James Potter threw both his arms over his secret new wife's shoulders, around her neck as he rushed up behind her in the dungeon corridor to the potions lab. He didn't say a word before burying his face in her hair and breathing in her scent like it was oxygen he'd been deprived of for too long.

She laughed and turned to kiss his cheek. "Hello, my darling. How was Creatures class?"

"Deranged," he said. "There was a Veela there charming people into snogging each other. Making me miss you even worse than I normally would have."

Lily frowned. "Veelas can only do that when they're in love themselves. Do you mean to tell me Grubbly-Plank brought a romantically active Veela to school?"

"No, Remus did."

"Remus? James, what are you talking about?"

He gave a low laugh against her throat. "It's hard to explain. We'd better skip potions and go upstairs and sort it out."

She scoffed. "I am not falling for that. And I'm not skipping potions. It would break Slughorn's heart."

James moved to hold her from the side instead of from behind. "Who cares?"

"I do," she said, arranging his arm around her shoulders the way she liked it best. "Especially after we couldn't invite him to the - you know. The poor dear."

He nibbled at her ear. "You do like deer."

"James Potter," she said, "do you have news on Remus and a Veela or not?"

He hushed her and whispered the developments between Remus and Narcissa Black into her ear. Like everyone, she was most concerned about the arranged fiance, that dangerous Malfoy.

"She's got to leave Remus alone or break up with Malfoy at once. She simply cannot have them both," Lily said. "And I'll be happy to explain that to her if she doesn't understand it."

"She doesn't want both," James assured her. "At least, that's what Remus says. She's looking into throwing Malfoy over."

"Looking into it," Lily scoffed. "She's going to force the two of them into a duel."

James shrugged. "As long as they duel during a full moon, I think Remus's chances are spectacular."

"It's not funny," she said. "Remus is clever, and good, and self-disciplined. I can't imagine why he's going along with it."

"Don't be too disappointed in him," James said, pushing the classroom door open in front of them. "He and Narcissa will both be in potions with us. Maybe you'll get a sense of her influence, what the poor bloke is up against."

Remus and Narcissa were already in the classroom when the Potters arrived, sitting at opposite corners of the room. As always, Severus was Narcissa's partner, but they lacked their usual close, conniving posture. In fact, she looked tense and angry with him. So did Remus.

Sirius bumped against James and Lily as they stopped in the doorway. "Great stars, the drama in here," he said, pushing past, making for their usual table. Peter had quit potions in fifth year so it was just the three lads for this hour. Sirius sat next to Remus, sniffing at the air.

"What are we cooking in here today, love?" James said, his chin on Lily's shoulder as she opened her textbook.

"Generic Skele-gro," she said. "See, aren't you glad we aren't skiving? A family that plays so much quidditch needs to know how to make their own Skele-gro."

James still wasn't convinced they wouldn't be making better use of their time upstairs alone in their tower room, but he said, "I'll head to the supply cupboard."

"No you don't," she said, stopping him with a hand raised to his chest. "You're not going into an enclosed space with a bunch of other people when there's an active Veela around."

"Why? All she does is make me desperately lonely for you," James said, covering her hand, shifting it to cover his heart. "Honestly, Lily. People were snogging all over the place and I didn't even try anything with Sirius during Creatures class. Did I Rus?"

"No, he was nothing but a complete sap for you," Sirius said, not looking up from his textbook.

Lily cooed, leaning into James and kissing him softly on the mouth.

Remus groaned and covered his face.

It snapped Lily out of her sweetness. "Now Remus, you're a dear friend of mine. Someone I respect for his good sense and cleverness. And for your own well-being, I really think - "

"Not now, darling," James said. "We need to get the potion started. Off you go. Bring the supplies."

"Not you either," Sirius said, pushing Remus back into his seat as he rose to follow Lily. "You stay here at a safe distance. I'll go to the cupboard."

The Skele-gro smelled awful - awful enough that it seemed like not even Veela pheromone could overpower it. Near the end of class, Sirius and Remus were short one ingot of alabaster, and since there had been no cuddling incidents anywhere, Sirius didn't object when Remus went to the supply cupboard to get it himself.

