same sensation of relaxation and contemplation would result here, in Remus's cottage.

Well, not this time. This time, the warmth of the water did not loosen up her muscles as expected; the warm air and steam did not soothe her mind and she was now sitting; in fresh pyjamas that had dried lovingly on the washing line that day she was not sitting with the next step in her research hard at work.

The main concern on her mind, which was driving her to distraction, was what she had promised Tonks that she would do for her on listening to the witch's gabbled message about her rapid matrimonial decision. Looking back, Cecilia's hasty agreement had made her repent at leisure. Much as she didn't mind telling Remus in principle, each time she had thought about it (either before he had arrived home that day or after), the words got jumbled up in her mind and she hadn't even been able to form a sensible string of sentences that would make her meaning plain.

Why had she promised? It seemed even more alarming than anything that she had done in the wizarding world before.

Her second concern was her conversation with Sirius and the potion a few days ago, not the potion for Harry but the other one. What if Remus's best friend decided to tell him what she was attempting? Much as Sirius Black seemed to have changed from the charismatic charmer with a vendetta against her when he got depressed about his life, Cecilia wished she hadn't been so willing to share her secret with him when he was sharing his. The thought had crossed her mind when she was feeling in a defensive mood that perhaps Sirius had been making up the story in order to goad her on secret from her, although that hypothesis had not lasted long.

What about Petunia Dursley's trace? Why was it that her DNA showed the "W" band when she was, as far as Cecilia knew, not a witch? She wished she could ask someone but Cecilia knew Lily and Petunia's parents were dead and she was not likely to ask anyone to take her back to Godric's Hollow any time soon.

There was Caelius, too. She wished she could talk to Remus about him and she had resigned herself to asking Dumbledore when they next met what he knew, as he seemed to know so much about "Mysterious Mythology" already, perhaps he could make her feel less worried about all of this.

And then, above everything else was the potion. Number 30 seemed to be progressing, she had made some gains with the base and now she was on the second blend of top notes. But Cecilia was not feeling the satisfaction of achievement as she had done all those months ago with the first one and, she had to admit, Severus was partly right when he said she would do better with it were she still at Hogwarts.

Above her the ceiling creaked again and she heard a faint "woosh" of the bathwater evaporating (despite the plumbing being mugglish Remus still liked to fill and empty his bath the wizard way) and she knew that in about five minutes' time he would be down and sitting with her, asking her what she wanted for tea.

Cecilia sighed. So much for freeing herself from mystery and intrigue which was what she had expected when she'd resigned from the Order. It just seemed to have remained as clandestine as it ever was.

She turned over a page in her notebook, her eye coming to rest, funnily enough, on the section of notes about the lycanthropy cure. And of course there was this. Cecilia had written copiously about this, writing in semi-code lest Remus or Severus were to chance upon it. As she refreshed her mind with her own progress about this her heart both soared and sank: with this her beloved could be cured, but did this give her the right to take time away from Harry's potion? It was no wonder she didn't feel completely satisfied with her progress but then, she couldn't have ignored the notes.

Just then she heard the familiar creak of the top step floorboard as Remus began to make his way downstairs and she flicked back to the section in her notebook about potion 30. Smiling as he got to the bottom he sat next to Cecilia and she folded the notebook closed as he bent over to kiss her on the cheek.

"All nice and clean, love?" she asked as he sat down next to her on the settee. Remus nodded, extending a hand to prevent her from putting down her notebook.

"There's no need to stop working," he replied, bringing the book back to her lap, "and once we've had tea, maybe I can help?" Wearily Cecilia nodded, hoping it looked enthusiastic and it seemed to do the trick as Remus smiled. "So how was your day?" he continued. This time he saw her face fall and he took her hand quickly.

"The work is stressing you out," he concluded before Cecilia had a chance to say anything, "I can see that. Now you've resigned, there's no reason why you need to continue at that pace, or even at all if you don't want – " He broke off when he saw the expression of horror on her face.

