Remus Lupin and Narcissa Black left school early that afternoon, walking to the edge of Hogwarts' grounds and apparating together to the village of Upper Ferum. That was where Narcissa remembered her long lost eldest sister Andromeda had settled with her family. The problem was, she wasn't sure where exactly in town they lived.

"Someone said once that the house has a pond," she told Remus after they appeared in an alley. "That's all I know."

Finding the house was why Remus had come with her - the reason besides his being on edge about losing sight of her after Lucius Malfoy had attacked her with Legilimency, alone in the Slytherin common room the night before.

He nodded and sprung into action. "Right. We need a phone box." He was still holding her hand from their side-along apparation as he clipped toward a large red rectangle on the pavement outside a chemist's shop. "They come with thick, ratty books full of numbers and addresses for finding Muggles."

"My sister is not a Muggle," Narcissa said, keeping her hand very still in his, hoping he wouldn't realize he still held it.

"No, but all her in-laws are," he said, towing her along, her cloak flapping, "so they're connected to the Muggle world, and probably listed."

She looked pointedly over her shoulder at him as he pushed open the door of the phone box and waited for her to step inside, forcing him to slow down. "Aren't you clever," she said as she passed in front of him.

"Not clever, just the son of a lovely Muggle woman," he said, closing the door and turning to grapple with the book dangling from a cord.

Narcissa hummed and linked her hands around his stomach, leaning on his back, a favourite pose of hers. She settled her face into its place between his shoulder blades as he flipped the pages.

His purposeful movements slowed and stopped. "Now you've gone and made me forget their name."

She laughed. "Tonks, T-O-N-K-S."

"Right," he muttered to himself. "Concentrate..."

"You say your Mum is lovely?" she said.

"Yes, of course she is."

She propped her chin against a fleshier part of his upper back. "Would she like me?"

He huffed. "If you could behave yourself, she might. She married a wizard and raised a werewolf, so she tends to be very accepting of everyone. Lovely, like I said."

She sighed against his spine. "I wonder if Andromeda will like me. I haven't seen her in six years, you know. Not since I was twelve, and my parents forbade it. I wonder if she'll even recognize me."

"She'll have seen you in that full page photo spread in the Daily Prophet about your engagement last fall," he said over the noisy flipping of pages.

Narcissa clucked her tongue and rose onto her tiptoes so her lips brushed the nape of his neck as she spoke. "Lupin, you remember my newspaper engagement photos? You never struck me as the type to be interested in the society page."

"I'm not interested in society, I'm interested in - oh, come stand in front of me and help me look instead of distracting me."

In the tiny space, he squashed her around himself, standing her in front of him with his arms on either side of her, his hands not touching her but holding the book in front of them, his head leaning over her shoulder to read it.

"There it is," she said, pointing at the tiny print. "E Tonks. That will be them."

"Look at you, working Muggle technology for the first time," he said.

She huffed. "It's a book, Lupin."

"Yes, but - "

She slid out of his arms, smirking over her shoulder at him as she pushed at the dirty glass and let them back into the street. On the pavement, she reached for his hand again but he wouldn't surrender it, jamming it in his pocket instead. "Best be safe. We might not be the only ones of our kind here, and you could be recognized."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course." She walked at his side along the Upper Ferum high street, her hands clasped behind her back, feeling happy, light, and normal, wonderfully normal. The two of them were out together in the world - a Muggle world, but at this moment, it hardly mattered to her. If she squinted, they looked almost like an ordinary couple of students who might be in love, who might have a future.

They found a map of the area taped to the window of a newsagent's shop. Andromeda's address was not far off. They found it at the end of a lane, where the town was turning back into countryside. The cottage couldn't have been big, mostly hidden as it was by vines, but the garden was the largest they'd seen in the village, complete with a pond.

"Should I," Remus began, "should I keep myself busy somewhere else, until you're through?"

She wouldn't hear of it, and he was standing behind her on the flagstone walk as she knocked on the door. It opened with a click, drifting back to reveal a little girl, maybe five years old, her lavender hair bobbed at her chin.

