Chapter Thirty Five: Lycanthrope

Remus

March 1979, Ministry of Magic, London

"I know what you are." The tall, fair-haired man got far too close to Remus as he spoke, leaning into Remus' desk so his hair dripped onto it and Remus could smell the onion on his breath. "And you'll pay for it."

"You don't know anything," said Remus, as mildly as he could manage. His quill paused on the parchment he was writing on, but he didn't lift the tip. This report was important. He'd managed a promotion, after only three months on reception, and nobody had fired him for excessive sickness. He needed to do this. "I don't know what you're talking about, either."

The other man had drawn his wand, and Remus thought he saw the hint of a dark tattoo on his pale forearm as he raised the wand into Remus' face. The man was a boss of Remus'. Someone who gave him work. He needed to remain calm; he needed to keep this job.

"Fucking half-breed," he spat, the flecks hitting Remus in the face. "Ought to be put down. The Dark Lord wants your sort, though, and if I bring him one I'll be rewarded. So don't worry, you're not dying today."

"Get off my desk," said Remus, quietly. He didn't think the man would do anything, not here, not in a little corner of the Ministry. While it was not a busy corner, somebody would require something of the Administrative Support Assistant for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes a few times an hour. If Remus had been off to apprehend someone at their place of work, he'd have researched their usual working practises first. So it was unlikely he would attack.

It was almost always more sensible to ambush somebody in or on their way to the toilets.

"No," said the man. "Why should I?"

"I've got work to do," said Remus. "Sorry." His heart rate was rising, he wanted nothing more than to hex the man into the wall.

"Oh, he's got a job," scoffed the man. "Do you think your lot deserve them? Do you think you'd keep it if I shouted out the word," and he leant into whisper it, "werewolf, here and now?"

No, was the honest answer, but Remus shrugged.

"You wouldn't." he said, and then raised his wand further. "A little bit of a lesson, I think."

Remus' wand was in his pocket, and he knew he wouldn't reach it in time, so instead he punched the man, hard, in the nose as he raised his wand, so when the spell shot out it went into the ceiling, bursting a hole into the whitewashed ceiling. The man growled (and who was the animal here, Remus wondered), and tried again, jabbing Remus with the wand as he cast a painful curse. This one unfortunately found it's mark, and Remus toppled backwards off the chair.

He scrambled backwards, away from the man who was launching himself at him, punching him once more in the face as he searched for his wand in his robes. He belatedly remembered that the man's name was Thorfinn Rowle, and that he worked in this department. Remus had authored a report for him, last week. And now he was on top of Remus, squashing him, forcing the air out of his chest and dripping blood from his nose.

"Stupefy!" the grinning Rowle shouted again, and the spell hit Remus.

He came to with the Head of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes standing over him. The balding, overweight wizard was almost a foot shorter than Remus was, and so he was also dwarfed by Thorfinn Rowle. Rowle's face wore a smaller grin than before, and drips of blood had dried onto it, but he was still grinning.

"I would like your explanation of today's events," said the Head of Department, his eyes fixed on Remus.

"He attacked me," said Remus, instantly. "I don't know why." He knew exactly why.

"His version," said the Head of Department, primly, "is that you attacked him, and that you have not produced any of the reports he has asked you for over the past week. He also has some highly disturbing allegations about you. It is your choice whether I sack you now, or whether I suspend you pending an investigation into those allegations."

So Remus was given enough time to collect his favourite quill from the floor beside his former desk and his tattered cloak, and then he was escorted from the Ministry of Magic having been fired for fighting a colleague during work time. It was true, so there hadn't been much Remus could do about it. If anyone had looked at his Hogwarts record, they would have seen twenty-seven detentions for fighting, so it was not even surprising.

It was becoming less surprising to be sacked, but he had liked this job.

He was left by the security wizards in the street outside the entrances to the Ministry of Magic, the quill tucked in his robes pocket and his cloak over his arm.

"Don't bother applying again," said the wider of the two wizards, and they went back inside.

Remus supposed he would go home.

