If waking up that morning, naked and in Sirius' arms, had been the most amazing moment of Remus' life so far, then waking up that evening, naked and with Sirius standing beside him holding a bar of chocolate, had to run it a close second.

'Hey - welcome back,' Sirius was grinning, and it looked more natural than it had earlier. Maybe the bed sheets pulled up high, covering his scars, made it easier for Sirius to look at him.

'Thanks.'

'Good sleep?'

'Yeah.'

'How're you feeling?'

'Better - much better.'

'Right - just in time for Harry's bedtime. Skiver.'

Remus laughed and sat up against the pillows, still clutching the bed sheets modestly around his waist. 'Sorry I've been so useless.'

'You need to stop saying sorry for things that are not your fault.' He sat down on the bed and took hold of Remus' hand, squeezing it. Remus wondered if maybe Sirius had forgotten he was naked under the covers. It just seemed … it just seemed extra intimate when he had no clothes on.

...

'So - me and Harry went to the island shop while you were sleeping. Tiny little thing it is - barely sells anything. But we did manage to get you this.' He proffered the chocolate bar. 'It's muggle chocolate. Dairy Milk it's called. Bit of a weird name… but there wasn't much choice. And I made you some tea.'

'Thanks.' He took the chocolate and ripped open the purple wrapper. He took a bite and felt the rich taste spread to every corner of his mouth … and then a sense of well being spread throughout his whole body. He snuggled back against the pillow and took another bite.

'Is it good?'

'Mmhmm.' He snapped off one of the blocks and handed it to Sirius to try. And then he pushed the foil further down the bar and dipped the chocolate into his tea, watching it go all melty before he put it in his mouth again.

...

'That's a really disgusting habit you have, Moony.'

'Have you tried it?'

'No.'

'Then don't judge.'

'I'm judging.'

'How is it any different to dipping a chocolate biscuit into a cup of tea?'

'It just - it just is!' Sirius protested.

Remus chuckled - and dunked the chocolate again. 'You need to learn to live on the wild side, Padfoot, old friend.' He looked up and saw that Sirius was positively beaming at him. 'What?'

'You just seem … better. Better than you've been for days.'

'Oh - well,' he breathed a self-deprecating laugh, 'you know - the full moon. It's over now. It's always better when it's over…' He suddenly felt shy, remembering everything Sirius had done for him in the past day or so, and tried to hide it with laughter. 'And I don't normally have you fussing around me like a mother hen. I couldn't take another day of those sad, puppy dog eyes - I had to get better.'

...

Sirius took his hand and squeezed again. 'Well - I'm glad you're feeling better. Even if I've guilted you into it.' He suddenly looked more serious, and increased the pressure on Remus' hand. 'You don't hurt any more? The pain is gone?'

'I'm right as rain. Or close enough.'

'Good - do you think you're up to putting some clothes on and coming downstairs for the rest of the evening?'

'I think I can definitely give it a go,' he said lightly… Though his treacherous mind noted that Sirius' words intimated that he did in fact remember Remus was naked … and wondered what that meant for them sitting there holding hands.

'Good,' Sirius said again - looking very pleased. He got to his feet. 'Well - I'll see you in a minute then…' And he backed out of the room.

Although it was dark, and the night was setting in, Severus was back out in Diagon Alley - striding down the street as all the shops pulled their shutters down and closed up for the evening. He was headed for the offices of The Daily Prophet - specifically the dispatch centre.

He had found another clue - and he was not waiting until morning to follow it. If everything went the way he hoped, then by morning he should be on his way to wherever Black and Lupin were hiding. If everything went the way he hoped, then by this time tomorrow they would both be in prison.

...

The clue had been in his scrapbook - just as he always knew the answer lay in there somewhere.

He had spent the day poring over it in his room, after his failure at Gringotts and after he had sent his letter to Dumbledore.

Ignoring the pang in his heart every time he saw Lily's face or read her name, he had flipped through every page in the book, scrutinised every written passage, studied every photograph … and then he had seen it.

...

It was a picture he had taken his first morning of third year, at breakfast in the great hall. He had had an awful summer, his mother and father were fighting worse than ever and Tobias Snape was more and more turning his physical anger onto his growing son.

Severus had escaped as often as he could - went round to Lily's, even sneaking over during the night and throwing pebbles at her bedroom window until she had let him in. But no matter how far he escaped, how long he stayed away, he always knew his father was waiting for him when he got home.