"Excuse me," Narcissa said, rising from their table and leaving Severus to do the final stirring of their Skele-gro himself. She slipped into the supply cupboard behind Remus and shut the door. She was fast, darting across the small room and hugging Remus from behind almost before he knew she was there, her face between his shoulder blades, sighing.

"The rest of the class should be safe from me while I'm shut in here," she said. "Fumes from this cupboard vent outside the castle. I hope that works for magical as well as chemical residues."

Remus dropped his hand on top of where hers were linked together at his stomach. At the touch of her skin on his, his eyes drifted closed. "So Sirius explained his theory to you? About all the trouble in Creatures class?"

She scoffed. "Please. I don't need Sirius to explain to me what it means to be part Veela. If there's anything he wants to know, he can ask me."

Remus turned around, taking her in his arms. "They say your powers are stronger now, like they awakened when we... But frankly, I don't see the difference - "

She laughed and tipped her head against his chest. "You wouldn't. It's been like this for you from the start, hasn't it? But they're right. And that's why today's trouble is all your fault."

He laughed back at her. "Whose fault is it?"

As she blinked up at him, her smile faltered, and her Veela spoke her mind. "It nearly broke my heart yesterday when you didn't come find me. I was in the library, not studying but reading about betrothal contracts all day, trying to make my way through it all to get to you. And you never came."

He sighed and pressed his face against her forehead. "We know that until we figure this out, it's not safe for me to be with you in places like the library, where people can see." He smoothed her hair with his palm. "I'm sorry. It wasn't because it wasn't breaking my heart not to see you too."

She hadn't expected him to be so frank. It set her reeling backward, held up in his arms, her eyes wide, fixed on his mouth, her own lips parted.

He felt a twitch in his face, a rush of anticipation. It had been too long since he'd last touched her, agonizing, so long he couldn't be smart about it anymore. He was going to kiss her again, now, with the rest of the class just behind the door.

She knew it, her breath quickening.

As he bent toward her, he could hear her heart beat in his ears again. But he could also hear footsteps, fast and heavy, pounding toward the door. She was stretching toward him but he pushed himself away from her, turning around and standing as if examining the assortment of alabaster ingots just in time for someone to crash through the door.

It was Sirius, slick with sweating, his hair disheveled. "You've got to stop," he said. "I told you."

Narcissa was arguing. "But we didn't - and the fumes are vented - "

"Not good enough," Sirius said. "Not by a long shot. Come on, Remus. We're on our way to the Hospital Wing. Snape has attacked James."

No sooner had Narcissa Black closed the door to the supply cupboard in the potions classroom than the room changed. Partners were standing closer, brushing hands, blinking shyly at their notebooks. The atmosphere was less frantic and headlong than it had been in Care of Magical Creatures class, but the feeling was the same.

The change struck Sirius like an alarm. He glanced around for Remus, then for Narcissa. "Oh no they don't," he said, his stir-stick clattering in the cauldron of the now ruined potion. He took off his gloves and headed for the cupboard.

Meanwhile, James's face took on a dreamy look, blinking slowly as he watched Lily stirring. She looked up from the potion, leaned forward and kissed him, not passionately, only sweetly. Through the door, the Veela magic was not so strong that it could cause her to breach Slughorn's limits.

Severus Snape, however, was standing much closer to the cupboard door. As Sirius strode toward it, Snape's gaze drifted up, away from the potion he had been diligently stirring, away from everything in his surroundings that usually restrained him.

Lily.

All at once, her name was in his head, as if a voice had whispered it into his ears - a cruel voice, taunting. It was a voice he knew and knew to hate: Potter's.

There Potter stood, on the far side of the room, standing next to Lily as she brewed their potion, like a dutiful little wife. Potter leaned on the table, his weight on his elbow, looking up at her, chattering some nonsense that was making her smile and - sickeningly - making her blush.

Two nights - they must have spent at least two nights together already, impervious to the schools' chastity charms that kept unmarried, unbonded couples from copulating. Unbridled, with the blessing of the headmaster and their parents they were in her new Head Girl quarters together, at the top of Gryffindor Tower.

