Shami's mouth hung open for a moment in astonishment as the Wizengamot erupted into a hubbub that made the House of Commons look positively refined. Ancient witches and wizards were on their feet, yelling at their peers, shouting threats across the room, shaking their fists at each other. She turned to Dumbledore.

'Is it always like this?'

He twinkled at the muggle barrister's bafflement.

'Quite often, my dear. They need to blow off steam a little. They'll calm down in a while and then we can get on. Aniseed ball?'

He offered her a brown paper bag. She accepted the sweet and sat sucking it and observing the astonishing sight.

'How do you think the others are getting on?' she asked eventually in a low voice.

'We have not been interrupted by alarms, so as yet they have probably not been caught,' Dumbledore told her. 'I'm sorry I cannot give you more encouragement than that.'

'If they get - captured - is the first thing we'll know about it when they don't come home?'

'I have many friends in the ministry, Shami. I would hope we would be informed.'

'What would happen to them?'

Dumbledore sucked his aniseed ball for a few seconds.

'Sirius and Severus would very likely be sent for a term to Azkaban, the wizard prison.'

'And… Jane?'

Dumbledore shook his white head. 'I cannot say, my dear. I can only tell you that is she with two extremely gifted and extraordinarily daring wizards, and from what I have seen of her, she is herself a resourceful young woman. We must do what we can here, and hope that we succeed.'

Shami sat and thought about the man they were all working to help, the man she had never even met. She wondered what he was like, what it was like to meet a werewolf. Jane hadn't seemed bothered by it, though, and she had said that most of the time he was just another man, albeit an uncommonly decent one.

The noise was dying away now, the witches and wizards gradually retaking their seats and although there was a lot of muttering and gesticulation, this too quietened until the huge room was silent and all the members of the Wizengamot were sitting looking expectantly at Mistress Birch.

'We will have a preliminary vote. You have found the werewolf Remus Lupin guilty of breaking the law regarding employment of lycanthropes. Now you must decide whether or not his breaking of the law was justified. I remind you that we will require a majority with at least a thirty vote margin either way, and if we cannot reach a decision today we will reconvene and require further discussion. So, all those who believe Lupin was justified, vote now.'

The familiar green smoke billowed, followed by what seemed to Shami roughly the same amount of red smoke, and then the plumes of white that signalled indecision. The clerk trotted up to Birch and she read aloud the figures.

'163 believe he was justified to 209 against, 88 abstentions,' she announced, and Shami's shoulders slumped as the sound of the Wizengamot arguing furiously broke out once more.

'There will be a further chance to speak once they pipe down,' Dumbledore told her, 'and then we'll vote again. This isn't over yet.'

For the first time in what seemed like hours, human voices were audible. Snape led them into an alcove.

'We have arrived at the main offices of the Department for the Control of Magical Creatures and Half-Breeds,' he murmured. 'Follow my lead.'

He stood up straight and tossed back his curtain of black hair. There was a commanding glint in his eye. Jane and Sirius followed suit, doing their best to appear as remote and superior as Snape, holding their wands at the ready.

Snape stalked into the office reception and stared haughtily at the bored wizard sitting behind the desk.

'Can I help you, sir?' asked the bored wizard nervously.

'I am here with my assistants to see a werewolf regarding a potential breach of wizarding law.'

'Er, if you could just take a seat, someone will be right with you to discuss the steps necessary to seeing one of the detained creatures.'

Jane felt Sirius tremble with rage at hearing Remus described in this way, but he maintained a stony silence.

'Don't you know who I am?' thundered Snape, directing the full force of one of his finest glares at the unfortunate wizard.

'I, er, I don't know, sir, I…'

'We will proceed,' he said, his voice dripping with contempt, 'and I will do my best to forget your deplorable ignorance and pitiful conduct.'

Snape turned sharply on his heel and swept down a corridor next to the man's desk, Sirius and Jane in his wake. As they rounded the bend, Jane grabbed Snape's hand and squeezed it.

'You were brilliant, even if you're bloody scary,' she muttered.

'We should have some time before that individual gathers up the courage to report me to a senior,' Snape said, but the faintest hint of a smile that he gave Jane signalled his pleasure in her praise.

The corridors were no longer carpeted; instead the floor was old stone flags and the walls were brick. It was cold and dim, the blue-flamed lamps sparser. Sirius and Snape recognised their location from their previous visit and, after a whispered discussion at a fork in the corridor, carried on. They held their wands ready in front of them and Jane did the same, glancing nervously behind her.

The corridors got narrower and darker and they were forced to go in single file. Sirius took the lead now, followed by Jane now, with Snape at the back.

Finally they reached a door, wooden and with heavy studs and an ostentatious old-fashioned lock. One again Sirius and Snape discussed this while Jane listened and kept watch.