His relief at returning to Hogwarts had been immeasurable. He wouldn't be going home for Christmas or Easter - he had an entire year at the castle, his real home - and no need to think of that little house of misery in the meantime.

And, to celebrate, he had taken a photo of the great hall, his first morning, just as the owl post arrived.

...

Of course,what he had intended to take was an artsy photo of the owls soaring overhead ...but what he actually took was a picture of Lily. There were owls in it … but the camera was decidedly pointed at the Gryffindor table and not at the air.

And as such, the four idiots were in the picture. Just in the corner - he'd never even noticed them there before. But they must have been sitting just a few seats down from Lily, having their breakfast. There was Potter, with his hair sticking up all over the place, and beside him was Peter - plump and small. Across from them - facing Severus, though at a distance - were the two traitors; Black looking smugly handsome - and then the wolf hidden behind a newspaper he had just had delivered.

...

The wolf had always had a newspaper delivered - every single day. He had read the whole thing - front to back … how little they had all imagined that he would one day be splashed across the front pages of that very same newspaper.

But the point was, the halfbreed was an avid reader of the Prophet, never missed an issue. Not in all seven years … and that probably hadn't changed. He probably hadn't changed. After all - none of this was really so very long ago.

That meant Lupin would still be getting a paper. Just like Black was taking gold from his account, Lupin was having a paper delivered … and Snape suspected the wizards at The Daily Prophet would be a damn sight more helpful than the goblins had been…

And so he headed out into the gloom of the evening, on the hunt once more.

...

He reached the head offices of the paper, went around the back and entered the dispatch centre - a dark room where issues of The Daily Prophet lay in stacks waiting to be sent out, and delivery owls perched on shelves lining every wall. Some were asleep, their heads tucked beneath their wings, but others were awake - rustling their feathers and hooting softly, their eyes glowing like amber jewels in the dark. Like Severus, they were preparing to hunt that night.

...

There was a smallish man standing behind the counter. He had a spiky, brown moustache and wore an apron - and a world weary expression.

'Good evening,' Severus nodded his head to him.

'Evenin', sir - can I help you?'

'I very much hope so. I am currently working on business on behalf of Albus Dumbledore. I'm sure that you - of everybody - have seen the front pages of The Prophet recently.' They both glanced around at where tomorrow's paper was piled high, crammed into every corner. The man with the moustache really couldn't miss the headlines, even if he wanted to.

Severus drummed his fingertips on the counter top. 'It has come to my attention that Sirius Black and Remus Lupin will be receiving a copy of the paper every day. I have been tasked with finding them. I need you to look into your delivery records and tell me which owl delivers to them.'

...

But the man with the moustache only burst out laughing. 'Cor blimey! Sirius Black and Remus Lupin? You think if their names were on the manifest I wouldn't have spotted it already? Wouldn't have called in the aurors? I send to a Walburga Black, I send to a Lyall Lupin, but I've never sent to no Siriuses and I've not sent to the werewolf since …' He got his records out and traced his finger down to the R section … 'since 1976… Of course I had no idea it was a werewolf at the time. Wouldn't have endangered one of my owls if I'd known.'

Severus shook his head - and grit his teeth to try and keep his patience. 'You must be mistaken. We were still at school in '76. The beast got a paper everyday until we left.'

But the man only shrugged. 'Not under his real name he didn't - then. Don't know what else to tell you. Remus Lupin stopped getting papers sent to him 5 years ago. And thank god for it.' He shuddered. 'Gives me the willies thinking of a creature like that - touching a newspaper I'd touched.' He shuddered again.

Then he saw Severus' expression. 'Still,' he coughed, 'sorry I couldn't be of more help. Lord knows I'd like to see that beast executed as much as the next bloke.'

...

Severus tutted - and swept from the room. He was quite sure that that man did not want to see the beast executed as much as he did.

There was a noise on the stair - and then Remus appeared in the living room, fully dressed for the first time in hours - though only wearing a t-shirt and a pair of trousers - and looking far more refreshed than Sirius had seen him in days.

He came further inside and sat down on the sofa beside his friend. 'Harry asleep?'

'Yep.'

'I'll be more use tomorrow.'

'I know.'

'So …' he eyed Sirius awkwardly. 'Am I allowed to see the newspaper today, or are you hiding it again for my own good?'

...

Sirius at least had the good grace to blush. 'You probably don't want to see it.'

But Remus shook his head. 'There's nothing to be gained by my burying my head in the sand and not reading what they write about me. Whether I read it or not - it's still out there, it's still what other people are reading. It doesn't go away just because you rip it up and don't let me see it. It's better that I know what they're saying.'