Snape had steeled his mind against it, not letting it tear him apart. It had taken all of his considerable mental skill, and it was all for nothing now. He stood consumed with rage, disgusted at the undeniable reality that, by now, Potter would have seen all of her, touched all of her with his hands, his mouth, her most tender inner self violated with his contemptible, unworthy -

Someone cried out, a choked, wet sound. It was Potter himself, falling over the table, already soaked in his own blood.

Shocked, the class looked first to him and then to Snape. He looked down at himself as well, his arm still raised, wand drawn, the room resounding with the sound of his attack. What had he said?

It had happened fast. Sirius hadn't yet reached the cupboard door. Lily hadn't screamed but she was sobbing now as she spoke to James, pulling off her tie and wrapping it around his bleeding neck. "James - no. Don't talk, love. Don't - let me - Stars, someone help us! Please..."

As two big Ravenclaw beaters bore Potter away, up the stairs to the Hospital Wing, Slughorn was in Snape's face. "Sectum sempra," he was saying. "That was your incantation. What kind of spell was that? You tell me this instant, boy!"

Sirius and Remus bolted past him, out the door, Sirius's shoulder colliding with Snape's hard enough to knock him into Slughorn, who barely steadied him before he would have fallen on his face.

"Is there a counter-curse?" Slughorn demanded, holding Snape by the shoulders.

"I never meant to - "

"Is there a counter-curse?"

"Yes."

Slughorn spun him around, marching him toward the door. "You either cast that counter-curse for Potter, or you leave this school for life."

The Hospital Wing was chaos. Two burly Ravenclaws from the seventh year potions class had just come through the doors carrying James Potter. Behind them, a trail of blood led all the way back to the potions dungeon. Professor Slughorn and Severus Snape had followed it, and were now standing at James's bedside while Lily Evans and Madam Pomfrey were pulling off his blood-soaked shirt and tie. He was cut deeply, viciously across his collar bones, just below his throat, bleeding profusely.

Remus Lupin and Sirius Black had thrown themselves in front of Snape when he came in, shouting at him and ordering him to leave, threatening to slash him to pieces in return.

"There's a counter-curse, you idiots," Snape was saying. "Get out of the way."

"You are not coming near him again!" Sirius snarled.

"Gentlemen, we need to approach this rationally, pragmatically," Slughorn said.

"He'll approach nothing," Sirius said, eyes still on Snape. "This evil, jealous, cowardly - "

"Hexing James while his back was turned - " Remus added.

"You never even saw," Snape said, suddenly raging at Lupin. "You, in the supply cupboard with that girl who plays at being a Veela - "

Lupin lunged at Snape, over Sirius's shoulder, reaching for the front of his robes.

"Shut it!" a voice called over the noise. It was Lily. When the room fell quiet, the sound of James's quick, shallow breaths could be heard. "Severus come here. If there's a counter-curse, you must use it to mend him."

James didn't argue. He might not have heard, his eyes closed, his body stripped to the waist, his skin white with shock, but his grip on Lily's arm showing signs of strength and will.

"Madam Pomfrey?" Slughorn said.

"A counter-curse is always the best remedy, if he has one," she allowed. "Could take me hours, maybe days to patch him up otherwise, and him bleeding all the while - dangerous."

"Sev, please," Lily said.

Sirius began to protest but Remus raised a hand to his chest. "It's not for us to object if it's what she wants for him."

The remark stung Snape. Yes, of course. As Potter's wife, Lily's say meant more than anyone's. He spun on his heel, fed up and storming out of the infirmary. Let Slughorn threaten all he wanted.

"Sev!" Lily called after him, tears in her voice. "Don't leave me like this. Please."

His face still turned away from her, Snape's shoulders rose and then fell. He was relenting, staying, turning back.

"Some privacy," he sneered, brushing past Sirius and Remus as he moved to the bed.

"Yes, let's wait outside, lads," Slughorn said. "Come along now."

Lily stayed close, her red, sticky hands still entwined with James's as Snape stood over them. He drew his wand and began to intone the counter-curse, a low, indistinct incantation, like a song. As Lily watched, James's slashed flesh began to mend, knitting itself together. It began on the inner layers and vessels, stopping the flow of blood, and worked outward, Snape's wand passing slowly over the wound, in one direction, and then the other.

