NOTE: There's a documentary I love called Touching the Void. It's about a climbing accident, and as marketed, the docudrama about Joe Simpson and Simon Yates is about how on Earth we see both men giving interviews, given how completely bleak the situation on the mountain was. Knowing the ending (they both live, we know that from minute one) does nothing to diminish the excitement of how that happened.

I feel that way about this story. I can tell by the reaction of readers that there's a hit to what they liked about the story, and I feel like a bunch of people have stopped reading because they think that aspect of the story is gone. I can tell you that it's not. There are two relationship arcs to this story, and only one of them is Sirius/Elodie. I did not tag the story Remus/OC only to turn around and remove the possibility entirely- -I didn't tag that just for the build up to no payoff! Maybe I'm swapping Sirius/Elodie readers for Remus/Elodie ones again, but I think both relationship arcs have value and are fun and engaging, and though in the end this is a Remus/Elodie story when it's all said and done, just like Touching the Void, I think the story of how they get there is what makes it worth reading.

Please, don't give up?

Elodie knew that Albus would be very busy during the days around Christmas, but she got an owl from him on Christmas Eve asking for her to please drop by that night, if possible. One of the things she knew Remus had gotten Sirius for Christmas was another bottle of the best Firewhiskey, mostly because he'd made an off-hand comment about trying to picture the taste of it when he'd been locked up in Azkaban. Given that the only time she was certain he'd had any was when he was trying to numb the knowledge of Harry being trapped into participating in the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Elodie was glad that Remus gave him a happy occasion to enjoy.

"Get drunk, okay? Tell each other stories," she told her housemates as she got ready to Floo to Hogwarts with Albus's Christmas present. She had a little something she'd seen at Diagon that made her think of Minerva, but it wasn't a big deal if she didn't get a chance to hand it over. Both Remus and Sirius held up their glass to her as she waved goodbye, and she held the wrapped present to her chest when she stepped through.

She trusted Horace, but a Christmas present wasn't something she was willing to risk losing, so she didn't hover it behind her like he had hovered his trunk of Potions supplies through the Floo, that one time.

There were little flourishes of Christmas here and there in Albus's office. In a rush of amusement, Elodie wondered if any of Fred and George's mistletoe had been placed in there.

"Happy Christmas, Elodie!" Albus said, coming around from behind his desk to give her a vaguely lemon-scented hug.

"Thank you! Merry Christmas to you," she said. "I brought your present, but if you want me to give it to the Hogwarts house elves to bring it in the morning, I can oblige?"

Albus laughed. "No, I'm happy to open it now," he assured her, his eyes lighting up when he saw its odd shape.

"Let me tell you, after many years of having to hand wrap, I-"

"Did some research," Albus said along with the end of her sentence. He bore her good-natured glare very nicely afterwards, as well.

There was one moment when it looked like he would open it upside-down, and she realized she had forgotten to charm the potion vials inside not to dump, but after a few minutes, Albus was beaming with happiness and looking at his foot rest. The design of the embroidery had originally been that of a cliffside next to water, and Elodie had taken it upon herself to find a picture of the school and charm a needle and thread to add a Hogwarts silhouette.

"This was a delightful gift even before I discovered it has contents," Albus told her. He hummed in approval of the different potions she'd placed inside, and before she had a chance to, cast a minor sticking charm so that they wouldn't break when he moved it to its permanent resting place.

"What I find so charming about your present, Elodie, is that you took the time to personalize it, knowing where I keep it would probably mean it never saw the light of day," he told her, stopping beside his desk with the footrest in his hand. He traced his finger over the black towers of Hogwarts on the embroidery before leaning over and placing it under his desk.

"You're welcome to get it all covered in mud; as long as you enjoy it, that's the important part!" she told him, feeling full of affection for the man she had come to know.