'It's really not,' - his voice had an odd tremble to it.

'It's always better to know what the enemy is thinking and now …' he sighed, 'now everyone is our enemy. Or more accurately - we're public enemy number one ... and two. I need to know what's being said.'

'What difference does it make? We're never going back. What happened to no one's opinion of you mattered but mine?'

'Nothing - that's why I can read what it says in the paper. They're publishing a pack of lies and it's meaningless. But I still want to know what the lies are. If … I don't know - neither of us know what the future holds ...but that uncertainty? It means we have to know what is going on in the wider world.' His voice got louder as he saw Sirius open his mouth to protest. 'And I appreciate that you want to protect me. I really do. But I want to know. They're writing it about me, Sirius. I have a right to know.'

'It won't do any good.'

'And it won't do any harm. Get the paper, Sirius. Read it to me.'

...

Still looking like this was very much against his better judgement, Sirius got off the sofa and went to retrieve today's copy of the Prophet from where he had dumped it in the waste paper bin. He gave it a shake to flick off various bits of other detritus which had stuck to it and then went back to sit beside Remus once more. 'You won't like what it says,' he said - his voice was sulky.

Remus just smiled, calmly. 'I don't expect to like it. I just want to know what they're saying.'

'Well…' his eyes skimmed over the words so terrible they hurt him just to read, 'I'll just paraphrase.'

'Padfoot ,' Remus' voice was stern. It had a note of warning to it. 'Read me exactly what it says - no sugar coating, no missing out the worst stuff. No not repeating whatever insults or slurs they hurl at me. Every word. I can take it.' He smiled again and reached out to squeeze his friend's hand. 'I do mean it, you know. No one's opinion of me matters but yours.'

'Well - we'll see if you're still saying that at the end… Remember, you can tell me to stop any minute you want and I will. Right away.'

'Just read it.'

...

Sirius look disapproving, rustled the paper, cleared his throat and began to read:

'Lupin on the Loose.'

...

Settling back against the cushions and closing his eyes, Remus snickered softly to himself. 'Alliterative,' he murmured.

'There's not actually a picture of you - there was the other day, I guess so people knew who to look for. Today they just went with a not particularly good illustration of a transformed wolf. The tail's not even tufty … and the pupils are all wrong. Seriously - it's like they never even saw one before.'

'They probably haven't.'

Remus' eyes were still closed, he sounded supremely calm and Sirius glanced over at him, wondering how he could be so unaffected by all this - when it made his own insides twist with anger and hurt.

'Come on, Padfoot - so far you've read the headline. And stopped to complain about it. Keep going.'

'Fine.' The paper rustled again.

...

Despite the best efforts of the Ministry, the hunt for rabid and crazed werewolf, Remus Lupin - perhaps the most vicious and dangerous Death Eater still at large - came to nothing last night.

...

Sirius trailed off and shot a worried look at his friend … but rather than being upset, Remus seemed really quite amused by the whole thing.

'Rabid,' he chuckled softly. 'I don't remember being bit by something with rabies … seems like the kind of thing I might remember... Shouldn't I have Lock Jaw if I've got rabies?'

'This is serious, Moony.'

'And I'm taking it seriously…' Though he didn't look like he was, snuggled back into the cushions, eyes closed and with a big grin on his face. 'It's not every day you find you're the very worst of all the Death Eaters that are out there. I think it's going to my head.'

Sirius kicked him.

'Ow - how dare you, lesser Death Eater? Don't you know who I am?'

'Everyone knows who you are, now - that's the problem,' Sirius muttered.

'Just keep reading.'

...

Omerod Bloom, 55, the Under Minister for the Department for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures outlined the strategy his unit put in place last night. 'We hunted in all the wild areas. We thought it likely that Black would want to keep his pet beast out of trouble for the night - with them being wanted men and all - and so we stayed in places with low populations. Unfortunately our search proved fruitless… and indeed, wolfless.'

Although the Ministry failed miserably in their one task (and this reporter, Rita Skeeter - whose exclusive scoops have exposed many a shocking incompetence in the corridors of power - believes an enquiry may be necessary to get to the bottom of why the Department let us all down so badly)...

...

'God, she's poisonous towards everyone - isn't she?' Remus murmured.

'Every one except Peter.'

'Oh - does Wormey make an appearance in this story?'

'He makes an appearance in every story,' Sirius growled - and then continued reading:

...