He finished and stood back, the song dying away. The atmosphere in the room was different, something like peaceful. Snape staggered back, drained, disgusted with the damage he'd done, and equally disgusted that he'd been made to undo it himself.

Colour was returning to Potter's face. He was clearing his throat, coughing up fluid that Lily was wiping away with her soiled jumper. It was profoundly intimate, dreadful for Snape to have to see, perhaps worse than watching them embrace each other. Even when awful and mangled, she treated his body as precious, as if she loved him more than anything else she had.

Without waiting for a word of thanks or dismissal, Snape was swooping away, Potter coughing behind him, Lily cooing words of comfort and encouragement, Madam Pomfrey dabbing the closed wound with a dropper full of Dittany.

At the door, Slughorn stopped Snape as Remus and Sirius rushed back into the infirmary. He patted his shoulder. "My dear Severus, why would a promising potioneer like yourself craft a spell as dark as that one? What good is magic like that?"

Snape lifted his chin, speaking to the old man through a sinister smirk. "Precisely. It is not good magic at all."

Remus used the map to find her, checking it as he left Gryffindor Tower before tossing it back at Peter. "Keep watching it, will you?" he said. "Make sure Snape doesn't slink back to the Hospital Wing."

Eager to do something after missing everything, Peter agreed.

Narcissa was in the empty Divination classroom again, sitting on a mound of cushions, staring at an empty, dimly glowing crystal ball, a book open on the table in front of her. With no one else in the room, there was no one for her to drive mad with the influence of her feelings for Lupin

Bloody Severus...

She startled at the sound of the door closing. Lupin, at last. Before she could see him, she could feel him coming closer, like heat from a fire, newly lit, and growing. When his face came into sight, it was impossible for her to smile at him, not until she heard whether James Potter had survived Snape's mad, jealous attack. And not until she knew Remus hadn't come to tell her that after what happened in potions class, he would never be near her again.

Remus said nothing at first. She waited, tense as he walked to where she sat. He was sighing as he bent as if to sit next to her. She braced herself for the blow of hearing him offer her wise, tempered good sense. But instead, he was rolling onto his side, and laying his head in her lap, his face turned toward the crystal ball.

"I'm rubbish at Divination," he said, nestling his cheek against her thigh as her fingers sank into his hair.

"As am I," she said, quietly, awash with relief that he'd come to her, and was touching her, still wanting her. "So you'll have to tell me directly whether Potter is alright."

"He's getting better," Remus said, weary of disaster, sick of talking about it. "He's weak from the loss of blood, but Snape had a counter-curse so the wound is undone. There's hardly even a mark, unbelievable as that is. Awful mess though. Terrifying for everyone."

"Yes, it was," she said. "Ghastly spell. Severus is not to be underestimated. For good or for - not good."

Remus raised his hand and laid it beside his face, on her leg. "Why is your skirt so nice? Our trousers are made of scratchy wool. I thought the skirts were too."

She sniffed. "That's because you're in Gryffindor. The Slytherins who can afford it know to order their skirts and trousers in cashmere."

"Cashmere." He felt the hem at her knee between his fingers. "It's incredibly soft. I've never felt anything like it."

"Only the best for your face," she said, feeling more like herself, smoothing her knuckles into the hollow below his cheekbone.

He sniffed a laugh against her leg, rubbing his face against it, faintly doglike, and in a way she found she adored.

"We'll have to make the best of time alone," she said, speaking the good sense herself. "To prevent any more accidents like today's, we can't be near each other when there are other people close by."

Remus sighed. "It's true. Keeping our distance. That won't be too difficult. Seeing as this doomed thing between us won't last more than a few months, tops."

"What a thing to say," she said, tousling his hair.

He sat up, bringing his face into her view. He looked not only tired but sad, even through his hint of a smile. Bittersweet - that was the best they could hope for. Gently, she kissed him, one hand on his face, her eyes closed as her fingers languidly traced the raised lines of his scars. Her motion set a pace different from their first kiss, as if to tell him to go slowly, and sense everything carefully rather than devouring it. There would be time for that, but not all the time.

He understood and leaned into her, eager and open, always stronger than he looked, taking her in a slow, controlled tackle. The cushions were at her back, inclining her torso beneath his. His nose moved against her cheek, breathing in her smell, floral but musky. Her lips were fuller than his but smaller, delicate, inviting.

