AN: I saw a review from someone who has apparently been following this story for a long time...sorry for the long wait, but thank you for your patience!

Time seemed to fly. Before I knew it, there was a nip in the air that bespoke the coming of autumn. I don't know why, but I guess I'd thought that the change of season would bring Remus back to me. It didn't. But Lily and James were now in the field working as aurors just about daily, even if they were technically still trainees. Peter had gotten a part-time job as a store-clerk in an antiques shop. Mary was back in Belgium for the time being. Even Sirius had work now - as a bartender at the pub he frequently crept about in. He said it was even better than disguising himself, because the only time people paid attention to him is if they wanted a drink. I had to admit, with the beard he'd been growing he hardly even looked like Padfoot anymore. He looked darker. More dangerous. Meanwhile, I'd accidentally lost a bit of weight and now Lily and Pavi pestered me several times throughout the days and evenings to be sure I was making the time to eat.

After a particularly raucous Order meeting, I found myself in France on a new mission. I was not obscured beneath the red fur I'd grown so used to (although Lily said I was healed enough to transform again, and I was pleased to note that except for a scar right at the base of my tail, it was still in one piece). No, I wasn't in disguise.

Well, I guess it was a little bit of a disguise.

This particular mission called for a person who could operate amongst other witches and wizards without drawing undue attention. When Sirius first announced he'd heard of this wedding, I wanted to shrug and say "Who cares?" But everyone else in the Order seemed to understand the importance of a pureblood's wedding. Apparently, as they'd told me at great length, it was more than just a ceremony.

I wanted to turn to Lily or Sirius or Pavi and complain about the constricting feel of the dress I wore, but no one was there with me. So instead I tugged awkwardly at the hem, which was quite high on my thighs, and tried to adjust the satin bust that made even what I had seem a bit bountiful. Sirius had heard the tip for this particular event at the pub. He'd groused when everyone told him quite firmly that he couldn't go - he was too recognizable as Sirius Black, and too grungy looking as Sirius the Barkeep. James was next to volunteer, but Lily reminded him that they had just taken their oaths as aurors. They couldn't up and leave for France for a week.

That left me.

And now I was here, in a ridiculously tight dress, breathing in and trying to build up the nerve to walk into the hall as if I owned it.

Unbidden, Remus's face floated into my mind, and the way his eyes sort of relaxed and sharpened at the same time when he saw me. He looked at me like I was the reason magic worked. I would never know exactly why he seemed so confident in me, but I let the memory of the expression on his face boost my ego a bit. Remus thought I was beautiful and brave (stupidly, sometimes) and smart.

Heaving in a great sigh of air, I released it slowly - and with it, all those niggling thoughts that I couldn't be a real spy. I let Remus stay in my mind, reminding me that I wasn't the cowardly lion anymore.

Without even stumbling in the shiny black pumps I wore, I strode to the grand entrance of the hall. A wizard there, looking sharp in a black dress robe and staring straight ahead, reached back and held the door open for me. I avoided looking in his face and entered the hall.

It was beautiful inside, with fairy lights floating about above our heads. Everyone was dressed in black or charcoal or ash, a thundercloud of people.

"Elderwine?" someone murmured at my elbow. A silver tray was presented in front of me.

"Thank you," I murmured, accepting the glass with the deep wine that smelled faintly of cranberry and orange.

As if that was the cue people had been waiting for, others began to approach me.

"Bride or groom?" a stranger asked, his accent lightly hinting at a German past.

"Bride," I told him, dipping my chin and lifting my eyes as I sank into the confident persona of my new self for this week.

"Groom," he told me, lifting his own wine glass.

I let him tap his glass faintly against mine, taking a sip as he did the same.

"Allow me to introduce myself," he said as we both faced the crowd, our eyes scanning the crowd. "I am Heinro -"

He was cut off before he could finish by the appearance of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She put her hand on his arm, and it was enough to silence him. I raised an eyebrow at her. Here, I was not Genre Pokeby. Here, I was a woman with the social clout to hold my own.

"Forgive me," she murmured, letting her thick, smudged lashes flutter against her cheek. Her hair, large, loose curls of molten honey, slipped over her shoulder and she looked back up at me. With her heart-faced shape and womanly body, displayed to its advantage in the charcoal dress she wore, she was doubtless used to getting her way.

"And you are?" I said, keeping my voice light and amused.

Her honeyed eyebrow rose this time, green eyes scanning me up and down. Clearly she was not expecting someone to question her.

"Athena," she told me. "Athena Nott."

"Ah," I smiled, hoping the bold pink Lily had smeared on my lips wasn't on my teeth, "a name I recognize."