'When we use magic, we give ourselves away,' said Sirius. 'It'll be like sending up a flare, a flare that says "We're here!".'

'Nonetheless we need to get through,' Snape reminded him.

'Do you have any idea what magic they used to lock it before?'

'It was already open when they brought me along here.'

'Yes, me too. Is there anything about it on the blueprints or in your notes?'

'The books are unsurprisingly vague about the specifics,' Snape said as he rustled through pages densely covered in his tiny handwriting. 'They generally just write about how the intruder is bound to be frustrated by the security of the ministry's protection, and how the used of unauthorised magic is instantly detected.'

Sirius rolled his eyes. 'Fuck. Well, we'll have to break it open then.'

'When you say 'unexpected', what do you mean exactly?' Jane interjected suddenly, still facing away as she peered down the corridor. 'I mean, is it possible it's just - locked? With a lock? A muggle one, I mean.'

Snape shrugged. 'I imagine it's extremely unlikely.'

'I mean, those goons who guard this place, I bet some of them struggle with a lot of spells. Plus I should think the cells are heavily magically guarded. Maybe it is just a key for whatever poor bastard feeds the prisoners.'

'Why do you - oh… I think you should give it a go,' Sirius said, his eyes brightening in the gloom. 'After all, you're dosed up on Felix.'

Snape watched confusedly as Jane wriggled free a couple of hair grips from under her scarf and bent them straight, before kneeling in front of the door and squinting into the lock.

'It's locked with the lock as well as any magic at any rate,' she said, and poked the hair grips into the keyhole.

A couple of minutes went by, the only sound Jane's makeshift tools scraping the metal as the liquid luck pulsing through her bloodstream steadied her hand. Snape swallowed his impatience and padded back down the passageway to check for ministry employees, and was summoned back by a muffled yelp of triumph.

The door stood ajar.

Sirius clapped her so hard on her back she staggered, and she turned round grinning and gave him a punch in the arm that made him groan quietly.

'Save your violent tendencies for when they are needed,' Snape told them dryly, but he too felt a sudden leap of the heart, a momentary confidence that in fact they might succeed.

They carried on walking, passing a number of heavy metal doors with little rectangular doors cut into them at waist height, until they turned a corner and came to a halt.

'This one?' breathed Snape, and Sirius agreed.

'Remus,' Sirius called gently. 'Remus?'

The three strained their ears listening for a reply, but all was quiet.

'Probably a silencing charm,' Snape said. Each of them thought, but did not add, If he's still in there. If he can speak.

'Once we're in there, grab him and run,' Sirius said fiercely to Jane.

He and Snape raised their wands in readiness but whirled around at Jane's gasp.

There was someone coming down the passage towards them.

When the Wizengamot had calmed down once more, Mistress Birch told them that they could ask more questions, if they wished. A tiny old man with a huge pointed purple hat and a luxuriant moustache hopped down from his seat.

Gripping the rail in front of him, he asked in a high clear voice, 'What is happening to the werewolf Lupin at the moment? Where is he?'

Birch turned to Alhage, who said, 'I cannot share that information.'

'Can you explain yourself?' asked Birch.

'There is some evidence that this werewolf took the job he did because he planned to attempt the infection of muggles.'

'Where does that evidence come from?' asked a tall witch with a monocle.

'The werewolf confessed,' said Alhage lazily.

Shami felt Dumbledore tense beside her.

'Do we have any evidence of this confession?'

'I am not obliged to share that with you.'

'So you've done Merlin knows what with this man because of a confession for which we have only your word, and which was made after he'd been snatched from his house?'

'In essence, though I dislike your tone. If you would prefer that the werewolf roam freely recruiting normal people to its twisted way of life, you must not have a very high regard for human life.'

'We've heard nothing about this man that would suggest he would be at all likely to do anything like that!' said the witch with the monocle indignantly. 'All we have is this so-called confession. How did you get it, eh? Did you beat it out of him?'

'Enough,' said Birch.

Shami stood up.

'If Mistress Birch will excuse me, I believe that the route of questioning is a valid one. Mr Alhage, could you please explain to us the circumstances under which Remus gave this confession?'

Alhage sneered at Shami. 'The department is not under the jurisdiction of the laws pertaining to the holding and trying of potentially criminal wizards and witches. As the creature falls into the category of non-human, the circumstances are irrelevant.'

'They may appear to be irrelevant to you, Mr Alhage, but I believe the members of the Wizengamot are eager to hear whether Remus gave his confession of his own volition or whether it was in some way forced from him. Although I have not been allowed to actually meet him, I have not heard anything which might suggest that Remus wished to inflict his unfortunate lycanthropy on anyone else and I do not believe that it is in his character to wish to do so.'

'She's right Alhage! Your lot skulk around underground doing whatever you bloody well like!' shouted a short and dumpy witch with grey spiral corkscrews of hair escaping from her hat.