"Now that I can avoid," he said, snapping his fingers and reaching for his wand. In a few seconds, a protective spell had been cast over the top of her gift, preserving it against any kind of stains and injuries. He beckoned her over to peek at it, and when she leaned over to look into the darkness with her wand tip lit, she saw the rubber band she'd slid onto her wrist as a reminder. She planned to ask Albus about the DADA curse, today, hopefully to plant in his mind a possible suspicion about Moody being different than he ought to be. Before she got a chance to bring it up, though, Albus put a bent finger on his lip. It wasn't quite a 'shush' finger; it was more like the kind of thing a person would do if they wanted to bite their fingernail in excitement about something but had kicked the habit of doing so.

"What is it?" she couldn't help but ask.

"I'm anticipating your reaction to your present, but my excitement is a bit mis-placed. Your present is a bittersweet one, I think. Come with me?"

Elodie's curiosity was piqued, so she followed Albus as he lifted his robes out of the way of his slippered feet and walked down from his elevated desk into an alcove in his office. Here she saw a wide, shallow basin resting on a sturdy-looking table, and she was certain that this was a Pensieve. It was very similar to her memories of it in the books, except that this real version looked far more valuable. There were runes carved into it, and here and there were inlaid precious-looking stones.

In a small way she was disappointed. Her hope had been to ask Albus if there was any chance she could borrow the Pensieve for a short time, for her present to Sirius, but this gorgeous magical object was clearly too precious to lend out like it was a magical lawnmower. Albus was excited about her present though, and she wasn't cruel enough to seem unhappy before he had fully unveiled it. Elodie schooled her face back into mild anticipation before Albus could guess there was anything else going on, and she waited for his explanation.

"Now, please forgive me for bringing up a painful memory, but I was thinking about what to give you as a present. I have this truly remarkable device," Albus said, walking over and holding his hands out over the Pensieve. "With that in mind, I recalled that I am in possession of a memory of myself speaking to your late mother."

Elodie gasped, her hands clenching into excited fists as she brought one up to her mouth, pressing against the words that wanted to flow unchecked. Can I look right now? How long do we have? How didn't I think of this before?!

"It's not a painful conversation, mind you, but she was ill, at the time, and while I may have been there for it, I don't necessarily want to force you to view it with an audience," Albus said. Uncharacteristically, he seemed almost a bit off-kilter, as if he hadn't been sure how she would receive his present, but went ahead to offer it to her anyway. It was a rare glimpse of uncertainty from someone so powerful, and she walked around the Pensieve and threw her arms around him without speaking a word.

"Thank you," she said, her cheek resting against his robes. She wanted to ask if his statement about privacy meant that he was going to leave the room for a bit, or let her take it home. She assumed the former, but hoped for the latter.

"Tell me what you're calculating in there?" Albus said, pulling back with his hands gentle on her shoulders as he looked in her eyes, then turned his gaze toward her forehead.

"I had already wanted to ask you something to do with the Pensieve, but now that I see it in person, I can't even imagine having the right to, honestly," she said truthfully.

"If you don't ask, you can't know what the true answer to your question is," Albus said. He produced another Phoenix-embroidered handkerchief for her.

"I'm going to have a collection of these one of these days, my friend," she said, sniffing and laughing at the same time.

"Minerva quite prizes hers," he told her with a beatific smile. "Ask me, my dear. If I need to say no to you, surely you can trust I will not crush your spirit beneath my slippers?"

Again, his ability to gently manipulate (or perhaps more accurately, maneuver) the people around him struck her as extraordinary. He had basically reminded her that her reticence could actually feel hurtful to the person on the other end of her unspoken question.

"All right," she said, dabbing at the corners of her eyes for the third time since she'd been given her latest Dumbledore handkerchief. "I struggled to figure out what to give my non-werewolf housemate," she said, catching herself before she spoke Sirius's name aloud. She remembered the way the portrait of her minor nemesis, Phineus Nigellus Black, had been used by Hermione to check up on the Headmaster's Office when it belonged to Severus Snape. The Headmasters' portraits weren't bound by any need to keep secrets. "I realized one of the best presents would be to let him actually see the First Task, in a Pensieve. Not only that, but he wouldn't be limited to just one perspective, then, would he?"