He took a long way home, Apparating to a nameless town and buying a cup of tea from the shabby Muggle cafe on the corner of the high street and the road with the church on. He sat and drank it listening to a woman argue with her two children, one in a red school jumper and the other young enough not to attend school. He wondered what he would say to Philomena when she asked how his job was going. She'd looked happy for him when he'd announced his promotion, and now, two weeks later, he would have to reveal he was fired.

Again. Although he'd glossed over the rest of the times he'd been fired, in the months since he had left Hogwarts.

Oh Merlin, how did he ever think an attractive, clever woman, and one who would stand up against Death Eaters the way she did, would ever want a man like him?

The cafe owner asked if he could get Remus another drink, which was the universal code for 'buy another drink, or leave'. And, having been sacked, Remus couldn't really afford another drink, so he left.

With that thought, he went home, because having to explain to everyone that he had been fired was better than spending all of his last pay packet and having to beg for food from his friends. It wasn't that they would make him beg, Sirius and James with their inherited wealth and Peter with his job that nobody ever sacked him from, but that he would feel like he was every time he checked if he could have a slice of bread. They'd always tell him he didn't have to ask, but he did, every time. He'd live on toast rather than ask for anything else.

"You're early," said James, spread over the floor surrounded by annotated maps, and notes he'd taken on the maps. "Things alright at the office?"

"Got sacked," said Remus.

"Shit," said James. "I'm sorry to hear it."

Remus was grateful that James didn't say 'we'll look after you', because that would make him feel like a charity case. James collected charity cases, Sirius who had no parents, Peter who needed help with schoolwork, and Remus, the half-breed with no future.

He'd have to tell Philomena tonight that there would be no more dates. It was the best way.

"And don't you dare think of trying to let that girl of yours down gently," said James. "You're onto a good one, there."

"You just have a thing about gingers," said Remus, because making a flippant comment like that was easier than having to take James' words seriously and think about them and consider his options. He was almost always sure he didn't have options.

"She's clearly auburn," said James. "Lily is ginger. And that's not my point, which you know, my slippery, furry friend. She won't have a problem with your furriness, is what I mean."

"If you've told her," growled Remus.

"I'd never betray your trust," said James, and Remus knew he was telling the truth. "None of us would. Marauder honour, you know us." Sirius had, Remus remembered, and that was likely how Thorfinn Rowle had known what he was. Snivellus had told him. Snape was a Death Eater now, he'd been seen enough times that it was certain. And Rowle was rumoured to be one, had been seen on one raid, and there was that hint of a tattoo.

"Besides," continued James, "you know when she was here the other night? After that meeting with Moody and Caradoc? While you were debating strategy with Moody and Pads, Caradoc mentioned something to me about the werewolves, and she went off on a rant about how they'd completely misunderstood by society and are as human as anybody else. So there."

Remus opened his mouth to argue.

"Remus," said James. "Don't be a twat."

The door opened, and Peter's voice rang through it. "Who are we calling a twat? Please say it's Sirius. He's been using my toothbrush again, I know he has."

"It's Remus," said James.

"Oh, that's disappointing," said Peter. "I like calling Sirius a twat. Maybe I'll do it anyway, later."

"I don't like calling Sirius a twat," said Sirius, appearing from upstairs. "Did I hear you say you'd been fired, Moony?"

Remus nodded.

"In that case," said Peter, "let's call the Ministry a twat instead. Twats, maybe. I'm happy to switch from calling Sirius a twat, even though that reduces my personal enjoyment, to shouting at a faceless organisation that so rudely sacked our Moons."

"We were never calling Sirius a twat," said Sirius, shaking his head at Peter. "We never do that."

"We do that all the time," said James. "Like for treading on my maps. Which you are doing, right now."

Remus thought the word twat was beginning to lose all meaning, but his friends were making him feel better, so that was a positive.

In the end, they got him truly, horrifically drunk, and he passed out in the garden wearing Peter's suede jacket.

This time, he awoke with a soft layer of dew over him, and a freeze in his bones. He was used to both of those, from the morning after a full moon. What he was not used to was the auburn-haired woman, sat next to him with her head down over a notebook. Philomena's parents were a Squib and a Muggle, so of course she would know about notebooks and pens. It was spiral-bound, and narrow-ruled, the same as his mother used to use for shopping lists and the like. Except that his mother's handwriting had remained within the lines, and Philomena's took up two or three.