"It's not that, not the work," Cecilia conceded, wrapping her hand around Remus's as he continued to hold it. "The process of the work is not difficult, it's just – " This time it was Cecilia's turn to break off as she took in Remus's expression. She dared to continue.

" – there are so many unknowns that I just need to get to the bottom of, as quickly as I can," she finished. Remus's face relaxed and it occurred to Cecilia that he was worried that she was going to say something else. Something along the lines of leaving, maybe. "Do you think…perhaps you could listen to the theory? I'd really appreciate a second opinion?" One that's not Severus's, she added, but to herself.

Remus Lupin's face broke into a smile that made Cecilia Frobisher fall in love with him all over again.

Over the course of the next quarter of an hour in the living room of a cottage built by the ancestors of one of them two people shared an intimate if not particularly clear conversation. Neither of them moved from their seated position and they continued to hold hands as one discussed their problems and the other nodded, listened and occasionally questioned or commented. The main theme revolved around how wizardly a person had to be to be a wizard, whether there was a cut-off point in their ability and if, were a person a wizard, they could change their fate by mere will. Cecilia explained that it was such intricacies behind which lay the key to refining Harry's potion to perfection and she described the anomalies in Petunia Dursley's trace.

"I can see that there is a great deal still to be done," conceded Remus as he looked back at Cecilia. "I only wish that I could help you in some way. You idea – it is so…" Cecilia nodded as she clasped Remus's hand, for it had not moved since she had begun.

"You could help," Cecilia suggested, holding tighter to her lover's hand, "that is, if you are still in touch with Harry."

"I could speak to Dumbledore the next time I see him," said Remus softly, his features sagging slightly under self-consciousness. "I can't risk moving round Hogwarts or using the floo network to contact him, not since the ministry…" Cecilia raised a finger to his lips and shook her head, breaking her hand-hold with him and stroking him on the shoulder.

"Please don't worry about that," she said shaking her head as Remus kissed her raised fingertip. "I'm sorry to have mentioned it. In any case, it'd be better that Harry didn't know about it just yet."

"Is that everything?" asked Remus concludingly. "Shall I start some supper? Or is there anything else you want to talk about?" Cecilia sighed as the thought of Remus's brother streaked like a comet over the dark canvas of her mind and she nodded.

"Mysterious Mythology," she said as the secret came out at last.

"What about it?" Remus got to his feet and made his way over to the bookshelves that were set into the alcoves on both sides of the fireplace and handed her the battered, charred copy that Dumbledore had given back to her before she'd left Hogwarts. About to decline Cecilia recalled the day that Remus had given it to her, when it had been relatively new and burn-free but instead took it from him and flicked open the first page. There, in its part-incinerated state, the border read, "Energy Light Magic".

"How long did your family have it? When did Raymond Lully give it to you?" Remus sat beside her again and his eyes traced over the book in her hands before suddenly looking back at Cecilia, tracing the outline of her features as he had done the tome so intricately linked with his family.

"Lully gave it to my father, and there it has always been," he looked across at the gap in the otherwise unbroken line of books. "It's been in the family as long as I can remember. All wizard families have a copy, you know, although not one of them was like mine. It wasn't till I got to Hogwarts that I realised it was different, when I took it with me. And I only did that because – "

And there the words remained unspoken. Had not Cecilia known the end of the sentence, deep down, that he had taken it to remind him of his family because it had been the stories therein that had kept him going after he had been bitten and condemned to life as a werewolf, she would surely have questioned him. Had she done that then her heart would surely have broken at his sorrow. As it was her knowledge must have been clear on her face and save a brief nod of confirmation by Remus that conversation ended there.

"So you didn't tell me," he continued in an altogether brighter tone, "what was it you did today?" Cecilia smiled as he got to his feet and she followed him into the kitchen.