"He would not indeed! That is a kind and clever gift, Elodie," Albus said. He walked over to a thin cupboard made of the same wood as the table the Pensieve was sitting on. Inside a small door was a collection of vials, and he removed four. "Do you know how to remove a memory?" he asked her with a bright, pleased expression.

After a little under an hour, Elodie knew just how to target and duplicate a memory (without erasing it, which was also possible, but required a bit more precise magic than what Albus taught her to do in that short amount of time) to place it in a vial, so that she could swap memories in the Pensieve. He tied ribbons around the vials, so that Elodie could tell them apart. Then, he produced an interesting looking briefcase made of brass, into which he placed the Pensieve. The inside of the lid protruded into the basin in such a way that it formed a magical seal and preserved the liquid inside it. After she'd gotten a chance to take in all of this, Albus showed her a vial with a rich red colored ribbon on it, and told her it was his memory of the First Task. It was tucked into a little pocket inside the case that held it tightly, but showed the top part of the vial.

"I know this feels counter-intuitive to you, Ellie," Albus said. "But I promise you that you can carry this case by its handle. Nothing will be damaged, and the liquid inside is magically prevented from leaking."

He held out the gleaming brass case to her.

Elodie took a long, deep breath, and slotted her hand into the wide handle opening beside Dumbledore's pale, veiny hands. She couldn't remember which hand that would be damaged by the horcrux that would ultimately curse him. If there was a chance to prevent that, she would do almost anything.

"It weighs almost nothing!" she said. To her surprise, Albus's expression when he responded to her was very serious.

"The way a Pensieve carries weight has nothing to do with physical exertion. It can be addictive, and I want you to be aware of that, especially given the person you're wishing to share it with."

Her hand still outstretched, Elodie stared at the brass briefcase with new trepidation. Sirius was almost the original addictive personality in this universe, she thought. James Potter might have qualified for that title, once.

"I… may have some powers of persuasion when it comes to him, sir," Elodie said, unconsciously addressing him with the deference of a student, after the past hour they'd spent together. She didn't rush to correct herself. It seemed appropriate, today.

"I will come for it in just over a week's time, whether you two are finished or not. I look forward to seeing the peace and joy on both of your faces," Albus said. Then, gently, he placed one hand lightly on top of hers, and started guiding her hand down to her side, where she could more comfortably carry the Pensieve case.

Elodie didn't make an effort to hide what she was carrying when she went through the Floo to Phoenix House. She seriously doubted either man would know what the container had inside it, and at least one of them would probably too drunk to care.

"Is that a tuba?" Sirius asked her after she came out of the fireplace. Elodie caught Remus's eye, then, and she widened her eyes just slightly. He widened his almost imperceptibly back, and she couldn't suppress her giggle.

"Not a tuba, Padfoot," Remus said. "You were saying, about James?"

"He cared too much about his hair," Sirius said. "So naturally I went in the other direction. THAT is why he got antlers."

Elodie felt like she'd never experienced an event that made her feel simultaneously more informed and stupider, all at the same time. "Good night, you two," she said, picking her way past where they were sitting on the floor propped up against the couch, legs splayed every which way.

Sirius called after her when she was almost at the bottom, but she didn't hear him and she wasn't about to go back up. When she sat the Pensieve case down next to the wall in her room, she was caught by a yawn that felt like it could have snapped her head in half. There was no way she was going to mess with something as valuable as a Pensieve when she was that tired.

As a habit, she didn't cast silencing charms before sleeping, and it seemed that neither of her housemates had cast any before starting to drink. There was something really comforting about hearing just a bit of their voices, hardly more than the cadence of speech, from her room underneath them, so Elodie didn't cast anything tonight, either. She fell asleep thinking about the fun she was going to have watching Sirius's reaction when he realized he had Albus's memory of the First Task to watch.