"And you are?" she asked, letting a smile play on her lips as she parroted me. Heinro shifted, patting at her hand with an indulgent smile.

"Twylla Ollivander," I said.

"Ollivander," Heinro went slack-jawed for a moment. "I didn't realize -"

"Another of the sacred twenty-eight!" Athena crowed, releasing her hold on Heinro and transferring her grip to me. "How delightful!"

"I imagine we are not the only two here," I smiled at her. Thank Merlin for Sirius and his informative - if a bit derisive - information about the purebloods and their quirks. Ollivanders, he assured me, were always invited but never attended pureblood events. They kept their own council, so none would be the wiser that I was an interloper. When I asked if that meant Ollivander had children, he laughed and said the owner of the wand shop was only a branch of the full tree.

"Of course not," Athena said, leading me away from Heinro and up a nearby dais where we could observe the mass of wizardry's most elite. "I must confess, Twylla, I've never met any in your family."

"We're not known for our extraversion," I admitted. "Though I hope to change that. Society is meant to be experienced, don't you agree?"

"I do," she beamed at me.

"I thought you might," I beamed back at her. Two peas in a pod. In my head, Remus laughed at me. Society was not, let's face it, one of my favorite things.

"The ceremony tonight will be talked about for years," Athena said. "The Malfoys and Blacks spared no expense."

"I look forward to it," I lied. Honestly, a wedding between Lucius and his bride, Narcissa, did not thrill me, and thus the first of the pre-wedding ceremonies tonight (wherein they combined family property interests in a "romantic" celebration) did not thrill me. But weddings were for business, Sirius told the Order when he shared the news of the weddings date and locale. And any business between the Blacks and Malfoys was business we would want to be aware of.

"We'll have an important guest," Athena confessed in a faux whisper. "I have not yet met him, but Bella assures me he is the paragon of all we stand for."

"I'm sure you will impress him," I told her honestly. She squeezed my arm. Already, she acted as though we were bosom buddies. I yearned for Lily or Mary and their snark and jokes. Instead, Athena trod me around like a well-trained poodle and introduced me to family after family. Twice, she introduced me to peers of mine from Hogwarts. The first time, I nearly panicked. But Parkinson didn't appear to recognize me. The second time, I didn't even bat an eyelash. Why should they recognize me? At Hogwarts, I hid behind sweaters and loose hair. Here, my hair was tied back in an intricate knot, my dress bared just about all, and make-up had been applied to my face. If I looked anything like Genre, these people had never paid enough attention to me to notice it now. With a haughty expression frozen on my face, and a pale imitation of the manners Sirius tried to teach me in less than a weekend, I made my way through the ceremony (as boring as suspected, though I was interested to see Lucius Malfoy's hairline was receding) and survived the night.

I collapsed in the hotel room Sirius had helped me select. As if from nowhere, he appeared from the connecting door.

"How did it go?" he asked me.

"Athena Nott took a shine to me," I told him wearily. "I'm in."

"Wonderful," he said, rubbing his hands together. "Athena's a bit vague, but the family's respected. She'll get you close to everyone." A noise from his room drew my attention that way.

"Oh," he said, following my gaze. "Right. Er, Lily mentioned you would need help getting through the week."

"Remus?" I shot upright, nearly stumbling over my heels.

"No," Mary said, stepping into the room. "Just me."

I launched myself at Mary, arms around her. Normally, though I was always a little taller than her, our heights were equal due to her heels and lifts. Now, in my own heels, I towered over her. She hugged me back, laughing and crying, and then tugged back to look me over.

"Goodness," she said, "who dressed you?"

"Lily and Sirius," I said self-consciously.

"Yikes," she said earnestly. "Well, they couldn't have known."

"I grew up with these people," Sirius said defensively, "I know what they wear."

"They dress to suit themselves," Mary told him. "The dress looks good, but it doesn't suit you, Genre."

I tugged at the hem of the dress again.

"And please tell me you didn't do that all night," she said.

"Only when no one was looking!" I protested.

Mary chuckled. "If you say so. Out, Black. I'm going to help her get all this makeup off."

"And the zipper, please?" I asked. "I can't reach it."

"Are you sure I can't stay?" Sirius asked earnestly. He chuckled, that chuffing, dog-like laugh, as Mary launched a pillow at him, and then left the room.

True to her word, Mary helped remove the layers of make-up, and then pulled pins one at a time from my hair. I took in her disheveled appearance as she helped me - the shirt she wore was a button up at least two sizes too large. Also, it was a men's shirt. And the pants that trailed down her legs were straight and a bit long on her.