"Well, all of this," Cecilia said, gesturing to the pile of washing that she had recovered from her makeshift washing line which through serendipity the heavens had not opened upon the laundry when she had returned from Ambleside. "Funny what some elbow grease will do" she added, laughing inwardly at Remus's expression. "I mean, I did it by hand. There are a few things I missed, if you wouldn't mind taking a look" Cecilia continued, sitting on one of the kitchen chairs as Remus began to fill it with water from the end of his wand. She watched as he continued to prepare some food, potatoes and cabbage to go with a roasted something (she hoped that it would be vaguely recognisable this time: roast hedgehog had been a shock) in the oven, marshalling the cutlery from the drawers to peel and chop and scrape.

"Oh, and there was Tonks of course. She popped into the grate this afternoon." Clipping the last word short, Cecilia bit her tongue behind her lips to stop herself from declaring the witch's recently-changed marital status to her old work colleague. Remus looked up from his potato peeling which he was coordinating as if a symphony orchestra conductor, the potatoes flying over to the boiling water as they were peeled, and nodded.

"How is she?"

"Well," commented Cecilia truthfully as she braced herself to break the news to Remus. "Her usual self. We had a good long chat when we went out – "

The crash of a pan of boiling water hitting the tiled floor of the cottage's kitchen stopped Cecilia in mid-sentence and she gasped.

"You went out?!" declared Remus in alarm, seemingly oblivious to the watery pool growing between them. "Why?"

"To get some things and – "

"You know I can get you what you need!" protested Remus, staring at her. "It's dangerous! You really should have known better!" Cecilia got to her feet as the water began to swim about the legs of the kitchen table with potato islands landing sporadically around it.

"Why do you say that?" she asked, looking in bewilderment at Remus and at the same time searched for a cloth in order to dry up the additional Lake that was being added to the District.

"The ministry, of course," replied Remus, his tone now altogether stilted and stiff. Just as Cecilia had reached the pile of clean tea towels that she had cleaned and ironed that day he waved his wand and the potatoes and water too receded into the tip of his wand. He then used it to transport it back to the kitchen stove, a frown still upon his face.

"Tonks did mention security measures," agreed Cecilia. "Is this connected to the werewolf code, love?" Remus nodded as instructed more water to boil at the command of his wand before assembling a new collection of potatoes and drilled the peeler again to strip each one of its skin in turn. Leaving the potatoes again he turned to Cecilia and made his way over to her as she returned to the kitchen chair she had so hastily left moments ago.

"I just want you to be safe. Promise me not to go out without me?" His look was endearing. She nodded.

After dinner, and the resultant clearing up of the dishes Cecilia made her way back to the utility room with Remus. They had agreed that he would help her with the potion that evening in order to speed her to the end of potion 30. She prepared the ingredients under pestle and in mortar while Remus began to perform the spells that the new blends required and Cecilia began to think about how she could turn the conversation around to mentioning Tonks's marriage.

She began to talk to him about where she and Tonks went when they were out that afternoon but the conversation quickly turned to Remus's mission for Dumbledore that might take him away for a few nights. As she ground the lovage root and picked up the next ingredient she fought the urge to press him further as the thoughts of her other potion filled her mind.

"That's wolfsbane then," said Remus, his words like a burglar in the unguarded domain of her mind. Cecilia jumped, with a few leaves in hand and she opened her palm as Remus looked at it before looking back to her. "I've never seen it in real life before…you'd never know that it'd help me…looks so ordinary…"

"Some of the most innocuous things are powerful," replied Cecilia as she nodded at his gesture to add them to the mortar. "That's often the key. I just wish it was that simple for this potion."

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The vision of the figure traversing her way across the glorious landscape of the school grounds evaporated as he caught sight of the choice before him. No matter how much he delayed the decision of choosing between them Severus Snape knew that indeed a choice must be made.

He looked again at the table in front of him, upon which lay a selection of otherwise innocuous ingredients. Two potions before him in embryonic form but only one could be completed. Only one could become fully formed and go on to fulfil its destiny. The choice was his: of the two people whom he (for want of a better phrase) cared for he had to choose whom he had would betray.