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Elodie woke on Christmas morning 1994 with almost as much excitement as she had the first go-around. As a twenty-one year old still living at home, with one semester left at college to go and an acceptance letter for the job she'd applied for in advance guaranteed on graduation, all of her hard work had been about to come to fruition. She'd crammed as many classes into her free time as she could to graduate a year early, back then. Now, as a thirty-six year old witch, she was waking up in the house she shared with two of her favorite people in the world, and she was finally at a point in her magic and potion studies where she felt like she had a right to call herself an adult witch. Sure, she'd been having fun this whole time, but she'd also studied a great deal, and there was something really satisfying about coming to the conclusion that those studies had been fruitful.

Eight o'clock seemed reasonable enough as an adult to sleep in, so Elodie got up and dressed in her green Christmas dress, complete with embroidered and sewed-on embellishments as 'ornaments' for the human Christmas tree she was, today. She grabbed the wrapped present she had, the one for Remus. The brassy golden color of the Pensieve case seemed Christmasy enough on its own, so she didn't wrap it.

Then, something occurred to her. She set the case out on her bed, making sure it was flat, and when she opened it, she quickly retrieved the vials tha Albus had given her. They all had different ribbons on them, probably to differentiate the various people whose memories would go inside. Elodie grabbed the deep black one and took out her wand before she took a look at the Pensieve. As she'd remembered, there was a hazy kind of mist that hung over the 'water' inside it, and she was absolutely certain there was a memory already active inside. As much as she wanted to snoop right now (and she knew she was going to snoop, because Albus was kind of neglectful of some things in life, but he wasn't negligent), she had no idea what this memory was, and she wasn't prepared to find out at this moment in time.

As Albus had taught her, she cast a soft incantation and the wand movement she made helped gather up the mist into a wide ribbon of memory, which she gently tucked into the vial with the black ribbon. Elodie took this and put it in a second, almost hidden pocket in the case. Then, she looked at the ribbons that were left. Silver, Gold, Blue, and Green.

She rolled her eyes. Sometimes the Hogwarts fixation on House separation really did bleed over into everything! Elodie picked up the green one and focused on her memory of the First Task, lifting her wand and casting the extraction spell. There was a strange, cold feeling in her forehead as the memory collected on her wand tip. Then she placed it inside the vial, tucking it in the half-visible pocket, beside Albus's crimson ribboned memory of the same event. That was part of Sirius's present, though she wouldn't blame him if he'd choose Remus's memories instead of hers.

When she was done fiddling with the vials, Elodie shut the case carefully and gingerly lifted it by the handle, half expecting some sort of leakage despite the magical and mechanical protection from the case. She shook her head at herself and headed upstairs.

As soon as Elodie pushed the door to the kitchen open, she smelled cinnamon bread. Remus had remembered! She'd made the dough two days prior and frozen it, leaving a note on the freezer that explained how to bake it if either of the men woke up before her on Christmas morning. She knew it was Remus because she'd seen Sirius reading the note she'd left for them, frowning, and then taking one of Remus's gift quills from the box at his chair and scratching out his own name.

Sirius had turned around to see her standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips.

"You don't want me to ruin the cinnamon bread, Ellie," he'd protested.

"You wouldn't ruin it, you know. All you have to do is charm the oven to a particular temperature and put the frozen loaf in the baking tin."

"What's a baking tin?" he'd asked her, grinning. At that, she'd conceded the point.

Now, Elodie closed her eyes and breathed in happily. "Thank you, Remus!" she called out.

"You're welcome!" she heard him say, probably from his chair. She walked into the living room, focused on her spot on the couch, setting down the two objects she was holding before she practically ran back into the kitchen for two thick slices of warm cinnamon bread.

"I am a genius," she said on her way back, walking slowly, savoring the sugary treat.

"I'm inclined to agree," Remus said. "Is it too much to hope that my present is more of those amazing biscuits from fifteen days ago?"

Elodie stopped in her tracks. "Did you-" she stopped talking as she counted in her head. "You kept track of how long ago that was?!"

Remus looked a bit guilty. "Yes?"