He pulled back barely far enough to speak. "I meant I'd never felt a fabric as soft as cashmere before," he said, fingers trailing through her hair, fanning it over the pillows. "This is softer."

"What is? My hair?"

He hummed, lowering his hands to slide them beneath her, filling the curve at the small of her back, arching her spine up into himself. "Your hair, skin, your mouth - everything of yours I've tried. All of it is softer, sweeter than anything."

He was lovely. Too lovely, in need of teasing. "And my teeth?" she asked, nipping lightly at his bottom lip.

"They have their charm," he said, moving away from her tiny bites, kissing down her chin and onto her neck. "Though they may be more to Moony's taste."

"But you and Moony…" she began, breathless now as his mouth moved along her throat.

"...are the same," they finished together, laughing softly at themselves.

She kept her knees together, raised in a peak and tipped to one side of him as he leaned over her. The weight of his torso on top of hers soothed and pleased her, and she held him close, her hands on his back as he kissed her with slow, melting pressure, learning the feel of her. It went on and on, this indulgence of the need they'd felt for each other all day, and the building of more and greater needs.

Finally, he pushed himself off her, his voice in his sigh, hovering over her, propped on his elbows, flushed and short of breath no matter how slowly they went.

"What is it?" she said, rising toward him. "You don't look like you want to bite me this time."

He laid his hand on her cheek, his thumb outlining her lips. "I want to look at you. How could I not want to take a little of our time to look at you, up close like this?"

She rose to kiss his forehead, but the movement was also one of sliding out from under him, sitting up. "You'd better look at me while I tell you what else I learned from reading all about betrothal contracts yesterday," she said, reaching for the book on the tabletop.

He sat up sighing again, straightening his clothes, and wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her into his lap with her book, careful not to reveal too much. "Right. How bad is it?"

"It's fascinating reading, actually," she said, cracking the book's spine as she settled into him as if he was a lanky armchair. "Did you know, Lupin, that magical creatures can enter into bonds with each other? Even non-magical creatures can do it, like the swans at my grandparents' estate. They enter into bonds for life, real ones, but without words or certificates or officials. Not Veelas though," she hurried to say. "Veelas want human partners to bond with, in spite of all the paperwork that entails. Just as werewolves are drawn to humans to satisfy their hunger, we're drawn to humans to satisfy - well."

"Alright, alright," he said. "Lucky eternally bonded swans. Now back to the tedium of human contracts."

She clucked her tongue. "Weren't you listening to me in Creatures class? Betrothal contracts are no longer legally binding in Britain. They're a custom more than a law."

"Yes, but a custom that will see you ostracized, homeless, penniless," he said. He was brushing his nose against her ear, muttering, "See, I was listening."

"Even so, my sister Andromeda survived all of that when she married a Muggle-born man and my parents turned her out of the house. And I think I know how." She sat up taller, twisting to face him, pleased with her theory. "Daughters of old families generally have a lump sum of gold in their own name stashed at Gringotts. It's meant as a dowry, but it doesn't take a genius to see that it could also be a safety net for girls who cannot abide their arranged fiancés and need to escape. It lets the family support them in advance and still maintain the appearance of having disowned them."

Remus frowned. "How is that better than simply forgiving the daughters and letting them live at home until they find someone they like?"

She blinked at him. "It's about honor, of course. Saving face. The family doesn't have to go down in history as truce-breakers."

Remus shook his head. "Alright. If they like. So if you broke with Malfoy..."

"I might not be destitute. Not at first. I would have to work eventually - "

"Or find another rich git."

She ignored the comment. "I think the money is set aside intentionally. It's a mercy from the family. But," she paused, "there is a magical aspect to the engagement bond between us as well."

Remus shuddered. "What does that mean?"

"Vows," she said. "There was a ceremony when Lucius gave me the opal ring, after the agreement was signed. It was quite formal. You know, flashy but dull, with me in some ridiculous dress, and speeches, and both of us making pledges of loyalty in front of our families."

Remus scoffed. "Loyalty? Oh dear..."

"And whoever breaks them first pays a penalty," she went on. "Usually a temporary suspension of wand use or something else related to magical practice. It's difficult and humiliating and - "

"Not honorable?" Remus finished.