Merlin damn it! Bunching up his fist Snape slammed it against the sturdy wooden boards hard enough for some of the ingredients to absorb the energy, making the quake and roll. This should not be so difficult. And he needn't have made it so. It would not have been so difficult had he not, upon his visit to Lupin's cottage, probed Cecilia Frobisher's memories. But the feelings she had expressed…

…he should not have told that the wolfsbane potion required the same ingredients as Harry's potion, and even less should he have made some for her to give to Lupin. She had probably worked out by now that any cure for him must have a similar constitution. And with such a limited supply of the ingredient…

Snape stared at the thin, limp herb with an expression of pure hatred which stared in its inanimate state treacherously back at him. Before he had a chance to carry out his ire on the herb with a pestle and mortar however a familiar feeling, like pins and needles prickled his left arm and he scratched at it absently.

So he calls the faithful, does he? A smirk played on Snape's features as the desire to be a fly on the wall at the scene that would unfold in approximately ten minutes time, and how those faithful few would scrape and bow at the shadow that was once the most powerful wizard in the world. And he could be a fly on the wall too were he to focus on and practise transfiguration for a few hours but that defeated the object of remaining detached of his hateful, debilitating bond servitude. It was she, whose trust he had betrayed a day ago, that he had to thank for that.

The situation, therefore was this: the wolfsbane went either the woman for whom he had a strong emotion, to grant her wish of a potion that worked to cure the werewolf whom she had chosen to be her husband or it would be used for a young teenager to risk his life under precarious conditions in order to defeat once and for all the most powerful wizard that had ever lived.

Which should his head obey? And would he be able to live with the consequences with whichever decision he chose, for there was only one to make.

And all at once the future became clear as the ingredients on the table and the Potions classroom blended into one glorious whole. Snape smiled and stepped away from the table before making for the door.

It wasn't he who needed to make the decision. He had only to wait. The choice was hers.

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"Muggles!" The shriek had come from the direction of the portrait at the top of the stairs, shattering the otherwise stillness and tranquillity of number twelve, Grimmauld Place. Looking up the main stairway Nymphadora Tonks rolled her eyes in the direction of her deceased maternal grandmother. "More muggles in my house!"

The night had been more than fraught and if the rest of the household were to be awoken with Grandmother Black's disquieting cries she didn't think she could handle having to explain to all and sundry why this little sleeping mouse of a child was on one of the Black household's contraband purple sofas. People were bound to come: it was inevitable. It was a credit to the strength of the Order that such was the result but by Merlin, it was inconvenient.

Making her way to the kitchen and propping the door open to the living room Tonks sat backwards on a chair and ran her hands through her limp, dull locks as she contemplated the startling and terrifying events of the evening.

Bathsheba had raised the alarm. By all accounts the absent-minded witch had been hunting around for the cat food that the older woman in the Aberdeen terraced house left out fresh for her, their stray and even though it was always in the same place Miss Braddle invariably forgot where that was. This was what had happened that night…

Tonks looked back at the sleeping child, remembering how upset she had seen her, how she had been crying desperately for her mother and father, and then for her Aunty.

"Should we take her?" Bathsheba had asked as the young girl had succumbed to an Eversleep charm, rather old fashioned Tonks recalled her confused self thinking as the middle-aged witch cast it. Bathsheba Braddle herself had retired to her own home once she had accompanied Tonks and the child back to Grimmauld Place. There was little option, really. Her leg had been badly severed; her usually kempt hair had been bedraggled and it looked as if part of one side was missing. Her face was filthy as if she had been lying in mud; where Tonks could see flesh drops of blood had dried and most of Bathsheba's usually immaculate (and expensive) clothing was now little use for its original purpose. It was the "crack" of her disapparation, Tonks supposed, that had awoken the wretched portrait.

Above her the floorboards of the guest bedrooms, where any of the Order who were staying over on a certain night slept, creaked to life and Tonks ruffled her hair with her fingers again. Molly Weasley would soon be with her, she knew, as would her cousin, although Sirius would be much later for his mother would shriek obscenities at Molly first, which would then wake him up. She racked her brains to think what it was she would say to whoever was first down the stairs and would encounter a sleeping child before them.