"That's not the present, sorry. I think you'd remember me baking that again, it does take a while!" Not to mention the fact that Elodie wasn't sure what she'd be focused on if she made them again. She hadn't deliberately concentrated on both men last time, so what would happen with the recipe if she did that the second time? Then, she thought about the time he'd spent at his job recently. He'd been gone all day. "Wow, I completely missed that you spent the whole day at work just to give me a chance to bake them, am I right?"

"Good morning, Sirius!" Remus said. The impudent look on his face told her he knew he was dodging her, and he knew she knew he was dodging her.

"Well, Merry Christmas twice, then. I'll let that one go," she said in a gracious voice.

"Happy Christmas, Gits!" Sirius announced cheerfully. "Wow, you're a tree."

"You gave him Firewhiskey and an executive Sober Up Potion for Christmas," Elodie said to Remus, not even bothering to make it a question.

"I did," Remus nodded.

"He's the best," Sirius announced. "That's why I'm giving him two presents. And I'm telling him that you encouraged me to give him something personally encouraging, even though you were going to let me have all the credit."

"Sirius!" Elodie protested when he started speaking, but she was gratified that, while he'd skirted the secrecy she'd sworn him to, he didn't come close to giving it away. She walked away from where she was standing by Remus so that Sirius could take her place.

To her great surprise, Sirius went into the kitchen and pulled over a chair so he could sit near Remus. When she caught a glimpse of Remus's face, he looked like he knew he was in for something with heavy emotional weight. He was wearing a tremulous smile, and there was so much affection on his face for Sirius that it made Elodie blush from across the room. She knew that reaction was because there were still parts of her that wished he would look at her like that, but it was also because Remus had a way of exhibiting certain things that other men sought to hide. Despite the way he kept from showing outward romantic emotions (and she wasn't going to wonder, today of all days, whether he felt them to display them in the first place), he had a confidence in showing other positive emotions, like pride or camaraderie.

Elodie felt a very great pang in her heart at the idea that Remus would have been a wonderful role model for Harry in that regard. The brotherly love that showed up in fanfiction written about the Marauders as young men couldn't be all fanon, Elodie felt. She could see some of it happening right in front of her.

"Right, so I actually had some forethought, so Ellie, there's a copy of this parchment by your chair, and I have one in my pocket, so Remus, you can read this as slow or as fast as you want to," Sirius said, holding up the letter that Elodie knew Harry had sent him by request.

Remus reached for the letter, and Sirius lifted it out of his grasp for a second, and tsked at him.

"I still have set up to do, be patient," Sirius chided Remus. He held his expression of chastisement for a beat longer than felt necessary, and all three of them laughed. "So, your present," Sirius said. "There was a lot going on the night we were in the Shack together, at Hogwarts. I don't think you know everything about what happened that night, and you should, Remus."

Remus shook his head just slightly, and Sirius reached out and clasped his shoulder.

"Don't. Don't feel guilty. I can see it on your face, and that's what this-" and here, Sirius shook the rolled up parchment in his other hand "-is all about. You don't know all the good you did, starting months before all of that happened. You should know about it, so here. Read this."

"I-" Remus started to say, but Sirius, being Sirius, cuffed him on the side of his head, hopefully not as hard as it looked to Elodie from across the room. "Okay." Remus said, his hair tousled from the smack. He slid the ribbon off of the scroll and unfurled it a bit, at the top.

"It's from Harry," Sirius said.

Remus looked from the first few lines of the letter over to Sirius, then to Elodie, then he closed his eyes for a second. Then, he started reading.

Elodie reached over and grabbed her scroll, but she could see that Remus was anxious, and her movement had drawn his attention. She didn't think she could start reading without making Remus self-conscious, so instead, she watched his face. Sirius did the same.