"Morning," she said. "I heard you lost your job."

"A little bit," he said.

"How do you lose your job a little bit?"

"Punched a superior. Twice."

"Ah, yeah. That tends to result in a lost job." She looked as though she was remembering something. "I once knew somebody who was promoted for killing his boss. Maybe try that, next time?"

Remus picked himself up, blinking. "That doesn't sound plausible."

She put the notebook away, into a pocket that was too small for it to fit. "There were a lot of implausible things going on in that time of my life."

"When you were with the Muggles?" he asked.

"My family have a way of dragging themselves into problems," she said. "And I think that applies of the magical part of my family, too."

Remus felt like that, but about his friends.

"How did you know I'd been sacked?" he asked, as his brain cleared a little bit.

"Hangover potion," she said, handing him a vial, which wasn't the answer to his question. "And I always find out things. Someone told me. One of your friends."

Remus had checked her background carefully. He'd done it before Moody told him to, back when they had first met when he'd been investigating that Death Eater property in Cumbria. He'd told Moody about the encounter with the Muggleborn wizard and Philomena and the woman that worked in the Records department, and that one of them might prove to be useful. But before that, he'd looked into her, and then he'd done it properly, afterwards, when Moody had agreed that she would be useful.

It had felt fraudulent, especially as the last of the checks had only come back after he'd met Philomena Prewett twice, realised how pretty she was, and almost accidentally asked her out on a date to be sort of, but not quite, rejected. But Remus was good at this, the research (not the asking girls out, he was shit at that, and usually resorted to getting Sirius to do it for him, which was funny, because otherwise he was quite good at conflict). He was certain she was who she said she was, because everything added up.

But every so often, something didn't. Like how she didn't always answer a question simply, with a yes or no answer. She'd answer it with a side comment, instead, or something that seemed like an answer but wasn't quite. She would say strange things, sometimes, that implied she knew more than she did. But then, he'd met Pandora Lovegood, and Philomena made more sense than she did. Some people were just like that.

Or she'd taken Divination seriously, and Remus sort of hoped it wasn't that, because he didn't much like the idea of going on a date with somebody who liked Divination. Prophecies were a load of shit, and fortune telling was cheap tricks.

And she'd never satisfactorily explained why she was engaged but not engaged, to a man she could not contact but who she thought she might be able to at some unspecified point in the future. The engagement ring was sometimes there, on her right hand where it didn't belong, and sometimes it was not.

He'd asked Peter for advice, the only one who had really ever had a sensible relationship with women.

"It's wartime," Peter had said. "The boyfriend, fiance, whoever he may be, is probably in hiding, isn't he? There are so many wizards in hiding these days." Remus thought there was a lot of sense in that. "Else he's a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and off on some big mission," Peter had added. "Or a Death Eater. Let's hope it isn't that one, though."

Remus, also on the advice of Peter, didn't push the issue too much with Philomena. It didn't seem very sensitive.

Besides, he was keeping his big, furry secret from her, so she was entitled to a few of her own.

They went inside. It was unclear which of Remus' friends had contacted her, given their current states. It would not have been Sirius. The man was passed out, face down on the sofa, and Remus remembered seeing him in the same situation shortly before he went outside. An owl patronus sat next to him, its head tucked under its wing but it's eyes clearly watching. Moody's patronus. Sirius was in for it when he woke.

James wasn't anywhere to be seen downstairs, and Peter was sat at the kitchen table looking the worse for wear, half propped over a bowl of cornflakes. Opposite him was Dorcas Meadowes, the annoying, overly cheery woman that had somehow risen to become the third-in-command of the Order of the Phoenix. Remus didn't exactly dislike her, but she wasn't on his favourites list, either. He didn't know why she had to be at his table, even if she was somewhat of a key part of Peter's current investigation.

"Morning!" chirped Dorcas, and although the hangover potion was doing its work Remus still felt his headache worsen at the sound of her voice.

"Evening," said Remus, and Philomena laughed.