Bathsheba had been on her nightly duty round. Tonks knew this because the rotas had been decided only a couple of days ago and she had recalled that yesterday and tonight were her off-duty nights, which had prompted her to marry without due constraint on her time.

As Nick had been working that evening and had knocked onto his shift at around midnight Tonks took the opportunity to share with whoever was at number twelve her personal if cautious but exciting news again (she had had the pleasure of doing so that afternoon to a handful of the Order, much to their downright disbelief). When she had arrived no-one was around, with the exception of Sturgis Podmore who was on duty there and she had offered to relieve him of his shift in exchange for Friday, which the wizard (for some inexplicable reason – who wouldn't want a Friday off?) had agreed to.

And then…the emergency flare in the hearth had alerted her attention…

"What in heavens' name…Tonks!" Molly Weasley, hands to her face, dressed in a bright pink padded dressing gown and matching curlers and slippers stood, horror-struck, at the bottom of the stairs. She was staring in shock at the young girl, sound asleep and still in her "Bagpuss" pyjamas.

"Molly, I – " Tonks began, jumping off her chair and making her way across to the older woman. But before she had a chance to put her jumbled thoughts into any sort of order a "crack" brought Bathsheba back whence she'd gone, sporting a large bruise on her right cheek and an unsightly gash at the front of her scalp.

"'Sheba's the best person to ask," Tonks declared, looking at her aghast at her usually well-groomed appearance. The witch gave Tonks a "thanks for that" look before making her way into the kitchen. Tonks followed her, head slightly bowed. With one more look in the direction of the child, Mrs Weasley made after them, determined to get to the bottom of everything.

"I had edgestones placed around the house," explained Bathsheba, sitting heavily on a kitchen chair having, like Tonks just before her, propped one against the door in order to see the girl. Her breathing was not much better than when Tonks had seen her earlier and she wondered whether she should suggest that Bathsheba pay a visit to St. Mungo's.

"I'd heard the younger of the two women talking to a neighbour about disturbances. They alerted me to an intruder, someone who had entered the premises at about eleven thirty. I had to go, of course. And then I fell from my broom – " Tonks gave her a pitying look as she recalled the countless times she had done that herself.

" – they killed them!" Bathsheba declared the words both assertively and with alarm in her voice, the latter of which Tonks had never heard the otherwise feisty witch express before.

"Sh," hissed Molly Weasley, "not here!" She swung her arm in the direction of the sleeping girl before reaching up to close the door. Tonks shook her head and Bathsheba uttered, "eversleep", at which point Mrs Weasley sat back down and nodded.

"…they killed Mrs Wells and Miss Wells…Cecilia's mum and sister…?" Molly's words were slow and deliberate, whether out of ignorance or tiredness, or as a measure of control in an otherwise uncontrollable situation.

"Yes," nodded Tonks, glancing at Bathsheba, who shuddered.

"Who? Not Death Eaters; they would have killed the child as well."

"No, it seems to be a muggle attack, from what I could tell." Bathsheba glanced towards the door before shuddering again. "They, whoever they were, stabbed the women in their beds. Either they didn't know about the girl or they didn't want to kill her." Tonks looked through the open door pityingly at the child. She had taken her from Bathsheba when she had arrived at Falkirk Street while the older Auror had made one last brave attempt to seek out the murderer which had resulted in her being knocked out of the first floor window with great force and landing face down on the muddy lawn below. Fortunately she had been able to cushion her fall with a floating charm but still she had been badly injured.

"When should we undo the charm?" Tonks asked, looking between Molly and Bathsheba. "I do know the counter-charm and – "

"Well that rather depends on what we are going to do with her," interrupted Bathsheba hastily. "I mean, she can hardly stay here, and who is there to look after her? The nearest family she's got is Cecilia, and considering what'll happen if and when the Ministry find her…"

"What about the Ministry?" asked Molly suddenly. "Were they there? I mean, I know you were there, dear," she added, smiling at Bathsheba. "Were you there on official business looking after them? Are the ministry going to be swarming around?" Bathsheba shook her head.