At first, Remus looked a bit worried. She didn't blame him. Elodie didn't know exactly where Harry started his narrative, but that had been a fraught night for Remus no matter where Harry started, really. After the scroll started to curl up at the top, Remus drew in a sharp breath and then held his fist up to his lips, his first finger resting, bent, against them. A few seconds after that, Remus set down the scroll and reached over to Sirius, placing a heavy hand at the join where his neck met his torso. He didn't say anything, but the look that passed between them had a lot of meaning in it.

"Keep reading, Moony," Sirius said to him in a near whisper. "I'm still here."

Remus's face twisted up for a second, but he left his hand where it was, picking up the scroll with his other hand. He finished reading and let out a long, ragged breath.

"This is where I tell you that you saved me by being you, Remus. You taught him that spell. Thirteen year old boys don't learn to cast a Patronus." Sirius reached up for Remus's hand at his collarbone, but she couldn't see from her vantage point. "Because I'm me, my present is selfish. I need you to stop regretting everything about that night, okay?"

"Is that all?" Remus rasped out.

"Final offer," Sirius said. "Okay, Ellie, did you get me something?"

"Really?" Elodie said, incredulous. "You don't want to, I don't know, let that moment sit and breathe a little?"

"I like presents!" Sirius said, pretending to be whiny. At least, she hoped he was pretending.

"No, you got a present, I got a present, it's her turn," Remus said, brushing a thumb over a section of Harry's letter and then rolling it up and putting it into an inside pocket of his vest.

"I'm fine just sitting and finishing my cinnamon bread, for the record," Elodie said, holding up both hands in surrender.

Remus stood up and walked over with something in his hand anyway. "When you're done, then." He handed her something that was undoubtedly a book, and she tried to look cross at him for giving it to her despite her protestations, but it was a book from Remus, so she had no hope of being genuinely cross.

She finished the bite, cast a spell to clean her hands, and started opening the present.

At first, Elodie was a bit confused, and very mildly disappointed. The book was The Wizard of OZ, which wasn't her favorite, though she supposed she enjoyed it. The cover was enchanted, which was kind of cool, but she couldn't help but look over at Remus, confused.

"You asked about any witch or wizard authors who also publish Muggle novels," Remus said to her, a look of anticipation in his eyes.

"Oh!" she said, finally understanding.

"There's more," he said, coming over and sitting beside her on the very edge of the couch. "May I?" he asked, before he reached for the book.

"Of course!"

"So, on the inside cover of the book is something you may not have seen as a child, it's charmed so that you can personalize the illustrations inside. Sirius, do me a favor?" Remus said.

His hand was holding the book open, which meant his arm was pressing against hers where she was holding it steady, on her lap. After a glance at the cover, and seeing that Remus was holding his wand with his non dominant hand, Elodie immediately realized what was happening. There was a place to tap your wand, with an incantation to speak while pointing that wand at your family pet, so that the book could charm the illustrations inside the book to conform to the image of your pet.

Elodie was pretty sure Remus was trying to get Padfoot's image into the book. As Toto.

"Why?" Sirius said, looking at the two of them suspiciously. Elodie brushed her arm up against Remus's in a gesture of solidarity and understanding. She shot a glance over at him and saw that his face was a picture of innocence.

"It's for my book, Sirius," Elodie cajoled him. "Please?"

"Two people I care most about in the world besides Harry, and they're planning something," Sirius muttered. "Fine. If it can use the image, I'm sure it can erase the image." He stood up from the chair he was still sitting in, and in seconds he'd transformed fully into Padfoot.

Remus tapped his wand, spoke the incantation (after swapping his wand to his dominant hand, which told Elodie he hadn't actually expected Sirius to comply), and a yellow light shone around Padfoot for a few seconds before it shot into the book on her lap. She felt the magical surge and opened the book to the middle, hoping to see a miniature Padfoot following behind Dorothy Gale.

He was not miniature, though. He was life sized, about half the size of Dorothy, but it was a complete delight to see the animated drawing of Padfoot beside her. The charms were so expertly cast that Dorothy leaned over to give him a pat, and it was perfectly aligned.

"This book is amazing!" Elodie said to Remus beside her. "Look, Sirius! Not anything shameful at all, I'd say!"

