The moon would be full that night, and just before it rose, James Potter arrived at the Shrieking Shack. He'd been kissing Lily goodbye outside the willow tree passage and rejoined the rest of the lads with barely enough time to transfigure himself before Remus's harrowing, involuntary transformation began.

"Hurry," Sirius said as James came through the passageway. "He's extra tormented tonight. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation from the Hodags. I don't know. Something's different, though I can't think what's changed for him."

James frowned. "Look at him pacing." They were spying through a cracked bedroom door at Remus, barefoot, his clothes already removed and folded neatly on an ottoman. He was wrapped in a blanket he would throw off once the transformation was truly underway and he was clothed in his dense wolf pelt. All the emotions Remus kept controlled in his human form were amplified at his transformation. They didn't just rise to the surface. They took over completely.

"He keeps knocking things over, tossing them about," Peter said, his fingers fidgeting with each other. "It's like he's looking for something he's lost."

"No more time to sort it out," Sirius said. "His eyes are almost green already. He's about to turn. Keep close, lads. He's going to run us hard tonight."

Sirius was right. As soon as Moony had fully emerged, he rushed past the animagi, clawed open the door of the shack, and bounded into the forest. His frantic searching continued, sniffing the air, clawing through the undergrowth, tearing at the mossy ground with his teeth.

The animagi - stag, dog, and rat - were close behind at first, but the chase wore on for hours. Moony's strength and speed, his stamina were positively supernatural. They had tamed him somewhat in the past two years, and he had learned to curb his abilities, to wait and stroll for their sakes. Even as a werewolf, a shred of Remus always endured, somewhere deep, and it held Moony back, keeping him near his friends. But none of that meant his fearsome powers had gone away.

There was no waiting tonight. Moony tore away, evading the other, working his abilities to their fullest. Late in the night, he still hadn't found what he had been searching for. Frustrated and sick of their interfering, Moony vaulted over Prongs even as he reared up, his antler like a cage to block the way. Padfoot sprung after him but Moony had jumped up and into the trees, where Prongs and Padfoot couldn't follow. Wormtail did his best, scurrying behind, following him up a tree trunk until Moony made the leap from one treetop to another, too far for a rat.

The animagi scrambled beneath the trees, following the sounds of creaking winter branches as Moony raced away, over their heads. He gave a howl, elated, as if to announce he'd outrun them. What he chased was something none of them could sense, something he alone knew, and wanted.

Sirius leapt back into human form. "What is he tracking? There's no trail to follow."

"I don't know," James said, human and stooped over, breathing hard. "It's got to be something supernatural, out of our range."

"It's got to be something good," Sirius said. "Good to Moony, at any rate. Better than anything. I've never seen him like this."

Peter was climbing out of a tree. "The moon is nearly set. He can't have more than half an hour left."

"He's going to come out of it in the wild," Sirius said, pulling at his hair. "He's going to wake up naked and freezing and lost in the woods by himself somewhere."

James shook his head. "Won't he know by now to get back to the shack before he changes? We've been leading him back there for years, month after month. He'll know by now, won't he? It should be second nature to him."

"He wasn't making for the direction of the shack last I saw him," Peter said. "Looked more like he was headed to the lake."

"The lake," Sirius repeated, looking up into the now empty trees. "That will stop him in his tracks. But what if something's led him away on purpose? What if the supernatural trail is actually a lure. And he's gone charging into a trap?"

James stood gaping, alarmed. "Who would know to lure him that way? Whoever did it would have to know he's - "

"Registered," Sirius finished. "Anyone with access to the werewolf registry would know all about it."

"I say we go back to the shack and wait for him there," Peter said. "If it's a trap, it could be meant for all of us, and we won't be able to help him if we're caught as well."

James linked his fingers behind his head. "I hate it," he said. "I hate leaving him out here. But Pete's right. What else can we do? There's no sign of him."

"The lake," Sirius said. "First we'll check the lakeshore."

As the lads fretted in the heart of the forest, Moony had indeed followed a supernatural scent trail to lakeshore. When the black expanse opened up before him, he let himself down from the treetops, the pads of his feet and his supple limbs absorbing the shock and sound of his downward spring.

There she was, close enough for him to see as well as smell her now. She stood in front of him, her back turned, her shape outlined in the light of the full moon, the hoary ice grown over the lakeside plants glittering around her. She was so near the icy water, her feet might have been standing in it. He couldn't tell and didn't care.

Her skin was not just reflecting white light but emanating it, every contour and detail of her plainly visible to him though she hadn't seen him yet. She wore a dress like a ballet dancer's, a long, full skirt, tight sleeves to the elbows, and plunging at the back, bare nearly to her waist in spite of the cold. Her cloak lay set aside in the grass as she peered into the depths of the lake.