"Philomena Prewett," she said, holding out a hand to the dark-haired woman at the table. The hair had more grey in it than it had when Remus had first met her.

"Dorcas Meadowes," she responded. "Pleased to meet you. What is it with men, eh? I know we're all drinking, because of this confounded war, but fuck me, they manage to cope with the effects of the drinking terribly."

"I'd rather not," said Remus. He didn't think this was a proposition, but he didn't think he could be too careful.

"Officially, Dorcas is a Healer," said Peter, who at least remembered his courtesies in the depths of his hangover. "But she's also been doing some digging at St Mungo's for me. She's in charge of the Order, or we all think she is, anyway. Philomena is a new recruit, and has something going on with Remus. Nobody's sure what. She's been helping with the basic stuff for now, but we're hoping to get her into the field hospital with you, Dorcas."

Remus was certain he heard Peter mutter something as he walked past on his way to put the kettle on the stove. "We'd know what if Moony pulled his head out his underweight arse," was what he thought he had heard.

"Oh, excellent," bounced Dorcas, going over to hug Philomena. "I've been hearing about you from Moody. He says you're competent, which is glowing praise from that old bastard."

"We think Dorcas is in love with Moody," Peter supplied.

"He has a certain charm," said Dorcas, winking at Peter. Despite being ten years Remus' senior, that still left her several decades short of Moody's age, even at the lower end of the range they could guess in. He'd never told anybody his real date of birth, as far as Remus knew.

"It's like fucking Kings Cross in here," said James, yawning as he walked through the kitchen door. "And Moody's patronus has done a shit on the rug. Did you know patronuses could shit, Moons?"

"They can't," said Remus, thinking that if his life got any more surreal, or irritating, before ten o'clock in the morning on a Wednesday, then he'd go and join a monastery.

"Patroni," said Dorcas. "It ought to be patroni."

It didn't.

"If anyone's could, it would be Moody's," said Philomena.

"How do you know?" Remus asked. That was the other thing he didn't entirely understand about her. She seemed to know things about people she'd only just met.

"Oh come on," she said. "He defies laws of nature, and he's the grumpiest bugger I've ever met."

"The girl is right," said James, sagely. "Oh, fucking hell, what are you doing here, Dorcas?" He checked his watch, the twin of Sirius' fancy Potter heirloom watch. Peter had a less fancy one. Nobody had given Remus Lupin a watch for his seventeenth birthday. "Shouldn't you and Pete be at work?"

"Working from home," said Peter.

"Out on a house call," said Dorcas.

"In my fucking kitchen, too," said Remus, who just wanted everybody out now. Not that he planned to say that.

"Sirius' kitchen," said James. "Although all of the actual useful kitchenware belongs to me."

"Why is an owl shitting on my head?" shouted Sirius, from the living room, as the patronus began to bark it's message over the top of him and Philomena, inexplicably, doubled over laughing, clutching the edge of the table to keep herself upright. Next to her, Dorcas was struggling to breathe through her own laughter. Remus accepted a mug of coffee from Peter, sipped it, and then slammed it down, having forgotten that he hated coffee.

They sat on the wall outside later, Philomena and Remus, twenty-four hours almost from the point where he had been sacked. They had gone outside to get away from all the people in the house, even if it had now almost emptied. Peter and Dorcas had gone back to work, now. James was visiting Lily and Sirius had disappeared to stalk out a business in Diagon Alley that was suspected to be harbouring a Death Eater in the flat above. So it was just him and Philomena, who didn't seem like she had anywhere else she was supposed to be.

"My friends are idiots," he said.

"So are mine," she said. "I quite like yours."

"James is an arrogant fucker," said Remus, "and he has no idea when he isn't wanted. He drinks too much, and he's obsessed with Lily to the point where it's nauseating. Sirius is also arrogant and drinks too much, but he doesn't actually like himself so he needs constant fucking reassurance. He's obsessed with every woman he meets, but he's terrified of rejection so he dumps them before they can dump him. He and James are clearly codependent, but neither will admit it. Peter is unhelpful, nosy, and messy. He's all nonchalant all day, and then he keeps you up all night talking about how he's terrified of death."

She was watching him with a look of humour on her face.