"Dora, we can't be opening the door when you don't know - Oh." Andromeda had come to stand behind the girl. She was much as Narcissa remembered her, looking more like Bellatrix than she did like her. Andromeda scooped the little girl into her arms, peering warily at their callers, her hand buried in her skirts, searching for her wand.

"Andromeda," Narcissa said, "it's me. Cissie."

Her eyes widened and she let the wriggling five-year-old slide to the floor. "Cissie? What's happened? Is everyone alright? Is it mother?"

"No, everyone's fine."

"Thank the stars!" Andromeda cried, her arms around Narcissa, pulling her inside. "Oh my darling girl," she said, rocking her, tears in her voice as she raced through the six years lost between them. "You smell like home. Look at you. Even prettier in person. And practically a married woman now. Oh, I missed all of your teenaged years. Did you know you're an aunt? Come meet our Dora…"

Remus was not sure what to do, left standing in the garden as Narcissa was swept inside and engulfed. Then the little girl - Dora - who had slipped past her mother's legs, reappeared in the open doorway, waving him inside, her lavender hair lightening to pink.

Once he was taking up space inside the house, Remus couldn't be ignored any longer. "Andromeda, this is my - Remus Lupin," Narcissa said. "He knows Muggle culture and helped me find you."

Andromeda stopped wiping her still teary eyes to look him over from his feet to the hair on his head. She let go of Narcissa's hand, the one with Lucius Malfoy's engagement ring still on it. "Excuse me for asking, Mr. Lupin, but are you Muggle born?"

"Half-blood," he said. "On my mother's side."

Andromeda hummed. "Dora, darling," she called. "Show Mr. Lupin how to play checkers while Mum has a word with Auntie. There's a girl."

Andromeda crossed her arms as Dora led Remus away, to the front parlor. "So this is what it takes to break your silence and come to me, is it? A tall, brooding half-blood who is glaringly not your much photographed fiancé?"

"He's not brooding, he's lovely and - " Narcissa caught herself, stopped, and hung her head. "I was going to come to you once I graduated, before the wedding. I thought you should be there at the ceremony with us, after all this time - "

Andromeda huffed. "Right. Wedding crashing, so Bella can throw a strop."

"Yes, well I'm tired of her temper ruling the family. We need to stand up to her. She's not the only one of us with principles and ambitions," Narcissa said. "Believe me, Andromeda. No matter what they said, I was coming back for you. In my dream wedding, you and Bella would both be standing up with me, carrying flowers, smiling in pictures. Only now, the wedding," she didn't mean to glance into the parlor where Dora was setting up her checkers, but she did. "Something's happened, and I don't see how I can go through with the wedding anymore."

Andromeda sighed and let her head fall into her hands. "Are you sure, Cissie? You're not just panicking? Not just throwing in another man, any man to save you from a marriage you don't want at age eighteen?"

"I'm sure," Narcissa said. "You must understand. These ridiculous political marriages are shams. Bella believes in them but it doesn't change the fact that she hates Rodolphus. Not even she deserves to live like that. Come now, the family must have had someone completely unsuitable picked out for you before you found someone you liked better."

Andromeda shuddered. "His name was Nott. He was old even then. Vile. But your Lucius, he seems from a distance like he was custom made to be your partner."

Narcissa shook her head. "He chose me like he'd choose a rug to redecorate a room. When I tried to relate to him as a human being, telling him my secrets and trying to get close to him, he laughed at me - treated me like a child. And then, last night, he forced Legilimency on me."

The blood ran out of Andromeda's face. She pulled Narcissa to sit down at the dining table with her, whispering, "I'm so sorry darling. Awful, utterly awful. But at least that's a breach of his pledge. You've got your way out. Just tell father and - "

"No, I'm not sure I can," Narcissa whispered back. "Lucius was searching my mind for…"

"For signs of your half-blood Lupin."

Narcissa nodded. "Father's taught us Occlumency and I kept him out, but Lucius and I can never go back to playing the happy couple again and he knows it. I don't know what he's going to do next. He may be settling in to marry and punish me for the rest of my life. And if I tell father about the Legilimency attack, Lucius will deny it - "

"Then use a Pensieve. Show the memory. Make it incontestable."