She nodded, watching his face as he considered it. Wand suspension was a significant punishment, but with a Muggle for a mother, he knew it could be done. Something else was making him frown. "So," he began, "how are your pledges not broken already? Surely, snogging werewolves must count against them."

"No, actually," she said. "As long as I don't lose my virginity, I'm safe with you."

He clenched his eyes closed and shook his head once. "What?"

"Well, they had to give the women something after they let men have the engagement period as a time for one last venting of their sexual energy," she said, indignant. "Lucius has certainly never pretended he's saving himself for me."

Remus dropped his head on her shoulder. "I do not understand pure blood families. Not at all."

"Don't bother trying too hard," she said. "It comes down to there being other kinds of betrayal besides sexual infidelity during the engagement."

His head perked up suddenly, as if he'd just realized something he wanted badly to say out loud.

"What is it?" she prodded when he didn't speak.

He stammered for a moment before choking out a word. "Virginity," he said. "Don't lose your virginity? So you and Malfoy - he's never - I mean, even though he can take you anywhere, no chastity charms, no chaperones, you and he - you never - "

"Oh, no," she said, slightly alarmed. "No, he's never had me. No one has. The closest I've ever got to it was - I suppose it was you lying on top of me just now."

Remus sighed in such relief he fell forward onto her shoulder again. "Thank the stars. I mean, it should be nothing to me," he said. "It won't be me who - I know that, but - I'm just glad that for now, while we're like this… It's better."

She cleared a wayward wave of coarse brown hair from his forehead. "Yes, it is."

There was heat rising in his chest. She was moving off his lap, her head higher than his now, hands on his shoulders, pushing him against the cushions, following as he laid back. Her hair fell around their faces as she kissed him, less slowly and leisurely than before, possessive, hot.

His hands were on either side of her ribcage, fingers splayed, rising and falling with her breaths. She was less Lucius Malfoy's than he had feared. When she remembered a man's body heavy on her own, or remembered the body under hers, it would be his, Lupin's - at least for the time being.

"Remus," someone called in a loud whisper from the doorway.

He bolted upright, bringing Narcissa with him, setting her primmly next to him, clearing his throat. "Pete?"

"Yeah, sorry," he said, not coming any further into the room. "It's just that I was watching the map, like you said, and - he's here. Lucius Malfoy is in the school right now."

The headmaster paced in his office. Fytherly Undercliffe had just come from the Potters' manor, where another portrait of himself hung in their upstairs corridor. He had brought back a troubling report when Dumbledore sent him to give the Potters news that James had been injured. Fleamont Potter was ill, so sick Euphemia would not be coming to see to her son.

It was bad, but there was no time to dwell on what it might mean. Not when Lucius Malfoy was swaggering up the stairwell into the office.

"Excuse me, Professor," he was saying. "I know you sent for my father-in-law-to-be, but he sends me in his place. You see, there's word of Dragon Pox spreading through the country's elderly, and as he is on the cusp of old age himself, Mr. Black has asked that I deal with our young Snape. "

Dumbledore regarded him over the tops of his spectacles. Snape was among the students whose parents did not visit the school. Since Cygnus Black had started bringing Snape home with Narcissa to teach him extra lessons on holidays, he had stepped forward as a contact for him. It had always been a mere formality. But now, after the attack in the potions dungeon, Snape was in need of discipline, and counsel from a mentor.

Dumbledore, however, was openly dismayed to see Lucius Malfoy sent as that mentor. "This is a very serious matter. It can't be resolved with mere detentions and scoldings."

Lucius stepped closer. "Truly serious indeed. We are shocked with Severus. Why, he had been all but," Lucius faltered, fighting to speak the next words. "He's all but family."

As Lucius Malfoy admitted that a half-blood wizard could be anything like his family, Dumbledore's eyes widened, and then twinkled. He might not have believed what he heard, but it was good to hear all the same. "Very well," he said.

He set about fussing over making tea for his guest, and a moment later, Severus Snape and Horace Slughorn had joined them.

Lucius clapped Severus hard on the shoulder. "Right, my boy. Let's get to the bottom of this."