As Sirius came over, Remus lifted the book out of the way as fast as he could before Padfoot jumped up onto her with all four paws and started licking her face.

She probably should have seen that coming, Elodie realized.

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Remus's gift to Sirius was a custom-made Glamour spell that completely changed what Sirius looked like along with claiming to change some aspects of his 'magical signature' (something Elodie had never heard of; she hoped that Remus hadn't fallen for a magical version of snake oil). It was the kind of spell, Remus said, that famous witches and wizards used to help disguise themselves in public. Celestina Warbeck was a proponent of the spell, and she helped sell the licenses to cast it.

Elodie hadn't heard of anything like this, so she was fascinated by the whole idea. She again lamented the fact that she couldn't Google anything to figure out what it was. Spells like these were relatively new, from the past decade, so a lot of the books she'd been borrowing from the library had nothing about them, either. The concept was that, just like the spells she'd seen being hawked by the pushy salesperson in the home goods store, some spells were too complex to be used everyday. They were in some ways the opposite of things like Lumos, which were useful at many points and easy to cast and remember. A spell to convert a Muggle dryer to be used with magic was the kind of spell that one might have to call in a specialist to perform-unless you could buy a one-time-use 'proxy' to help you cast it. Such proxies were a magical mechanism to enable a person to cast something they wouldn't normally be able to, and the proxy framework was perishable. This kept whatever magical trademark that existed for the spell, enabling its creator to make money from their efforts, in a way that Levina Monkstanley wouldn't have been able to gain from Lumos.

The Glamour Remus gave to Sirius was a license for ten spellcastings, and the 'look' that would be gained from casting it was, apparently, one of the most rare ones. Elodie supposed that springing for a rarer disguise made more sense, because if the Aurors were looking for someone, they would probably know to look for someone wearing one of those kinds of disguises. At the same time, she was surprised that Remus would be more willing to trust a magical disguise that was known to be a magical disguise, more than a potion that was also guaranteed to conceal someone's identity.

Then again, ever since Remus's extreme reaction to her Polyjuice gift idea, she'd been trying to think of possible reasons why it was a bad idea, and one of the things she'd realized was that there was quite a small number of people Sirius could have impersonated anyway.

Of course Sirius wanted to try his gift out right away, and when cast, the Glamour turned him into a fifty-five year old aging Muggle, complete with patched leather jacket, holey jeans, grey facial hair, and a bald spot. He looked like a grandpa who was going through a late mid-life crisis, and it was so nondescript and perfect that Elodie walked over to Remus and gave him a heartfelt side hug.

"Thank you for this," she said to him in an emotional whisper as they stood outside and watched Old Man Muggle Sirius hop onto his motorcycle.

"I gave him a map with all the nearby roads on it, too," Remus said. His voice wavered a little, uncertain and proud, all at once. "I really hope this wasn't a bad decision."

Remus stayed outside in the chill wind, but given that she was wearing a dress, she headed inside. With Sirius out from underfoot, she decided to set up the Pensieve in his bedroom, so that he could view the memories she'd collected for him at his leisure. She carried the Pensieve case into Sirius's bedroom and looked around, trying to decide how best to place it. There was a chair she didn't recognize, and before she grabbed it to transfigure it into a table for the Pensieve, Elodie stopped herself. She didn't actually know whether transfigured items lost integrity or could revert back if they were transfigured into successive objects, so rather than risk the priceless Pensieve, she went back down to the basement and grabbed the chair in the potions lab.

Elodie had carried the damned thing all the way from the basement into Sirius's bedroom before she realized she could have miniaturized it and saved herself all of that grief. The table she transfigured it into was pretty snazzy, though.

After she set down the case on Sirius's bed and opened it, Elodie looked at the Pensieve and made a face. Logic told her that she should carry it bodily over to set it on the table. She could trust her two hands more than she should trust an unseen force, right? But magic was likely the safest means of transporting it. Magic didn't need to be calibrated differently for weight, not at this level, anyway.