"If I do that, then Lucius won't be the only one looking for Lupin. Father and the rest of the family will be too. It puts him at risk when Lupin never asked to be part of our nightmare of an ancient and abhorrent house," she said.

"Never asked to be part of it? Well he doesn't look like he's here with you against his will either, sat in my parlor minding your niece," Andromeda said.

"Perhaps not, but it was me who went to him first." Narcissa dropped her voice even lower. "It's still always me. Our feelings aren't equal. I fancy him far more than he does me."

Andromeda sat back, skeptical, staring at Remus screened by an arrangement of dry winter grasses set on the sideboard between the cottage's dining room and parlor. "Are you quite sure about that, darling?"

"Yes," Narcissa said. "Yes, in leaving Lucius, I'm not trying to force a marriage with Lupin. It's true for many reasons, not least among them the fact that he wouldn't have me if I begged him. I just want to run away from Malfoy. What happens after that - "

"Will probably include the person who has been with you since the start of this change of heart," Andromeda said, gesturing toward Lupin with her chin. "It may not be obvious to you yet, but - look at him."

Narcissa did look out at him as he pretended to be devastated while Dora double-jumped his pieces. Every time she caught a glance of him, Narcissa liked him more. It was ridiculous and made her heart ache. "No," she said all the same. "It's difficult with us. There's more to consider, more to complicate it. It's even more of a mess than it was for you and your husband."

Andromeda nodded, as if not surprised to hear there was more to it. She leaned into Narcissa. "Tell me, Cissie. Where did Mr. Lupin's scars come from? The ones on his face? They look like - "

"Childhood accident," Narcissa said, interrupting. "He doesn't talk about it."

Just then the door opened and Ted Tonks was home. Dora's hair flashed blue and she jumped up squealing from the checkers game she had been winning to welcome him, hopping into his arms. Remus caught his notice first, Ted's eyes lingering on the marks on his face as Dora chattered about how terrible he was at checkers.

"Here's Ted," Andromeda was saying, getting up and leading Narcissa toward him. "Do you remember this little girl, darling? This is our Cissie…"

She kissed her brother-in-law's cheek, the first affection he'd ever been shown by his in-laws.

Dora was hungry and it was time to get her tea on. Narcissa trailed behind her sister, all about the kitchen, wanting to help with the cooking. Andromeda gave her little tasks to do, not telling her that they were the kinds of things she usually let Dora handle. Ted helped as well but Andromeda made Remus stay out of the small, cramped kitchen. He was assigned to set the dining room table under Dora's supervision.

"How ever did you learn to cook?" Narcissa asked as she watched her sister bending her wand over a pot of Béarnaise sauce.

She laughed. "Cookery books, and trial and error. Ted was no help. His parents cook the Muggle way, like your Lupin's mother would."

Whatever growing pains Andromeda had in the kitchen were behind her now and the meal was more than fine. When it was eaten, the four of them stayed at the table to have a most vulgar discussion: one about money.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Father had changed things at the bank because of me," Andromeda warned. "They never saw it coming so it was easy. All I did was withdraw my entire dowry and walk out. It's how we paid for this cottage and lived independently until the furor blew over and we could look for work. That took longer for me than for Ted. For ages, Father had Snatchers out looking to drag me back and I had to hole up here."

"Wasn't just hiding. She fought them off more than a few times," Ted said. "I'd get back from work and find the whole garden blasted with hexes. Yes, this sleepy little cottage was once a fortress."

"So what I mean to say," Andromeda went on, "is that the money was indispensable. You might want to make your plans based on whether or not you can get it. We would have had nowhere to go without it - might have ended up living with Ted's family, as Muggles for stars know how long."

Narcissa watched Remus as he stared at the table cloth. Was he imagining her at his parents' house in Cardiff, imagining teaching her to do the washing up? But no, they weren't like Ted and Andromeda. This wasn't about planning another scandalous elopement. All it was about was herself getting out of the arrangement with the Malfoys.

