thanks Guest, I thought hard about my take on Parseltongue, we know it can be learned unless Albus Dumbledore is a born Parselmouth which I doubt. he plainly undertstood the memory in the penseive of the encounter with the Gaunts. And yes, Fabian is being a prat. I was planning to write him having a bit of a hissy fit and then come round but the idiot had other ideas. His loss! Molly must have got it from somewhere... and as she's Fabian's sister, this is probably a family issue.

Chapter 25

Narcissa watched as Peter and Remus joined the others on their run. Fabian was not with them, and she donned the invisibility cloak that James had given to Peter for her to use to slip back into school unnoticed. She gained her dormitory unseen, and slipped behind the curtains of her bed to rise when the bell went.

Her dormitory mates stared at her when she rose with them.

"Where have you been?" demanded Albertine Rosier.

"Asleep," said Narcissa.

"Everyone's been looking for you," said Albertine.

"Apparently not in the right place," said Narcissa. "Excuse me, I want to wash."

OoOoOo

Dumbledore greeted the runners.

"My dears, I … wonder if you have seen Narcissa Black?" he asked. He was glancing worriedly at Remus.

"She spent the night with me in the Shrieking Shack, where that bounder Prewett wouldn't find her," said Remus. Dumbledore looked horrified.

"But …"

"I was there as a chaperon," said Peter. "She helped me with my charms homework."

"I don't pose a danger to my friends with the runic help Sev has given me," said Remus, gently. "But it's a little embarrassing to have fur and a snout, even if I am more or less myself. So the Shack is a good refuge still."

Dumbledore's eyes flicked to Severus, who shrugged.

"My grandfather suggested some additional runes when I wrote to him in the autumn term," he said. "It's been working since November, when we perfected it. But Granddad hasn't worked out a cure yet," he added.

"Bless my soul!" said Dumbledore. "And where is Miss Black now?"

"She planned to slip back into her dormitory before the other lazy girls woke up," said Remus. "I don't think that she can be made to go through with marriage to a man who becomes violent over her linguistic studies."

"No, quite so," said Dumbledore. "Severus, did you know last night that she was safe?"

"No, I didn't," said Severus. "I was really worried until I got back and James told me Peter had passed on a message. And I still think Fabian deserves to have his toenails hexed to abuse him, I thought he was a good sort, and then he throws a bigoted hissy fit like this! It's very unsettling when people who are supposed to be good guys turn out to be … unsatisfactory," he hastily amended what he had been going to say.

"Mr. Prewett is ill-informed and misguided, but I am sure he is a good sort for all that," said Dumbledore.

"A man who abandons a young girl in a public place having insulted her and upset her?" asked Remus, in a hard voice. "If he'd been our age I could get that he might grow out of it, but he's already middle aged, he's taking NEWTs this year! And if he makes Narcissa fail her OWLs for being bullied by him, I hope her father sues him!"

"Dear me, I would hope there is no chance of that," said Dumbledore.

"Well, I would think it was quite possible," said Severus. "Someone who has fallen in love and then found the one they loved has betrayed their trust is pretty vulnerable, sir, I should think."

Dumbledore paled. The boy had no idea how wounding those words were.

"Let us hope her feelings were not so deeply engaged," he said, worried.

"She said 'when you have let yourself love someone and then they change, what do you do?' to me," said Remus.

Dumbledore sighed.

"I will speak with her, and I will hope to help her come to terms with her … loss before the exams," he said. "Of course, they might make up a lovers' tiff."

They stared at him.

"Having your boyfriend accuse you of being a dark witch is way past a lovers' tiff," said Petunia.

"Dear me, yes, I suppose so," said Dumbledore, sadly. "Well, well, you are good friends to Miss Black."

OoOoOo

"Miss Black, I have explained a few facts to Mr. Prewett," said Dumbledore.

Narcissa lifted her chin.

"Did it take a brace and bit to open his thick skull to get them in, or merely a pickaxe?" she asked.

"Now, my dear, Mr. Prewett is not entirely unreasonable, and I am sure that his concerns were merely for your safety in using magic he did not understand."

"His concerns, headmaster, were that I would taint his family. There was no concern for my safety, nor indeed, any concern to listen to facts from me. Fabian Prewett was scared I might contaminate his precious light family and be a tool of Riddle to do so. He broke the betrothal, and I have already written to my father to ask that he sue for wergild* for so doing. I am not, however, going to be talked into resuming something in which trust appears to be an issue. Next time he might start beating on me for something I have done that I could not have realised would annoy him, instead of just lowering over me. He has anger management problems, and I have had a lucky escape."

Dumbledore sighed.

"It would have been nice to have seen a happy marriage between a member of the family Black and a more liberal family," he said.

"It wouldn't have been nice to have been the battered Mrs. Prewett," said Narcissa. "What other weird and wonderful superstitions might he hold? Would he force any daughter he has to marry a muggle, regardless of her feelings, if she was born in May because of the superstition that May witches marry muggles? Or decide that I looked at him the wrong way which meant that I was ill-wishing him? I don't particularly want to find out the hard way what bigotted nonsense his precious 'light' family has filled his head with. Because it seems to be just as much unfounded and unmitigated tripe as any of the anti-muggle sentiment to be found in some traditionalist families, you know."

Dumbledore opened his mouth, and shut it again. The prejudice against Parselmouths was too telling a case in point to deny, as was the determined assumption that all Slytherin were born to be Death Eaters.