"As soon as muggles are befuddled they're not checked up on," she admitted, nodding as Tonks nodded too. "They are supposed to do spot checks but what with the security measures, there's more things for them to think about than befuddled muggles."

Together, the three witches looked in the direction of the orphaned Freya Mitchell, asleep soundly and deeply, curled up at the knee with arms folded over her chest and breathing softly.

"What're we to do now?" Bathsheba leaned back in her chair nursing a wound in her leg with her hand. "I didn't know what else to do with her other than get her out. Tonks? You could look after her." Tonks turned quickly in her seat and stared at Bathsheba Braddle as if the older witch had gone out of her mind.

"Me? Why'd you think that?"

"There's no-one else," replied Bathsheba with a shrug. "Besides, you're married to a muggle now, right?"

"Arthur and I can look after her," said Molly, looking between the two aurors. "I mean, if she has no-where to go and she can hardly stay here – " She broke off as a creak of the kitchen door drew their attention sharply.

"What are you whispering about?" asked Sirius, looking at the three women before him. "And what is a child doing asleep on the sofa?"

"Weren't you here when Bathsheba floo'd?" asked Tonks, shaking her head. "It was obviously important then, whatever you were doing in your chimney in Uncle's study that it wasn't receiving floo messages."

"I heard mother's screaming," said Sirius, glancing out of the door at the sleeping Freya and pointing to her. "Is that what she was shrieking about?" His cousin nodded.

"She's Cecilia's friend's daughter," said Bathsheba, shrugging again.

"And she's not a that," said Tonks, chidingly.

"Ah, the befuddled muggles and the little girl," said Sirius, looking intrigued as Molly shook her head exasperatedly. Bathsheba nodded and Tonks frowned at him.

"Cecilia's mother and sister," she clarified bluntly. "And we cannot take her to Cecilia, not on our own. We've got to consider Dumbledore's security measures…" Sirius raised his eyebrows at Tonks's clarification before looking at Bathsheba, who was fussing over her wounds again.

"So what happened?" he asked her. "They're impressive, whatever it was."

"I was doing my rounds and the edgestones alerted me to an intruder. It must have been a muggle; a wizard would have attacked me with a wand rather than leave it to gravity."

Getting to his feet Sirius made his way out of the kitchen as Bathsheba recounted the tale of her injuries again, rather more for her own benefit than for anything else. Tonks rose too and elbowed him out of the way, getting to the child's side before her cousin and kneeling beside her. Sirius smiled as he watched her stoke the hair from the little girl's face, tucking the dark strands as a curl behind her ear before picking her up in her arms. Refusing to answer the questions of both Molly and Sirius (and ignoring the shrieks of the wretched portrait) Tonks carried her upstairs

Her bedroom, the one that she used when she stopped at Grimmauld Place, was cool; the cold currents of air wafted past Tonks as she made her way in the darkness over to the spare bed opposite the one that she herself usually took. She lay the girl down on top of the covers before magicking the light into existence. She'd floo Nick, she thought decidedly. He needed to know that she was going to be stopping here tonight. And by the time she had done that others of the Order would surely have arrived and a decision on the child's fate would be made.

"Not that you'll be going anywhere else than with me," Tonks declared maternally as she lifted up Freya with one hand and drew the covers back. She'd take her. The child knew Nick, that Tonks knew. And after that…

Looking down at the muggle child who was sleeping in the her own bed, in a bedroom in the house that had belonged to wizards with extreme views on non-magical beings Tonks shook her head as she wondered what her own life was about to become. She sighed.

And then, furled tightly in the girl's hand Tonks noticed something, something the child must have brought with her when Bathsheba had rescued her from her former home. Carefully folding back her fingers the young witch took a little piece of paper, folded and squashed so that it was almost hidden to all but the child herself. Unbidden tears pricked in Tonks's eyes as she looked upon a drawing, signed untidily by the young artist herself, a drawing of her family and her cat.

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A/N: I know it was short – hope you are still enjoying! The next one will be with you soon. Please let me know what you think!