There was no need to think, no choice to make. His instinct drove him forward, raising a growl in his throat. At the sound, she turned in time to see him pounce. She couldn't help but cry out, a long white arm thrown over her face to ward him off. He swiped at it, one claw snagging her flesh, scratching it, the scent of her blood in the air now.

Her teeth were bared, a pair of long fangs visible at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were on his, golden and flashing. She shrieked into his face, not a human sound.

Yes, this could only be her. He'd found her.

His arms were thin, covered in dense brown hair, and so strong. He took hold of her and she shrieked again, her luminous body warm and alive in his arms. Alive - there was no urge to kill in him at all. But he was driven to hold her tighter, his muzzle against her neck as a pair of wings, webbed with fine skin, unfurled from her bare back.

He stood to his full height, lifting her under the canopy of her wings, exhilarated, his head thrown back and howling. As his call died away, her hands clamped on either side of his head, her eyes blazing, the bleeding wound on her arm visible to him. His tall, pointed ears twitched at the sight of it and he did what he would have done if it had been his own wound. He licked it, cleaned it with his mouth with firm, deliberate pressure, moisture, and searing heat. She tipped her head against his as he bent over her wound, her long, silky, golden-white hair falling over his ears and head, wafting against his face, a feeling the Remus inside him already knew.

The familiarity of it merged with the sound of a distant call, answering his howl, the call of a large dog. And he remembered. The moon was low and he needed to be somewhere. It was vital, urgent. When he set off, she was still in his arms, bending her legs to clamp herself around his body, her face in the crook of his shoulder, her teeth against his hide, holding, not quite biting him.

As they neared the shack, his speed was slowing, his arms tiring, head aching. He passed a clawed hand over her back to find her wings were gone.

There was language to his thoughts again. What in the stars was happening?

He pulled her body away from his, leaving her staggering to find her footing on the frozen ground as he rushed away, alone. All that mattered now was reaching the door to the shack, getting behind it. Clothes - the hair covering his skin was fading, and in a moment he'd need clothes. She couldn't see him, not like this. He bounded up the stairs, too large, too wolfish for the house, crashing into the bedroom, and diving under the bedclothes.

With a moment more, the moon had set. Moony was gone and Remus was left to himself, shaking and panting, sick and exhausted, his smooth young human skin slicked with sweat but cold. It had been so long since he'd transformed back into himself without the lads nearby, quick to reassure him, to shelter him, to make it almost jolly. He'd forgotten how sad it could be, to come so close to facing Moony, especially tonight, when he couldn't dismiss the feeling that he'd lost something precious by changing back when he did.

Over the noise of his breath, he heard footsteps on the stairs, not the clamorous rush of the lads finding him, but just one set of feet, walking as if on tiptoe.

He pulled the covers higher over his bare, shivering shoulders as Narcissa Black stepped into the room. She lingered by the doorway, not able to look at him yet. He should have been surprised to find her following him here, her skin flushed with cold, her hair wild, broken twigs and dead leaves caught in it. But he wasn't. Of course she was here, standing in the shrieking shack late in January during a full moon, without a cloak, hugging herself for warmth.

"I wondered if I'd see you," she began, her eyes on the floorboards she traced with her toe. "Tonight, at the full moon. I knew it was possible, but I wasn't counting on it. I'd gone as a Veela to look in the lake for the merpeople by the light of the moon, like you said. But if I'm honest, what I wanted to see most of all was you, in your other form, and then again once you'd changed back and could talk to me about what you saw in me tonight."

"Your arm," he said, distracted by the long, red mark on her skin. "Did I…" He couldn't finish.

"Yes, but it was an accident," she said, holding her arm out in the dim dawn light, looking at the scratch herself. "You took me by surprise on the lakeshore. I lashed out and you grazed my arm with a claw."

"By the stars, Black. I never would have - "

"I know. You apologized."

He scoffed. "I can't apologize when I'm like that. And even if I could, I wouldn't."

"But you did," she said. "You cleaned the wound for me. And I knew precisely what you meant by it."

Cleaned it - after a moment he figured out what she was saying. It was coming back to him, the memory of finding her at the lake, taking her away, bringing her here to keep her for himself. He gulped past the lump in his throat. "Whatever happened, I'm sorry."

"Yes, I know." She moved, slowly to the end of the bed and sat on the corner opposite his feet. After a night awake in the forest, transformed into her Veela form, she was exhausted, cold, and wanted little more than to crawl to the top of the bed, lay her head down on the empty pillow there, and sleep.