"Well, my dear, I hope you will not permit it to affect your school work," he said.

"I shan't. I just want to wash the taste of him out of my mouth and spend time working which I had wasted on snogging the creep," said Narcissa.

"Probably wise," said Dumbledore.

Narcissa retired with as much dignity as she could muster, pulling a face that she must endure the holidays without most of her friends, since they would all be going home, and she would be staying to revise for her exams. At least Malfoy was not such a pain these days. She hoped he would not raise the issue of betrothal with her, now she was out of the protective betrothal to Fabian. It would not do to be labelled a jilt, and even though Fabian had broken it off, Narcissa was under no illusions about how easy it was for a girl to be labelled a jilt, or even a scarlet woman. And she doubted if Remus would continue to want to marry her as he got older, even if he did have a rather sweet crush on her at present. If he did … well his condition was no real hardship to bear, if it could not be cured, though one had to worry about offspring. Well, her biggest worry at the moment was her OWL exams.

OoOoOo

Severus came into the main sitting room on the last Saturday before term started to find his grandfather dancing a jig.

"Uh, Granddad?" he said.

Tiberius grabbed his hands and danced around with him.

"I have it!" he crowed.

"Is it catching?" quipped Severus.

"The reverse!" Tiberius chortled. "Time to send an owl to the Lupins to tell them to bring their son."

Severus gasped.

"You have a cure?"

"I do, and it's in two parts, a potion and a chant using runes and ritual. But once Remus is cured, I think I will be able to use his blood as part of a potion to cure others without any further need for ritual, and the great thing is that his monthly chanting has begun the ritual for me!"

"Great!" Severus hugged his grandfather. "When are you going to do it?"

"Thursday. It's the new moon, and so the ritually strongest time."

"It's the day after we go back to school, Granddad."

"Then either the boy can be prevented from going back to school by some ailment, or I shall have to bring his parents in to Hogwarts secretly. I don't plan to involve Albus."

"Mr. Filch knows more about the castle than anyone, I wager; he will know somewhere we can do ritual. I think our potions lab behind Gregory the Smarmy is a little cramped."

"Yes, I imagine so. Brilliant, my boy. Argus Filch will be a great ally."

OoOoOo

Argus Filch was a staunch ally to the man who had given him magic, and the children who had defended him.

"It's called the 'come and go room' by the elves," he said. "They use it to store things. But it's called the Room of Requirements, and now I am able to do magic, I can open it too. You walk up and down in front of where it comes, and wish for what you need."

Mr. and Mrs. Lupin were thin, worried looking people, though Severus suspected that they looked less strained than they had before Remus was able to control his werewolf nature. They were each holding Remus by a hand, and not even Peter scoffed. Indeed, he looked wistful.

"Grandfather," whispered Severus, "Peter's only got a mother, and she's sick. Do you think she could have some rooms in our house? Our elves could easily look after her, and she'd be company for mother."

Tiberius smiled at him.

"A wise man takes care of his friends and their family," he said. "I will have Tilly arrange it."

The Marauders were all skipping lunch in order to have the best possible time to perform the ritual, and they quickly took up their places in a circle about Remus, as Tiberius wrote runes about him. He gave Remus a potion to drink.

"It contains powdered moonstone inscribed with the runes that help you, mandragora, boomslang skin prepared with silver salts, which is not a form of silver which will harm you, and other minor items," he told the boy.

"I trust you, sir," said Remus, swallowing it.

Tiberius walked around him, going over the chalk runes with a stick of what appeared to be solid silver, which melted into the runes as he chanted. And then he nodded to the children to start the basic chant Remus had used, and began to add to their basic meaures a rich rolling chant in some ancient language Severus had not yet encountered. Remus started sweating and trembling, and fur grew and receded over his body, changes half starting and then returning to normal as tears of agony ran from his eyes. Narcissa had been given the job of laying a calming hand on the shoulders of the boy's parents.

"This is much what happens each month, more extreme, but he suffers around five minutes pain while some change happens and then he is fine," she said. "We've all seen it, been there for him. That the fur and shape change is being driven back is hopeful."

And then Remus was collapsing on the floor, and Tiberius sank to his knees.

"Revellaspell?" Tiberius croaked.

Narcissa pointed her wand.

"There is no werewolf in this room," she said.

"Is … is that silver?" Remus croaked.

"Pure silver," said Tiberius.

"Then …" Remus reached out to touch the silver runes, and his mother gasped. The boy examined his finger tips.

"No blisters!" he cried. "I … I really am cured!"

His mother burst into tears and flung herself forward to hug her son. And then everyone was hugging.

Mr. Lupin was pumping Tiberius' hand.

"I don't even know how to begin to thank you," he said.

"There is no need to do so. Anything for my grandson's friends," said Tiberius. He grinned. "And I shall enjoy the fame of being the co-inventer of the cure."

"Who else was involved then, Granddad?" asked Severus.

"Why, you, my boy, of course," said Tiberius. "You had the idea that it should be done and did the initial runic research."

"It wasn't much," said Severus.

"It was the base; and without a base there would have been no cure," said Tiberius. "Now hurry up all of you or you'll miss afternoon lessons."

* Yes, I know it should be wifgild but I'm assuming that the formalised payment for a transgression has probably all been swept together into one word as Ancient Runes does not seem to be a popular study in the wizarding world and they probably don't read Old English readily.