"What about your husband?" I asked when my back was to her. Her hand, which was on my zipper, faltered. The zipper came down a moment later, and I stepped into the bathroom to let the dress fall to the floor and wrap myself in a fluffy white robe.

When I came back into the room, Mary was sitting on the bed, her blue eyes wide and anxious as she wrapped her arms around her knees. I sat beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

"It-" Mary breathed in, deep. I rubbed her back.

"He-" she tried again.

I waited patiently while she collected herself.

"He doesn't know," she said finally. "I told him I was visiting my mum this week."

"Why?" I asked her.

Mary sighed, casting a sideways glance at me. I waited patiently for her to answer.

"You'll understand," she said. I wasn't sure that was true - I couldn't imagine cheating on Remus, even now when I didn't know how long it would be until I saw him again. But I could also imagine some of what Mary was feeling. "He doesn't want me involved in the war at all. Or himself, even. We argued about it. I told him he was sticking his head in the sand, and he told me that I was too fragile to be out in the real world. He wants to move out to the country so we can live in a little cottage and raise a brood of children in the safety of solitude."

"How would you make a living?" I asked curiously.

Mary let out a bark of bitter laughter. "'We don't need to make money,'" she mocked her husband. "'Having each other is enough.' And when I told him that there was too much at stake, our families only being the tip of the iceberg, he told me that they made their beds and they'd have to lie in it. My parents are muggles. They didn't choose any of this!"

"Oh, my," I said.

"And then I got here by lying," Mary said miserably, "because Lily wrote me and asked if I could help. Actually help, do something worthwhile that doesn't involve rearranging flowers in a vase. And Sirius asked me how many Death Eaters I've brought down with my sharp tongue and rapier wit. He told me everything that's going on. He didn't try to hide the ugly things from me. It all just happened…"

"Hm," I said.

"Oh, I'm a horrible person," Mary wailed.

I laughed, letting go of her shoulder to shove her. She glared incredulously at me. I kept laughing. Finally, she joined in, rubbing tears from her cheeks.

"You're barely eighteen," I said. "And you married someone on a whim. You might be a bit of a train wreck, but you're not horrible."

"A train wreck?" Mary groaned. "Thanks."

"A beautiful, strong, independent train wreck," I told her, grinning at her. "And if you think I'm not a bit of a train wreck, and Lily's not a bit of a train wreck, and Sirius and James and Remus aren't a bit of a train wreck...well, you're mistaken."

Mary cried in earnest now, flinging her arms around me again. The connecting door opened, and Sirius peered in suspiciously. Seeing us, he stepped in and stood awkwardly near the door.

"Are you okay?" he asked cautiously.

"Peachy," Mary snorted. I kindly ignored the snot bubble that I could see but Sirius wouldn't have.

"But while you're here," I said, "maybe we should discuss tomorrow's ceremony."

I wrote up my report while Sirius outlined the ceremony for the next day. Mary retired to the bathroom to wipe off her face, and then curled up on my bed to listen to the two of us make plans. My report was lackluster, mostly naming the individuals who had been in attendance and who had spent time conversing with who. Since it was all purebloods, and the majority of them were related a bit more closely than might be genetically healthy, the report was as expected. I did write a little bit about the now-combined family property interests, but since I didn't know the places, it meant little to me. Sirius looked it over with a crease furrowing his brow but noted he didn't know what some of the mentioned artifacts were, or where all the properties were located.

"What is tomorrow's torture?" I asked.

"Business interests," Sirius said promptly.

"Should she wear something more business appropriate?" Mary asked, twiddling her thumbs by my pillows.

Sirius snorted, leaning back in his chairs. I examined his scruffy face and disheveled clothing, trying to see him the way Mary did. He was, as I'd always admitted, ridiculously attractive. Maybe I had a hard time imaging what would make me cheat on Remus, but Mary and Sirius had always had a bit of a thing.

"Women don't do business," he said with an irksome grin.

"Like sodding hell we don't!" Mary's voice was heated.

"Not the pure-blooded ones," he told her.

"Not the twenty-eight, at any rate," I corrected him. "Mum was a pureblood, I think, and she certainly had her own business. Plus, Gran! Can you imagine someone telling her not to work?"

"Have you heard from her?" Mary asked softly.

I shook my head and took a deep breath to stop my throat from tightening. "Not since I moved into the apartment. And I traveled to some of the refugee camps and didn't see her. She's out there somewhere, though."

In a brief show of solidarity, Sirius hooked his bare foot around my ankle.

This is what friends were. As always, the rush of warm feelings as I realized yet again how lucky I was caught me unawares. We all took a moment in silence.