He seemed to know, and muttered a spell to summon a blanket from the cupboard, tossing it to her to wrap around herself. He wouldn't invite her to sleep here, next to him, but he wouldn't watch her shiver for another second either.

"You didn't kill me," she said as she curled up and tucked the edge of the blanket around her feet.

He shook his head. "No, we only kill humans, and you, well, you're - "

"You saw it then?" she said, suddenly energized, leaning forward, straying onto his side of the mattress.

"I saw something."

"What was it like?"

He sighed, shutting his eyes, looking back into Moony's mind, fighting to remember more. "I can only recall images. Golden eyes, wings, and your skin...Anyone would have been able to see it."

"But they don't," she said. "I've tried to call it forth for ordinary wizards. I've made myself exactly as I was tonight. I've tried it with my sisters, and with a few men I trust. Lucius, and Severus, and my cousin Regulus. I did it just as I did tonight, and they saw nothing but me pulling faces."

Remus's head was shaking, denying. "They're having you on, then," he said. "I don't remember what happened but I do know what I saw. You were transformed. If you hadn't been, I'd have killed you. No, they're lying, or blind. I saw you. You were…" Again, he couldn't finish.

She nodded, her head bowed, chin sunk below the hem of the blanket. "They're not lying. They're just not like us," she said. "Was I a monster? Tell me."

His eyes were open again, but fixed on the ceiling. "Monster? It couldn't have been that bad. Moony brought you back here with him, after all."

"Moony?"

"Me. Werewolf me. Moony."

"Couldn't have been that bad?" she repeated. "You say it as if you don't remember."

His face blanched, and if she knew him better, she would know it was the tell of his not quite telling the truth. "I told you. I can remember images, but not what happened."

Let her go on from there, as if he didn't remember the softness of her skin against his tongue, the tang of her blood, the sharp edge of her teeth on his hide as he ran with her through the trees, embracing her, so precious, taking her away. Let her go on without knowing that the sight of her back, white against the black of the lake, was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

She cleared her throat. "What did you - what did Moony want with me?"

At this, Remus's blanched face coloured red. It was clear what Moony wanted, clear but unspeakable. He was an animal, acting on base instincts. If he'd found her sooner, not so close to dawn, if he hadn't heard Padfoot calling to him from afar…

Remus forced a cough to hide the shiver running through his body. "You've played fetch with a dog before, haven't you?" he said. "They chase things just for the having of them."

"Yes, they chew them up and then let them go so they can chase them down again," she finished.

He shrugged. "I can't explain him any better. Moony isn't something I understand well. His heart isn't always mine. And his mind is never mine."

She hummed, the blanket was warm enough to reshape her tiredness into sleepiness. She cast another longing look at the pillow beside Remus's head before she blinked away the impulse to lie next to him and sleep. "You don't remember what I said to Moony when you - when he found me?"

He smirked. This part was true. "Moony's not one for conversation. Whatever you said would have sounded to him like crying or screaming, possibly laughing. Or so people who know him tell me."

"People? Which people know him? I thought - "

As if in answer, the door to the shack crashed open. The lads had come. They were calling Remus's name, storming up the stairs.

Narcissa was on her feet, and at the same moment, Remus sat up in bed, the covers falling to his waist, baring his thin, pale, scarred torso but he was too panicked to be embarrassed. "Go!" he said. "Through that exit Floo there. The password is Wormtail. Go on!"

The acrid smell of Floo powder still hung in the air as the lads tumbled into the room. No one mentioned it. Maybe they hadn't noticed.

"There he is," Sirius said, falling on the bed, rolling into the warm blanket Narcissa had just shed.

"Good old Moony," James said, collapsing across the foot of the bed. "You did make it back here on your own."

"Terribly sorry about the wild night, lads," Remus said. Peter had tossed a jumper at him and he was now pulling it over his head. "I must be more restless and agitated than I knew."

"Yes, well, we were out of our minds with worry," James said, punching at Remus's leg through the covers. "Imagining you raging into some Death Eater trap."

Remus scoffed as he stood up to pull on his trousers. "They've no interest in me. Their werewolf quota is full, I'm sure. It's the rest of you who need to worry."

Sirius smirked. "I don't know about that. But we do know it wasn't Death Eaters you were after tonight."

Remus's hands froze, caught in the motion of fastening his belt. "Moony," he said. "I was after nothing tonight. I can't speak to what Moony might have - "

His words cut short when Peter draped a long swath of black fabric around his neck. It was heavy, like a Hogwarts cloak, but not his. The fabric was finer than anything he'd ever worn, fully-lined with pale green silk, fragrant with narcissus flowers. He crushed a handful of it in his fist, speechless.