'So, do I understand the situation? You report to us that Remus took a job which, he has apparently told you he wished to use as a means to increase the numbers of werewolves. You offer us no proof whatsoever of this, and you refuse to even discuss whether his confession was voluntary or whether means which would be illegal applied to non-werewolves were used to force it from him.'

'That is correct,' said Alhage, arching an insolent eyebrow and sitting back in his seat.

Shami also sat down. She was used to feeling professional disaccord with the barristers acting against her, but never had she wanted to vault over and punch one of them in the face.

'A good opportunity to have another vote, I believe,' said Eliza Birch.

This time, once the clouds of smoke had been counted, the result was slightly improved.

'227 believe Lupin was justified, 201 against, with 32 abstentions.'

This time, Shami was expecting the outburst that followed, and she sat and waited for it to end while she bit her lip and hoped. She felt completely adrift; no matter how many times she had cursed the English legal system with its clunking procedure, overcrowded courts and remote judiciary, she would have given anything to be back in the Crown Court trying this case in front of a jury of muggles with a defendant safely on display in the dock.

The Wizengamot's frantic debating went on longer this time. Remus's case appeared to be attracting more people now, to both sides. From what she could hear, Shami thought it had boiled down to one essential; whether or not werewolves were evil.

It did finally diminish though, and Eliza Birch could make herself heard as she invited further comments.

'Some of the idiots here seem to think that Lupin's guilty purely because he's a werewolf. All we hear is people who don't know him making assertions about him. How can we know if any of it is true?' demanded an immensely large woman. 'We need to hear from someone we know who knows this lad, someone we can trust. He went to school at Hogwarts eh - I reckon we should hear what Albus thinks!'

There was a further roar at this and it seemed to be fairly unanimous. The Wizengamot wanted to hear their leader.

Birch turned to Dumbledore and said something. He replied instantly and she nodded, and held up her hand for silence.

'We will hear from Albus Dumbledore. He delegated the direction of this convention to me due to his personal knowledge of Remus Lupin, but I believe we can hear from him more about Lupin's character and life history.'

There was murmuring in the hall, and much nodding of heads, and Dumbledore got to his feet.

'I have known Remus since he was a boy of ten. He had been a werewolf since he was a small boy, around five, and he could not remember a life before. Before I was the headmaster of Hogwarts, werewolves did not come to the school but, when the time came for the letters to go out to the new pupils, I sent one to him as well. His parents agreed that he could come, if precautions were taken, and so he caught the Hogwarts Express with all the other students.

'Remus was sorted into Gryffindor and there he made three great friends; James Potter, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. Together they formed a gang which became known as the Marauders. Sirius and James would play tricks and get into constant mischief, and sometimes Peter and Remus would join them. Their exploits were never serious and rarely malicious,' (he mentally crossed his fingers), 'and certainly Remus's part in them were typical schoolboy naughtiness, nothing more.

'He worked hard at school. He wasn't a naturally brilliant boy but he had brains and he liked to use then. He passed all his exams well and was quietly popular, on good terms with most of his fellow pupils. He had a certain amount of calming influence on Sirius and James, which culminated in him being made a prefect. He was very good with the younger students, and would occasionally teach lessons if teachers were indisposed.

'After school, along with his three friends and Lily Potter, then Evans, he joined the Order of the Phoenix and the fight against Voldemort. He was a ready made envoy to the werewolves, and he did whatever was required of him carefully, thoroughly and without fuss.

'After the fall of Lord Voldemort and the imprisonment of Peter, he and Sirius went their separate ways. Perhaps they had shared too much. I had not heard from him for a long time until recently, when he and Sirius wrote to ask to see Sirius's godson, Harry Potter. When we met, they had begun their relationship and both were as happy as I had ever seen them at school. Remus, despite the grave handicap of his condition, had made a place in muggle society, performing an important and skilled job admirably. Sirius had come to the university at which he taught, hoping for a reunion with his friend.

'Remus has always had a special place in my heart, among my many ex-pupils. He had born the burdens that life has given him stoically and with good cheer. He has always been a conscientious individual who has taken great care to ensure that no harm could come to others from himself, both as a werewolf and as a man. He has taken on a great many responsibilities in his life and has always given of his best to ensure that he did not let people down. He is eminently trustworthy, always thoughtful, and above all he is kind.'

He sat down again, and a spontaneous ripple of applause went through some of his audience. He inclined his head in gratitude, and folded his hands in his lap.

'Thank you Albus - er, Professor Dumbledore,' Mistress Birch said to him and he smiled back at her.

'Now, has anyone anything more to say? No…? Then I think we need to have another vote, if everyone is agreed,' she said, and turned to the counting clerk before, once more, the Wizengamot voted on the fate of Remus Lupin.