"And Mother and Father are going to be more heartbroken when you tell them you're quitting Malfoy than they were when I left with Ted," Andromeda added. "Especially if you - wind up with someone they don't like in the end, they'll see it as their second failure as parents."

"They need to realize it's none of their business," Narcissa snapped.

"Well they won't," Andromeda insisted. "Certainly not when it's you, Cissie, their precious baby girl."

Narcissa gave her head a sharp shake. "Not precious enough to hold back from dealings with the Malfoys. No, I think they'll be fine - angry, definitely; heartbroken, no."

It was dark, an almost-full moon lighting the lane as Narcissa and Remus took their leave. Andromeda and Ted stood watching them go, little Dora in Ted's arms where he'd kept her even since the sun set and Remus had begun casting twitching, furtive glances out the window, monitoring the progress of the rising moon.

Andromeda began with a mighty sigh. "Do you reckon he'd be registered?"

"He said his father works for the Ministry, so I would assume so. But don't go jumping to any conclusions until we know for sure," he said.

"I'm sorry, but can't let her do this, Ted. I'm not like my parents. I'm an open-hearted woman, but this? What would their children be like? What if there was an accident and he - "

Ted set Dora down and took Andromeda in his arms. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is about the Malfoy problem, not the - the Lupin."

She sniffled into his shoulder, her emotions piqued again. "It's not fair. I just got my baby sister back in my life, Ted. I can't lose her to gruesome romantic schoolgirl antics."

"We won't let that happen," he promised. "But sit tight for now. We'll start tomorrow with a check of the registry."

Without discussing it, as Remus and Narcissa stepped through the gate of Andromeda's garden, into the dark, empty street, he took her hand in his and shoved them both into the outer pocket of his robes. "It's chilly," he said, as if it needed explanation.

She smiled, bringing her free hand across her body to hold his arm. Inside his pocket, he gave her hand a squeeze, and tipped his head sideways to touch it to hers.

That was it.

"Wait," she said. "Before we go back to where everyone is watching and reacting to us, I want to tell you something important."

"Go on then."

She cleared her throat and stopped walking, waiting for him to turn toward her, to look down at her upturned face, at her grey eyes lit with moonlight. "I like you," she said.

There was a pause before Remus breathed a laugh. "Important, yes. But hardly shocking, I suppose, since I - "

"No, listen. I actually, truly like you," she insisted, shaking her hand inside the pocket of his robes. "You're not just a gorgeously angst-ridden, lust-driven snog. Though you are that. But what I mean to say is - I like who you are. You're kind and brilliant and we can laugh and you make me feel precious, for the right reasons, perhaps for the first time in my life. So I really like you, Lupin."

He reached for her other hand, holding both of them now, and stooping to bring their faces level. "You should know that, especially this close to a full moon, my hearing is uncommonly good. And I cannot believe you told your sister that you like me more than I like you."

She cocked her head to one side. "But it's true."

"It is not," he said, still holding her hand as he curved his arm around her, bringing her own fist into the small of her back. "Whatever made you say such a ridiculous thing?"

"You did," she said as he raised her onto her toes, pressing their fronts together, her heart rate climbing, no doubt thundering in his ears. "You never make a first move with us. It's always me. Well, except for that time you were drunk and that time you were a werewolf."

He scoffed. "What about today, when I ran to you at the Floos?"

"You ran at me with an Invisibility Cloak. It voids the whole gesture."

He sighed a laugh into her face. "Can't you see that this is me caring about you too much to not be cautious?"

"Fine, but I care about you too much to BE cautious," she said, as if it bested him.

He bent lower, brushing his nose on either side of hers. She opened her mouth to kiss him but he held back, close, but only speaking against her lips. "You are very sweet, Cissa."

"You called me Cissa."

"Yes," he said, dragging his full lower lip upward over her top lip, "and I cannot imagine how you could still have no idea how charmed, and smitten, and utterly mad I am for you."

She pulled back as he was closing in to kiss her. "But do you like me?" she said. "If I'd never thrown myself at you, if we never wanted to touch each other, if I smelled of filthy socks, or something, would you still like me?"