"Found this by the lake," Sirius said. "Near a patch of snow deep enough to hold a footprint - yours. No blood or signs of a struggle, so I assume the owner of the cloak survives."

Remus answered with only a nod.

Peter reached for the cloak again, leaving it on Remus's back but turning to the green lining and the monogram sewn over the inside pocket.

"A bit surprised to see the Black family crest stitched into it," Sirius said. "I won't wear the crest anymore, but Regulus still does."

"Although," James said, bowing his face into the cloak around Remus's shoulders, inhaling deeply, "I'm no hound, but this cloak does not smell like Regulus to me."

"True. And anyway, he's not the only other student entitled to wear the Black crest," Sirius continued. "There's one more person."

Remus rubbed at his eyes with his fingertips.

"Do you want to name her?" James prodded, his tone almost light, as if the incident might be something of a joke. "Or shall we?"

"It's not funny," Remus snapped. "It's awful."

"What's awful? What is going on?" Sirius demanded, not a trace of mirth left. "You have to tell us what that mania tonight had to do with Narcissa Black."

Remus snarled, still close enough to Moony for all three of the lads to take a reflexive step away from him. "It's Moony. He fancies her." Remus said it out loud though it sounded stupid - a massive understatement of the mad, wild extent of Moony's hunger for the Veela on the lakeshore.

Sirius was aghast. "Narcissa?"

"Not really," Remus said, sitting hard in the armchair by the fireplace. "Narcissa has a creature-self. Some residual trace of Veela ancestry only visible to other creatures, which so far means to Moony alone. Apparently, he's quite taken with it."

"Veela ancestry?" Peter repeated, eyeing Sirius.

"Not through the Black family. Through her mother's side," Remus said.

"The Rosiers?"

"Yes."

"Well, Moony must have had quite the interview with her to sort out details like that," Sirius said, angry now.

"She didn't tell me tonight," Remus barked back to him. "It was at school, while we were human."

"And you're only telling us tonight - "

"Look, we need to settle this later," James said, stepping between them. "The castle will be up for the day any minute now."

"Oh yes, and the darling Lily Evans must be seen to," Sirius sneered.

"What is that supposed to - "

"Lads, lads, lads," Peter was saying, pulling the cloak from Remus's shoulders and bundling it in his arms. "What we need to do now is eat. None of us is as angry as we imagine. We're just knackered and famished. You know how it is, every morning after."

"Right," James said, standing down. "The exit Floo then?"

Sirius spun away from them. "Suit yourselves. I'm going back by the tunnel. I could use the walk. Don't follow. I'll see you in class."

Sirius's early morning walk from the shrieking shack back to the castle through the tunnel at the base of the willow tree had done little to improve his mood. Before he'd set off, he'd taken the cloak Narcissa Black had left on the lakeshore out of Peter's hands. He held it now by one corner, dragging it behind himself as he strode across the Entrance Hall to the Slytherin stairwell, looking for his cousin.

His glare swept the hall, where students of every house were leaving breakfast, a few stragglers rushing in late. He had no clear plan of how to get into the Slytherin dungeon, but he wouldn't need one. Ahead of him, his head down as he read a book, was Regulus.

Sirius caught his brother's wrist, the left one, just below that filthy mark, just above the pocket where he stashed his wand. With a twist Sirius pulled it up, hard, behind Regulus's back.

"Get off me! What is the matter with you?"

"I need to talk to Narcissa," Sirius hissed at him. "And either you can go into your dorm and bring her out, or I can march you in there like this and find her."

"You don't even know for sure she's there," Regulus answered through gritted teeth.

"Go look, or we'll bring Slytherin's two hundred years of no outsiders in the dorm to an end right now."

Regulus scoffed. "I've seen your map. I know you've been all through our dorm ages ago."

"Yeah, but they don't," Sirius said, nodding at a pack of Slytherins hurrying by with their eyes averted, well-trained in politely ignoring family spats. "Now get Narcissa. I have something of hers that needs returning."

"I'll take it," said an imperious voice. Arriving beside them was Severus Snape.

"Move along, Snape," Sirius said. "This is a family matter."

"Yes, most heart-warming."

"I don't expect you to understand," Sirius said, which might have been the cruelest answer he could have given.

Regulus barked a loud, pained laugh. "Severus is more my brother now than you are."

Sirius pulled his wrist higher as Regulus yelped. "Ah, yes. You're brothers in arms now," Sirius said. "Well, I don't see your new brother laying hands on me to save you. But I bet you can guess what I'd do if I saw him roughing up you."