"They could all keep a job if they wanted to, but only Peter bothers, and he doesn't even try very hard at it. He's never even been in trouble at work. And I try, and I keep getting sacked. None of them ever replace the toilet roll." He paused. "I don't know what I'd do without them."

"Sounds like friends," she said. "I have the most irritating friends, though. One of them sounds a lot like your Sirius, except he's got some issue with his brother, too. One of them is an insufferable control freak, who has literally no idea how to think and the other is a font of ridiculous ideas that never, ever will work and yet somehow seem to. She's obsessed with divination, and the other two don't believe in it."

"Friends," said Remus. "Who'd have them?"

Sirius had an issue with his brother.

"What do you think they'd say about us?" she asked. "Personally, I think mine would say I'm a bit quick to anger, lazy, like Quidditch too much, and am both too flexible in my interpretation of the rules and far too interested to sticking to them, depending who you ask."

"Mopey," Remus decided. "No idea of what I'm actually worth to society. A tendency to catastrophism. Irrational. Tries too hard to be liked."

They were all things that his friends had said to him. It was fair enough, though, Remus wasn't offended. He'd said everything he'd said to Philomena about his friends to their faces, too. James freely admitted to all of his faults, plus a long list more, except for the codependency with Sirius.

"Sounds about right," said Philomena, but before Remus could ask why he was saying things like that again, Sirius' Patronus swooped in to disturb their calm.

"Come quickly," was all it said, in the tone of voice that meant he was having a real crisis, not one about a girl or his family.

"Do you want to?" asked Remus, but Philomena already had her wand out, and was holding his upper arm firmly.

"Apparate away," she said.

A shitstorm, that was the word to describe what they had landed in. Sirius was barely able to be seen across Diagon Alley. Four more members of the Order of the Phoenix battled the Death Eaters alongside him; James, Peter, Marlene and Dorcas. Remus dashed forwards to join the fight, and beside him, Philomena didn't hesitate to run with him.

He'd kiss her after this, he decided, if he survived. He always made himself a little promise for afterwards, if he survived.

"Thank fuck," James panted out, fighting two Death Eaters at once from his position behind a crate of potions supplies. "They're fucking - Stupefy! - everywhere, Remus."

James was right about that much. There might be seven members of the Order, now, but there were almost three times as many Death Eaters. It was as much as their side could do to prevent any major damage to civilians and to their own.

"Shit," said Dorcas, rolling in beside them. "Going to go cover Lily. Someone needs to watch Sirius." She popped up over the crate, cast several curses in quick succession, and rolled off behind an overturned barrel.

"I'll go," said Remus. He and James combined their spells to knock a Death Eater backwards and upwards, into a hanging sign above a robe shop Remus had never been into. Philomena was hexing another, his long blonde hair loose behind his mask. It was almost certain that it was Lucius Malfoy; nobody else had that sort of hair.

He made the dash across the Alley, dodging six curses and getting hit by two, thankfully minor, ones. He had seconds to inspect the damage before he was well into the fray of fighting. Sirius had worked his way up onto a ledge, and the Death Eaters seemed to be drawn to the target. He was raining down spells on them from above, and didn't seem like he was going to last much longer.

Remus went to climb up to join Sirius, when a hex collided with the side of his head and he fell to the floor, a tall, fair-haired man was standing over him.

"Like what I did yesterday?"

Remus used the most painful hex he could think of on Thorfinn Rowle's balls.

"I can play like that, too." A flick of Rowle's wand, and Remus' own balls felt as though they were on fire.

He didn't let it show. "Fuck off, Rowle," he said, raising his wand again. But Rowle was faster, and Remus' wand arced out of his hand.

"Okay. I'll make this quick. You stay part of this Order, I'm going to destroy you. You got a mum? A dad? Some girl? I saw the way you were looking at that ginger bitch, a moment ago. She your girl?"

"No," said Remus.

"Well," said Rowle. "I'm going to do my best to find, and kill, everybody that matters to you. Or, you join us. We've got uses for someone of your skills. A werewolf, that is." At Remus' flinch, he continued. "That the curse, or you just don't like the word? Werewolf. That's what you've got a problem with?"