He laughed and held her tight, turning in a circle. "You mean, if you were your cousin Sirius?"

She swatted at his shoulder. "I am trying to be serious," she said. "And you love touching him. Don't think I haven't noticed."

He stopped turning, standing still on the pavement, holding her, speaking softly and close to her ear. "Of course I like you. There's no one I'd rather touch than you, and no one I'd rather spend a tense evening meal in the home of an estranged relative with than you."

Her arms were bent between them, her left hand closed in a fist. "Do you like me enough to take Lucius Malfoy's ring off my finger?"

She had said it lightly, like a joke, but the smile faded from Remus's face, the sheen of the opal flashing between them in the light of the moon. "I like you enough to think you should keep wearing it, for the protection it affords you, until you are well and truly free of him. He's dangerous, but he's also too proud to damage what he thinks is his. Once you've finished with him, you should take the ring off yourself."

She groaned and rolled her eyes. "Cautious and noble too."

"Only because I care so much about you," he finished, lifting a hand to smooth her hair shining in the silver white light.

"If we're going to kiss properly before we go back to the school, you're going to have to make the move yourself," she said, her lip pushed slightly forward, pouty, enough that Remus couldn't resist bending to tug it into his mouth, swaying on the pavement as he kissed her. It was cold now, and her mouth was like a flame, a point of heat spreading through him the longer they went on, locked in a kiss in the overgrown lane outside Andromeda's cottage.

In the part of her mind that always told the truth, Narcissa knew that liking him, in combination with everything else she felt for Lupin, was a feeling with a name. She wouldn't say it to him tonight. But she was now sure that, whether they had a future or not, at this moment in Upper Ferum, she was in love.

Something was very wrong.

It had been days since the lads had seen or heard anything from James and Lily - nothing since they'd had lunch with them at the top of the tower and McGonagall had come in all stone-faced, asking for a private word.

Remus sensed doom when McGonagall finally called the lads to her office to explain. The dragon pox epidemic that was ravaging elderly wizards had reached the Potters' manor, and both Euphemia and Fleamont had died. James and Lily and James's godmother Bathilda Bagshot had been with them at the manor when it happened.

Shaken and sad, the lads made their way back to their tower dormitory, slumping through the corridors, discussing immediate plans.

"So if the funeral is Saturday," Sirius was saying, "maybe we should turn up at the manor tomorrow night to make sure James doesn't get too low. I think Monty and Effie would want it that way. They love - loved having us in the house."

Peter was nodding. "Yes, and it's a lot for Lily to have to mourn her in-laws in their first few weeks of marriage. A bunch of strange people will be at the house too. I reckon she could use our help."

"That's lovely of you both, really," Remus said. "And I'm sure you're right. But there's something else I need to do tomorrow, unfortunately."

The three of them stood silently on the moving stairwell as it swung toward the tower. Sirius frowned, stunned for a moment that anything could be more urgent than comforting their newly orphaned best mate.

Peter remembered first. "It's a full moon," he said.

Sirius swore. "Right."

"It's fine," Remus said. "I'll lock myself in the shack and weather the night on my own. I've done it before. I'll survive and Dumbledore will restore whatever I wreck in the shack when I'm through. It's messy but not difficult."

Sirius pulled at his hair. "No, that's awful. Hang it, Remus. What bloody terrible timing."

Remus sighed. "Werewolf's worst enemy is always time. But don't worry about me this cycle. Go to James. I'll manage," he said. "Frankly, I'm going to have to learn to manage without all of you, and soon. We've only got a few months of school left and when we're gone from here, I won't be able to keep calling on you to tend me once a month for the rest of my life."

Peter's nose twitched. "Why not? I don't mind it. I daresay neither do the other lads."

Remus dropped a hand on Peter's shoulder. "You are astoundingly good friends. Both of you. And that's why you need to leave me to go to James this weekend. His need is greater."

They were through the portrait hole and climbing the spiral staircase to their bedroom now. "Just don't go running to the other creature in your life," Sirius said. "Your Veela."

Remus gave a low whistle. "No, worries there. Moony likes her far too much to risk that. He's a creature of appetite and I can't trust him not to - well, you know."