Regulus scoffed again, less convincingly. "Shut it, Sirius. Let go before I - "

"What in the stars is going on here, you ignorant animals?" It was Narcissa herself, speaking angrily through a clenched jaw, storming over to intervene, to save face for the Black family.

Sirius let go of Regulus, leaving him rubbing his shoulder and muttering swears. Sirius pivoted away from him. "Just looking for you, coz. Hoping to return something of yours." He held out the cloak with two fingers, dangling the dirty length of fabric in front of her, its pale green silk lining now tattered and grey.

She frowned at it. "I assure you, that is not - " she began before she recognized the silvery stitching of the Black family crest. Without a word, she snatched it from Sirius, her white face flushing pink.

Sirius clapped his hands, just once. "Now, Narcissa, let's have a word. Some privacy, Snape, if you please."

"I'm staying," he said.

Sirius nodded. "Very well, then. Shall I go ahead and say it with everyone listening, Cissa? I'm sure it's a fascinating story, how that fine cloak of yours ended up lakeside in the Forbidden Forest last night."

"Stop your nonsense," she said. "It's alright Severus, Regulus. You can leave us. I'm not afraid of this pathetic little boy."

As the others left, Narcissa and Sirius rounded on each other, their heads close together, both of them furious. "What were you doing in the forest last night?" they demanded of one another almost in unison.

Narcissa tossed her head. "I'll go first, since I've nothing to hide. I was walking by the lake and must have left my cloak behind in a hurry. There was some odd howling and it spooked me. I assume that's where you found it, while you were out doing stars know what with stars know who."

Sirius grinned. "That is where I found it, actually. And technically, you've told me no lies. Very good. Cunning, like they say. But there's someone else in your story, isn't there. Someone who always tells me the whole truth."

Her eyes narrowed and her brow drew itself down. "I didn't see a single person in the woods last night."

"Better and better," Sirius smirked. "Yes, you didn't see a person. You saw our Moony."

She gave it up. "I didn't have much of a choice, did I. He found me and grabbed me. Look."

She flung her arm between them, showing where Moony had scratched her.

Sirius sucked in a breath. "That's a scratch from Moony? From just hours ago?"

She nodded, covering it with her sleeve again, unable to go so far as to accuse him. "It was an accident. But still…"

Sirius tapped a finger against his jaw. "For one of Moony's, that is much too neat of a scratch. I've had enough of them in my time to know what they're like. And there is no possible way it should look that good already. It's practically healed."

"Rubbish."

"Either one of two things is true," he went on, ignoring her protest. "Either that is an old wound from something other than Moony, or else he treated it for you, in that special way of his. Otherwise, it wouldn't have healed so soon. And that means, you must have let him…"

Narcissa folded her arms and leaned closer, into Sirius's face. "However it happened, I am through answering to you for it. If Lupin himself thinks we need to talk about it, he should have come to me himself."

"No," Sirius interrupted. "No, no, no. You are not talking to Remus anymore. And you are definitely not seeing Moony ever again."

"That is not for you to decide."

"Maybe not," Sirius said, their faces almost touching now. "But if I ever find out you've been with him again, alone, either as Remus or Moony, as yourself or as some slaggy creature version of yourself, I will owl a letter to Malfoy Manor and tell them everything."

Her expression was blank, unfazed, but Sirius sensed a slight wobble in her defiant stance. "You think you can threaten me by undoing an arranged marriage I've never cared for?"

Sirius tossed his head, laughing. "I know you better than that, coz. You might not care for Malfoy himself, but you know what his family's like. If they have to make a public break of the betrothal, they'll be sure everyone knows why. They'll be sure the entire pureblood movement knows you've been consorting with a werewolf."

"Consorting? You filthy - we never - "

"Close enough for them," he snapped. "They won't care about the details of who licked what and why. Just hearing you've gone and made Moony mad for you will be more than enough for Bella to never speak to you again, and my mother, maybe your own mother too - all of them. Your entire society, turning against you. Don't act like this is all about whether you get to be Madam Malfoy. It's about whether your loved ones will let you stay in their lives. They are ruthless when it comes to breaches like this. Believe me."

She was shaking her head, hardly hearing him. "I've gone and made Moony - what?"

"Consider yourself warned," Sirius said, retreating. "Stay away from Remus. For good."

Narcissa stood in the Entrance Hall, watching Sirius vault up the stairs, out of sight. Her ruined cloak lay at her feet. Her heart beat in her throat, and not at the threat of a public disgrace.

Moony was mad for her. That was what Sirius had said. What did that mean? And what would become of her now that she knew it?