Elodie could recognize the derailing train of thought that would result if she went down that path. Was there a level at which levitation needed a heftier spell? After all, Wingardium Leviosa was a trivial, child's spell. If a witch needed to move a cargo plane, for example, surely a spell learned in one's first year at Hogwarts wouldn't be used?

Her eyes lit on the pocket on the brass case that contained already full memory vials. She walked over and looked out of Sirius's bedroom window, but it was faced away from the front of the house, and she saw neither one of her housemates. The gift of memories for Sirius was a surprise, and she didn't want to reveal that surprise by way of Sirius coming home, only to head into his bedroom and find Elodie with her head in a Pensieve! She decided it would be best to wait to view her own Christmas present memory from Albus until after Sirius was able to see his.

Besides, she wasn't sure her emotions were up for that kind of a birthday present. Elodie had lived so many years as an adult without her mom around anymore that she hadn't even really contemplated having her mom back, when she'd first arrived. She hadn't planned for Thanksgiving (which she just realized she'd totally missed), she hadn't thought about Christmas, how she'd have her mom again.

And then, just like that, she didn't.

Elodie held the vial close to her heart for a second, then lifted it close to her face, looking at the swirling mist inside. From the books, she knew that when she eventually stepped into the memory, it would be like literally stepping into her mother's hospital room, whatever that might be like in a magical setting. All at once, Elodie wondered if the memory vials were special in some way, and if so, if she could ask Albus if she could have twenty, thirty more. She wanted to preserve her Muggle life, just a little bit, in those vials, considering that Marcos Francis was now dead.

A light knock on the door had her turning her head to see Remus stepping inside.

"A Pensieve! Now that is a gift," he said.

"A loan, really. But I think you meant the memories, anyway," she guessed.

"I did. Is this your present to him? From both you and Albus?" Remus asked her, coming over and skimming his hand a few inches above the rim.

"I asked Albus if I could borrow it. He gave me his memory of the First Task, for Sirius, so a bit of both, I guess?" she said. Somehow, sharing the present made it feel less thoughtful, which she knew was silly. She wasn't going to somehow get her hands on a Pensieve without Albus Dumbledore's help, after all.

"Elodie, were you worrying about how to move this to the stand, over there?"

She looked down and fiddled with the empty vials for a moment before answering. "Yes."

"Will you let me do it for you?"

"Yes."

The Pensieve didn't wobble or sway at all when Remus used magic to move it. After it was settled on the stand, Elodie reached into the pocket with the empty vials and showed Remus his options.

"Pick one? Do you know how to put a memory inside?"

To her great surprise, Remus sagged a bit at the suggestion. It was only a few seconds, but it set off alarm bells for her. She didn't want to ask him about it, but then realized that this instinct was from before, when she had habitually hesitated to press him on anything emotional lest she help him mortar the bricks in his wall against emotional attachments. Now, she felt more empowered, both to ask, and to knock down those bricks as he constructed it.

"Did-" she stopped, trying to think up the phrasing before asking him such a personal question. "They questioned you about the Secret Keeper, I assume. They used a Pensieve?"

Remus put a hand on the wall and looked at her, surprised.

"To remind you, I read a lot about that stuff, in my first weeks in the UK."

"They used a Pensieve, yes. I-" he pushed off the wall and walked over into the middle of the room, his back to it and her. "It's easier, when you can extract the memories yourself. I'll leave it at that."

She walked over to him and hugged an arm around his waist. "Well in that case, I have good news. Except for the height difference, our view of the First Task is almost identical. So your memories are not required." Remus had moved his arm when she'd come up to him, and how he hugged her to him briefly before moving away, toward the door.

"I hear an engine. I don't mind doing the memory, but… later?" he asked her with a thin smile.

"Absolutely," she said. "Can you stall Sirius, before he 'takes off' the Glamour?" she said after hearing the engine sounds coming closer.

"Yes?" Remus said, but his answer was also a question.

"I have a camera," she told him, simply.