"So?" Peter said. "Maybe it's high time Moony grew up."

Remus scoffed. "Tell him, Rus. She needs to keep her virginity if she ever wants a traditional pureblood marriage. Even if she splits up with Malfoy, they'll just find her someone else with the same stipulations. No, I'd hate to be the one to have to try to explain all of that to a werewolf in love."

Sirius sneered. "A werewolf in WHAT?"

"Hang on, hang on," Peter was saying, hurrying to de-escalate a row. "The shack is continuous with the school. It's an outcrop of a Hogwarts tunnel. Dumbledore had it built himself. So the school's chastity charms should be in effect there, shouldn't they?"

Sirius tossed his bag hard against the leg of his bed. "Yes, they are. Trust me."

"Well, then Moony wouldn't be able to - well, you know," Peter said. "She'll be safe, as far as virginity goes. Won't do a thing about murder, but - "

"Look, just forget it," Remus said, falling face down on his bed. "You two go to the funeral, Narcissa can sit in the library studying for her NEWTs like a civilized person, and I can lock myself alone in the shack tomorrow night. And that, my dear lads, is the end of it."

Peter and Sirius stood at the Floos in the Entrance Hall on the night before the Potters' funeral. They were dressed in black and rather miserable, sad to have lost the kind, generous Potters, but also torn between grieving with James and caring for Remus during the full moon.

"Poor old Moony," Peter was saying. "He hates to be locked up indoors. I hope he doesn't blame us. It can't be helped."

Remus smirked. "I assure you, there is no blaming going on. Though he will rip everything in the shack to shreds before morning."

Sirius ruffled his own hair. "I don't know, Remus. This new 'I'm OK, Moony's OK' philosophy of yours doesn't move me. It's not his fault he's a monster. I get that. But you can't just tell him not to act out on his nature."

Remus sighed. "I don't try to tell him anything. That's not how it works. He just - is, and maybe he can be better."

"Well, even so, he'd still just as soon eat us in our human forms as look at us," Sirius said.

Remus didn't deny it, hanging his head.

Sirius dropped a hand on his shoulder. "All I'm saying is, lock up tight, and be extremely careful tonight. Between you and being gutted over the Potters, I know I won't sleep a wink."

Filch was croaking at them from the Floos. "If you're going, go now before I lock up for the night."

The lads stepped up to the fireplace, reaching into the bowl of powder.

Remus stepped back to avoid the flare. "Remember me to James. I never dreamed I wouldn't be with him on a night like this. Tell him I'm sorry."

Sirius nodded. "He knows."

In Cygnus Black's study, Lucius Malfoy was pacing quickly enough for his robes to stream out behind him.

"Come, my boy," Cygnus Black called from behind his immense walnut wood desk, his back to the floor-length window, his high-backed chair casting a massive shadow over the room. "Sit down. It doesn't do to fuss over gossip."

"It is no longer mere gossip," Lucius said. "No longer half-heard whispers, but a written report."

"An anonymous report," Cygnus said, waving away the grey trails floating out of the pipe he was smoking. "It's someone without the backbone to sign their name sending each of us the same note bearing wild tales of Narcissa and some unworthy beau at school. I understand how disappointed you must be, how your pride must be suffering, but such things are not uncommon in the last days before a wedding. I daresay you have your own - erm, diversions."

Lucius didn't even blush. Of course he did. All betrothed traditional wizards did.

Cygnus went on. "All I'm saying is that in a few months, when everyone and everything is settled, this report won't matter in the least."

Lucius grit his teeth. "If wild tales were all there was to it, I could accept your view, Father Black. However, my concern is that this report aligns too well with the troubles the Snape boy has had at school. They say he was under the influence of a romantically active Veela at the time of the attack in the potions lab - "

"You're not saying that my daughter and that greasy half-blood - "

"No, not Snape himself," Malfoy sneered. "Clearly, he understands the meanness of his social position and has directed his affections elsewhere. He is rash, but not a stupid nor an impudent boy. No, our Narcissa's attentions are being squandered elsewhere, and it's affecting people around her. Which provokes the question of whether her attentions are excited and intensified by - well, whether there is something to the rumors about Veela heritage."