"No."

Rowle leant in. "I wouldn't associate with shit like you. But we'll let you do things that Order lot never will. You'll get freedom, and, you never know, someone might not think you're shit there. You think that ginger will want anything to do with you when she finds out you're a werewolf? I'd join us now. Maybe I'll tell her, give her a chance to dump you before I kill her."

Remus scrambled around for his wand, and was saved from needing it by Sirius and his leap from the ledge, down onto Rowle's back. Sirius was tangled into the Death Eater's robes, and Remus pulled Rowle's wand from his hand and Stunned the man with his own wand.

"Nice one," said Sirius, once he'd extracted himself. "Dorcas would kill us if we killed him, right?"

"Yes," said Remus. "Roll him away." Truth be told, he was tempted, for the very first time in his life, to cast the Killing Curse. But that wouldn't help, it wouldn't make a difference for what he was, so Remus jumped back into the fray, leaving Sirius to disguise the body as they had been instructed by Moody. The Aurors could arrest him later, that way.

Remus would not kiss Philomena that night.

Ginny

March 1979, Diagon Alley, London

Ginny ducked down and surveyed the battle.

Lily and James were holding their own, Remus and Sirius too. Everyone else also seemed to be, since the reinforcements had arrived. Except for Peter.

He was fighting, yes, and he was doing a decent job. But Ginny had seen that sort of look on someone's face before. Hogwarts, sixth year. It was the one that someone had before they lost their resolve.

Dorcas was struggling a bit, but Ginny chose Peter.

"Stupefy!" she called, and one of Peter's opponents dropped to the floor. The second one spun, and she was forced to use a Shield Charm in defence instead of the curse she had planned. Peter took him down for her.

"Philomena!"

"Are you alright, Peter?" she shouted, dashing next to him.

"There's so many of them!"

"Come on, there's less than there was. Can you help me with something?"

"What?" Peter looked wary.

"There's a load of shoppers squirrelled away into the shops, isn't there? Shouldn't someone help get them out?"

"But the Death Eaters have blocked Apparition, and most of the shops don't have Floo!"

"We'll find a way," said Ginny, who had the beginnings of an idea.

She felt guilty about leaving Remus to it, when she saw some Death Eater targeting him. Sirius had his back, though, and James and Lily had each others, and Peter was out on his own.

"Okay," said Peter.

They ducked into a doorway, and as soon as they were into the shop Ginny realised that her plan had absolutely no hope of working. Hermione's plans would have worked. Luna's would have. Hers were a disaster.

There were twenty people crowded into the owl emporium, a mixture of adults and children. Several of them shrunk further back in amongst the owl trees and cages as Ginny and Peter slammed the door behind them, but one, familiar looking, boy edged his way forwards.

"You're not a bad guy."

"No, little lad, we're not," said Ginny, hoping that Peter would have a plan.

"I know you," he said. "You helped me when my Grandma died."

And Ginny remember who he was. Stephen Bridlington, the boy that had been supposed to die and that Hermione had saved.

"I did, and now we're going to help you again. This is Peter. He's helping you too."

"I forgot your name." Stephen still had a Quidditch figure clutched in his hand, the same as he had that night.

"I'm Philomena."

Stephen's mother, Helena, stepped up behind him. "Once again, I will need to thank you afterwards, although I had remembered your name differently."

"I went through a phase of using my middle name," Ginny lied, her palms sweating slightly. This was not going how she had intended it to in the slightest.

"Okay," said Peter, quietly, and when nobody listened he tried again. "Okay. Everyone. Could I have your attention, please? I think I have a way out."

And he did. Peter Pettigrew rounded all of the shoppers up, away from the door, and he lead them through the back of the shop and out through a warren of alleys and side streets onto the Muggle London streets.

"I do remember you," said Helena. "You were Ginny, then. I heard Hermione use it." Her three children were gathered around her feet.

"What's she talking about?" asked Peter.

"She saved my children twice now," said Helena. "You'd think she was a part of something that was fighting Death Eaters."

"Really?" asked Peter. "When was this?"