We can happily report that, according to 's, the slavering beast does not appear to have taken any human victims last night. There have been no reports of werewolf attacks, fatal or otherwise, anywhere in Britain or Ireland this past full moon.

...

'Well that's lucky,' Remus said. 'If any other werewolf had attacked someone last night they would have pinned it on me no matter what. Anyway - now I've got my slavering under control - keep reading, Padfoot.'

...

Now the full moon is past, whatever happened to him last night, Lupin will now remain in his human disguise for a month.

...

Remus choked a little bit, 'disguise? They know I was born human, right? They know I'm only actually wolf shaped for about 8 hours a month?'

...

Last night I spoke to the former friend of the beast, Peter Pettigrew, 21, and asked him what would be in store for Lupin over the next couple of days.

...

Remus clapped his hands together, 'right then - let's hear it. What does little Peter have to say today?'

He pried open one eye to look at Sirius, as the other man's voice began to shake with anger as he read.

...

'The day after the full moon was always a difficult one for him,' Peter says. 'He would be weak - lots of aches and pains. As he was separated from humans to bite, during our time at school, he would attack himself - and he often bore the marks for days afterwards. We shared a dormitory for seven years and I know for a fact that his whole chest was covered in just the most hideous scars…'

...

For the first time, the smile slipped from Remus' face … and a tremor passed across it instead. Sirius noticed, saw the way his skin flushed. 'I don't have to keep reading.'

'No - go on.'

'There's nothing wrong with the way you look, Remus.'

'Yeah … there is. But thanks for saying so.'

...

'It's hard to think badly of a man I once held as a dear friend. But truly, Rita, now I see all the pain he has caused, the evil he has done - and I think there is no one in the world more deserving of the monthly suffering Lupin goes through or of being cast out by decent people for what he is.'

...

Sirius' voice was just a low growl of anger now.

...

Fortunately, it would seem that Lupin is unlikely to be forced to suffer his transformations for very much longer. With the entire Department for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures out looking for him, it is surely only a matter of time before he is caught. Ormerod Bloom had this to say on what would happen next: 'although we hope to capture the beast alive, the department already has the legislation in place to deal with it appropriately. Black may be looking at a life sentence in Azkaban - but his pet can expect to face the executioner's axe. It's not a human - it doesn't get human rights…'

...

Sirius was practically choking now. His face was red - and there were tears in his eyes, when Remus opened his own and looked at him. 'Put the paper down,' he said, 'stop reading.'

'I told you you didn't want to know what they were saying.'

Remus smiled sadly, 'I'm not telling you to stop on my account. Go on - put it down.'

...

Sirius dropped the paper, gladly - and turned shining eyes on his friend. 'It isn't right, the way they talk about you.'

'No.'

'It isn't fair! I'm supposed to be the secret keeper. I'm supposed to be the one who sold Lily and James to Voldemort … but they just keep going after you.'

'Sorry to steal your limelight,' he said, trying to lighten the mood.

But it didn't work. Sirius' face was still as dark as thunder - with tears not far away. 'The words they use to talk about you -'

'I know.'

'They said they were going to execute you.'

...

Remus sat up and leaned forward, taking hold of Sirius' hand. 'They're not going to find me,' he said evenly. He was every bit as calm as Sirius was angered. 'Let them threaten what they like. You said you'd keep me safe and I believe you.'

'This is all my fault. This wouldn't happen to you if I hadn't asked you to come away with me. If I hadn't made you leave. If I'd not been so selfish you'd be properly safe - and none of this would be happening...'

...

For the rest of his life, Remus would never be quite sure why he did what he did next. Perhaps it was how angry Sirius looked, how upset he was. Perhaps it was the way he was blaming himself … Perhaps Remus just wanted to make him feel better, make him stop hurting …

He didn't know.

...

And he didn't have time to think about it consciously. He just leaned forward - and though it seemed to him like he moved slower than a fly trapped in amber, like everything was in slow motion - it must have been quick, because Sirius did not have time to realise and move away.

He leaned forward - and his heart was hammering in his chest, the blood was ringing in his ears and every inch of his skin felt like it was on fire - tingling and burning and making him sweaty…

...

And then his lips brushed against Sirus' own. Soft and feather light.

...

And then it was like he was hit by a sudden calm, like there had been a whirlwind whipping up in the room - and then it had just died away - leaving a stillness and a silence that weighed heavy on the room.

His heart slowed down, becoming a repetitive thudding drum beat and everything fell away - as he became aware of nothing except the feel of his lips pressed to Sirius'.