"It is quite an accusation," Cygnus said, the bowl of his pipe clicking against his desktop, "to stand in a man's study and suggest creature heritage among his daughters, and by extension, his own wife. It is well-documented that the Rosiers haven't had a Veela in the family since the medieval period."

Cygnus's indignation set Lucius back. "No, sir. It was no accusation, merely - "

"Once you get back that far in history, every family has some creature involvement. Why, look at yourself, Malfoy," he said, blowing a mouthful of smoke at his intended son-in-law. "The way you're trotting back and forth on my good silk rug with your chest puffed out. I could say you look almost like a centaur at this moment."

Malfoy coughed out a nervous laugh. "I assure you I am not."

Cygnus raised his eyebrows, his pipe fuming.

To seem less centaur-like, Lucius took a seat and pulled the anonymous note from his pocket, reading it again. "Dear sirs, I write as a concerned friend of Narcissa Black's. She is much too close to a boy from school, a half-blood cursed with a disturbing and dangerous nature. I warn you to withdraw her from Hogwarts at once."

"The oddness of the handwriting still strikes me," Lucius said. "It looks like a message dictated to a five year old child, letter by letter. This reveals two things. The first is that the writer has access to a young child. The second is that the writer is familiar enough to the family that their writing might give them away."

Cygnus's posture stiffened, his lips sealing themselves in a hard line.

If he wouldn't say it, Lucius would. "It seems that Narcissa has been to see her sister. And not Bellatrix, the other one, the mother of her young niece."

"Narcissa has no other sister," Cygnus said.

Lucius sat up in his chair, chest puffed again. "Sir, we will not know what exactly is meant by this rumour of a 'dangerous and disturbing nature' unless we go to Andromeda - "

"We do not speak that name here, Malfoy," Cygnus said, rising to his feet. "Now, swallow your pride and suffer a schoolgirl's final flirtation before she becomes your wife."

"Sir, if you do not wish to interview the note-writer to find out what this means, the only other person to ask is Narcissa herself. Allow me to bring her home, for as long as it takes. I'll escort Snape back to school and return with her. It will distance her from this boy, and give you and I and Bella a chance to straighten her out. Whatever happens, we must preserve our betrothal agreement."

Cygnus tipped back in his chair, unconvinced.

Lucius planted his hands on the desk, leaning over it. "Sir, Bella is distracted with politics. She has been married for years without producing a Black family heir and may forestall such a responsibility forever."

Rather than arguing, Cygnus sighed.

Lucius went on. "And if Narcissa is allowed to wander off after a half-blood boy, she won't produce a suitable heir either."

Cygnus raised his head. "How could she wander off after the engagement bonding ceremony, Malfoy? What have you done? Is the betrothal pledge broken?"

Lucius felt his face tingle, as if blood was rushing to it. He forced through the falsehood anyway. "No, of course I haven't betrayed her," he said. "But if this flirtation of hers is truly cursed with a bad nature, he may persuade her to betray us using supernatural means, against Narcissa's own good nature. She might follow after him, sully herself, and lose her chance to produce a proper heir, leaving the Black family line to pass through - the note-writer. We must act to preserve this ancient house, Father Black. Disruptive as it may be for family harmony today, anything is better than risking another unsavoury elopement."

"Narcissa would not dare," Cygnus thundered, but his eyes were glassy, as if he was near tears at the thought.

"No, of course not, Father Black," Lucius said, his voice smooth and low. "Our Narcissa is a good girl, the best girl. And this is why she must be thoroughly protected from the - what was it again - the dangerous and disturbing classmates at her wild, unregulated school."

Cygnus let out a smokeless breath. "Are you saying you want to move the wedding date up?"

Lucius hoped Cygnus missed the trace of a wince in his expression at the question. "No, sir. I do not mean to rush Narcissa, but merely to safeguard her."

Cygnus drew on his pipe. "Very well. Go to the school as if all you care about is Severus. Make no scene with our girl, but instruct the headmaster to send her home on wedding business tonight."