"December," said Helena, with a long look at Ginny. "I'm going to take my children home, now, much as I would like to know more about all of this. I hope our paths don't cross again, Ginny or Philomena, because every time they do I seem to end up thanking you for the lives of my children."

"So do I," said Ginny.

"Well, good work," said Peter. "Another shop load of people?"

"Yeah," said Ginny.

The back of their second shop was quieter, three people hiding under the counter including the shopkeeper himself. No children. They were leading them out when a Hogwarts-age man in green robes came through the front door, screaming. His arm was on fire.

"You-Know-Who," he stuttered out, as Ginny went to his arm. She extinguished him with little effort, although fixing his sleeve was beyond her limited Transfiguration skill. "He's out there."

"We know a way out," said Peter. "Come on."

"You're helping me," said the man. "Why are you helping me? I could be one of them, for all you know."

"If you were one of them, you'd have tried to kill us by now," said Ginny. "Death Eaters can't go two minutes without a Killing Curse."

"Our only saving grace is that they're mostly terrible aims," said Peter. "Are you coming, or not?"

The man held out his unburnt arm. "Francis Macmillan," he said.

"Peter Pettigrew. Get a wiggle on."

By Ginny's estimate, they rescued almost a hundred people from their hiding places in shops and other businesses by the time the fight had concluded. One Order member was dead, someone Ginny had never had the privilege to meet. Sirius had almost lost an arm to some kind of slicing curse, propped up against the wall of a building, but Dorcas was crouched down beside him, fixing that. Besides him, a battered looking Remus charmed the wall back together.

"Shit!" shouted James, as Ginny and Peter walked back into the alley, dirt-covered but close to unharmed. "I thought they'd got you, Pete!" And James ran forwards and hugged his friend, while Peter recounted the story.

"Amazing," said Lily, from beside him. "Thinking of that."

"Philomena did," said Peter.

"It was Peter's plan," she replied.

They went back to the Marauders' house afterwards, for a drink and a debrief from Moody. It was short, and to the point, and they toasted their dead. Three Death Eaters had been captured, although none of them high-ranking. The injuries were mild, on the whole, even if Caradoc Dearborn would need a few nights in St Mungo's.

Peter sought Ginny out after they'd done the toasts. "Do you want to have a drink with me?" he asked, holding out two bottles.

Ginny's slightly baffled look at that question must have shown.

"I'm not trying to steal you from Remus," he said, flatly. "Marauder's don't do that, and I have a girlfriend. Marlene. She was there tonight. Nearly lost her arm, but she's fine."

"Is she in the Order, too?" asked Ginny, once again falling into the trap of asking questions she knew the answer to. Because she knew Marlene's fate.

"Yeah," said Peter, fetching two bottles of butter beer and flicking the caps off with his wand before handing one over to Ginny. "She joined a few months ago. We've been together since Hogwarts, me and her, but she didn't know about this until November. Her cousin was in the Order, too, Benji his name was, and he died. Was killed, really, when fighting Death Eaters. So of course she had questions about why exactly I knew Benji was dead, why I had been there, and Dorcas said I should tell her the truth. And I thought she might dump me, but she joined."

"Why would she have dumped you?"

"It's dangerous, isn't it? People in the Order don't tend to have relationships with those outside it, because those people become targets. Death Eaters want to break the Order. They want to kill everyone in it, or immobilise them, anyway, and if you kill people's relatives it stops them. So Marlene was a target."

"Remus said something like that."

"He was probably trying to put you off him, the git." Peter shook his head, almost in desperation. "One day he will realise that women might actually like him for who he is."

"What do you mean?"

"He'll tell you. I give it about three weeks, now." Peter stared at her, a more menacing stare than Ginny has thought the still slightly pudgy man could manage. "And if you're a bitch to him about it, me and the others will have something to say to you. Just walk away, yeah, if you don't like him."

"You're making me a bit nervous," said Ginny. Not because she was scared of Remus Lupin, werewolf, but because she hadn't anticipated this, from Peter of all people.

No, that was unfair. He was a man, just as much as Regulus was. Better, in some ways, and worse in others. And they'd agreed to try and save Regulus, and in turn Ginny thought it was only fair to give Peter some kind of fair hearing.