Slughorn retold the story of the attack while Snape sat in an armchair, hands folded, eyes fixed on his unpolished shoes.

"I don't understand," Dumbledore said. "A sudden, unprovoked, violent attack on a student you haven't rowed with in years, Severus? Surely something instigated it?"

"Well, yes," Lucius drawled. "You just said so yourself, Professor. Years ago Severus and the Potter boy were adversaries. Such wounds never leave us. Some fester with time rather than heal. It's unfortunate Potter didn't realize that earlier, but he is no less guilty of his past assaults merely because he has answered for them today."

Slughorn grumbled. "I was there too and I suggest a different provocation. There was some talk, even by Severus himself in the infirmary, about one of our potions students being an active Veela. Other students reported having a similar feeling. And, forgive me for saying so, Severus, but if you were feeling a magically intensified romantic jealousy toward James Potter, it is possible you may have lashed out and - "

Snape turned his head, leaning away from Lucius as he interrupted Slughorn with a laugh.

Slughorn nodded. "Hit a nerve, have I?"

Dumbledore took it over. "Veela? None of our current students are known to have any Veela nature about them."

Slughorn gave a mighty sigh. "Haven't I always said, Albus, that the students shouldn't still be here with us once they come of age? It's too much, managing grown adults with their feelings and egos and abilities, coming into their own in all sorts of unforeseeable ways - "

"Yes, so you've said, Horace. But which student is this alleged Veela?" Silence followed, and in it, Dumbledore looked at all of their faces. Snape was twitching and laughing bitterly to himself. Lucius Malfoy looked even whiter than usual, his lip curled, no longer speaking up in Snape's defense.

Slughorn looked tired. "No one I spoke with would hazard a guess, but - "

"Oh, just tell them, Lucius," Severus snapped.

Lucius lifted his chin, his voice cold. "I have no idea what you mean."

"For stars' sake," Severus spat. "She's tried to tell me, and Regulus, and you as well. We all laughed at her, but she's come into it on her own, apparently. That can't be argued with any longer."

Lucius veered away, his tone loud and animated again. "What was that spell you used, Severus?" he said. "You're crafting your own violent spells now, are you?"

"Tell them," Snape insisted. "Tell them about her in your own way, or I shall tell them in mine."

Dumbledore smoothed his beard. "The only other Hogwarts student you are connected to, Lucius, is Narcissa Black. She was in the room when Potter was attacked. Are we to understand that - "

Lucius cut him off with a laugh. "It's a childish fantasy of hers, yes," he said. "Embarrassing. I've never seen any sign of her being a Veela but her own wishing for it."

Dumbledore let out a long breath. "Yet, it stands to reason that the closer she gets to a romantic milestone such as your wedding day, the more active her Veela nature would become," he said.

Lucius sat back, stunned to be suddenly personally implicated in the attack on James Potter.

Dumbledore went on, nodding. "This needn't be a crisis, and it needn't interfere with Miss Black's schooling. Perhaps you haven't yet studied such matters, Lucius, but once a Veela is properly bonded to a partner, her influence will no longer diffuse over other people. It will stay within their pair. And since the pair of you have already made engagement pledges, I hope moving up the rest of your wedding plans should not be too much to ask. Not if it preserves order in the school and, ultimately, in the wizarding society that depends upon it. Don't you agree, Lucius?"

His mouth opened, then closed. He had planned on touring Europe all summer as an unmarried man for the last time. It was going to be spectacular, wild and free and raunchy. And now this. But he was not about to stand here in front of witnesses and break the engagement pledges either. That would leave him spending the summer with no wand at all, not to mention losing everything the Malfoy line stood to gain in yet another alliance with the Black family.

Dumbledore waited, watching his face. Professor Slughorn sat up from where he'd been slumped on the sofa with his head in his hands. "Well, Malfoy? You were always a good citizen of the school. And not just the school. Hogwarts is a pillar of British wizarding society. You won't let us all down now, will you?"

Lucius swallowed the lump in his throat. "It is not a decision to be made alone. I'll answer after I speak with Narcissa."

"Excellent," Dumbledore said, rising to his feet, clapping his hands. "Horace will take you to her."

On the sofa beside Slughorn, Snape was laughing again, cruel and low.