Which was after all why she was here. She had considered flatly refusing to do this work with him. But Moody has assigned her to work with the Marauders and a couple of other Order members on this case, and Peter was their intelligence gathering specialist. For Philomena Prewett, despite her supposed talent for reading people, to have refused, would have caused problems.

"We stick up for each other," said Peter. "And for the rest of the Order, y'know, but the Marauders come first."

"I understand," said Ginny, because she did. That was Harry and Ron and Hermione, and that was the sort of friendship she had always wanted.

"Good," said Peter. And then he looked down. "Thanks for tonight. I hate fighting. I really do. I'm alright at it, but I'm not like the others. They make it look easy. I feel like I'm half a spell away from death, and I'm only just quick enough."

"So do I."

"But you're good at it!"

"I feel as though every mistake I make is going to kill me," said Ginny, sitting down. "And then I get nervous, and I make more mistakes. Sometimes I fire out the first spell that comes to my mind because I can't think of one that might hurt. I don't know if I want to hurt these people or not. I do, but I don't want to be the kind of person that wants to hurt people. And whoever you're fighting might know more magic than you, they might be faster than you, they might have a mate who's behind you. It's fucking scary, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Peter drained the last of his drink. "James and Lily fought V… You-Know-Who tonight. I hexed a couple of Death Eaters with spells I learnt in fourth year."

"You saved people," said Ginny. "We did. Did you see how many people in there could have tried to fight? At least a few of those adults, the ones without children with them, they could have tried to fight. And you did, and I did, and they didn't. So at least we did something." It wasn't a very good explanation, was it, but it seemed to help Peter. His shoulders sagged a little less.

"Thanks," he said. "Go and talk to Remus, yeah? He'll think you hate him."

"Why?"

"Trust me on this, Phil."

So Ginny did. She traipsed across the garden, past James and Lily cuddling up on the grass, and past Sirius and Dorcas having a heated argument about something she didn't understand. Remus, like Peter had been, was sat alone.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

She sat down next to him, on the wall they had been on when they had received the summons to go to Diagon Alley.

"You alright?"

"Some curses, but nothing that will cause permanent damage. James said you're fine."

"Not a scrape," said Ginny.

"He said you and Peter went off and saved the shoppers."

"We did."

"I understand if you don't want to go on any more dates with me."

"Remus, why would you say that?"

"Because… oh fuck it, Philomena, I'm a fucking werewolf, alright?" He stood up, his eyes dark with anger, his hands balled into fists.

"And?"

"And? You're saying and? And you're going to get fucking killed because it's dangerous! If it isn't me who does it, it'll be Rowle, and fucking hell, I actually like you and I don't want you dead!"

"Rowle?" Ginny was asking a lot of questions, really, about something that she had known for years. "Rowle's got nothing to do with this."

"He said he'd kill you."

"Why?"

"Because he thinks you're my girl. However he fucking put it."

"Do you think that?"

Remus looked at his feet. "Merlin's beard," he said. "I can fight Death Eaters, but I can't answer that question. I punched one yesterday, in the face, twice. Twice. And I sit here and stare at a girl I like as if I've never seen a girl before."

"Well," said Ginny. "Whatever the answer is, I've survived thus far, and I think I've got a reasonable chance of surviving a bit longer." She'd known about this attack, after all, and that gave her a head start. She'd known Remus would get targeted by Rowle, and that Sirius would save him. There had been no threats to a woman, that time. Just to Remus' parents, and they'd attacked them two days later. Lyall Lupin had seen them off, but Hope had later died.

"Don't you care?" he asked, his hands still tense in their fists. "Don't you care what I am? Don't you care what danger I could be putting you in?"

"Not really." He sounded an awful lot like another hero, a certain dark-haired boy who had not yet been born, and had not yet won his famous scar.

"Oh."

And, completely on a whim, and because Ginny Weasley did not shy away from getting the man she wanted, she kissed him.

He made a surprised little 'oof' sound.

Afterwards, much later, she allowed herself to think about Harry. To feel guilty. To wonder if, if she made it back at all, he would want her. If she would want to travel back. If she would survive, however confident about that she had acted to Remus.