O

HARPOCRATES

Silence

July

Something felt off about this particular full moon. Remus knew it the second he woke up that morning, although old habit meant that no complaint passed his lips and no hint of worry crossed his face. Tonks departed to work early evening on yet another night shift, and Teddy was working on the new house with Victoire all day, but had promised to drop by first thing in the morning. Remus considered asking Hope to stay with them overnight, but then he would have to explain why, and having the entire family fret because he felt a bit off was not ideal. He was overreacting. Illness and discomfort prior to the full moon was no doubt an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of aging.

Nevertheless, he retired very early that night, being sure to use additional protective and silencing charms on the cellar. He checked the cupboard in the corner, doubting that there would be a small child hiding inside it this time around, but unwilling to leave anything to chance. Then he sat on the old oak bed and waited. Why did he feel so strange? He had taken his potion as always. On time. On schedule. Every day for seven days.

He would be fine.

He wasn't fine. He had not experienced this feeling for nearly twenty-five years, but it was unmistakable, growing stronger as all trace of sunlight slipped from the sky and darkness fell. Terrible aches began to engulf his joints. A tearing sensation rent his chest, so deep it could be in his very soul. A wild beast that had lain dormant inside him for months - years - on end was now, somehow, fighting tooth and claw to break free. Sick, chilling dread pooled in his stomach as he was faced with the undeniable truth.

How?

For all his meticulous precautions, he never truly expected the potion to go wrong. His Wolfsbane was fully certified, approved by St Mungo's and had never let him down. His mishap during his teaching year at Hogwarts had been nothing to do with the potion itself, and the memory of that night had been enough to prevent him from ever making the same mistakes again. He took it every day for a week, on the dot of seven, and this month was no exception. He was always careful not to eat or drink anything that may tamper with its efficacy. Sugar only affected the potion if it was digested at the same time, and he had avoided all strong alcohol ever since hearing about Greyback's deliberate sabotage of his Wolfsbane several years ago, unwilling to leave even that to chance-

Alcohol.

It was as his mind lingered on the word that the dawning realisation came to him, and his blood ran ever colder.

"No," he muttered to himself, staring down at his hands, rubbing them unconsciously together. "It couldn't, could it?"

Clearly it could. And it was too late to warn anyone, or do anything about it. The wolf was already alive inside him.

o

o

As was fast becoming the norm, it took Hope hours to fall asleep. The moonlight creeping in through the gap in the curtains wasn't helping, but being kept awake by an endless stream of racing thoughts had become a ritual over the past months. She flicked through a book, the words jumbling together on the pages, before throwing it irritably back on the shelf. She added a second pillow to prop her head up higher, then discarded both half an hour later and lay flat on her back, staring at the ceiling.

The clock downstairs struck one. She kicked off the covers impatiently and curled up on one side, then stretched out. Two o'clock. Had she been asleep? It didn't feel like it, but she couldn't pinpoint where her thoughts had been over the past hour, so it was possible she had dozed off. Three o'clock. Hearing an owl hoot outside, Hope sat up and rested her forehead against the cool glass, gazing into the gloom. The moon seeping through the trees cast eerie shadows over the darkened grass outside. Four o'clock. The moonlight had faded and sunlight would soon be seeping out over the horizon. She lay back down on her side, then turned onto her front. Five o'clock. She might as well get up and prepare something for her father to eat when he emerged from the cellar. She would get up soon. At five thirty. Dad was normally up and about by six.

She curled up on her other side and her eyelids finally closed, sleep enveloping her, each limb now so heavy they might have been buried under a compacted layer of earth.

O

Hope awoke to the sound of commotion. Blinking, her eyes burning with the effort of opening them, she fumbled for her watch and looked at the time. Seven forty-five.

So much for getting up before six to prepare breakfast. And what on earth was going on? The house was normally silent the morning after the full moon. That her father needed peace and quiet had been impressed upon her since before she could remember, yet there were several voices coming from downstairs, and she could hear brisk footsteps going back and forth across the tiled kitchen floor.

Had something bad happened?

Now wide awake and panicking, Hope wrenched on a pair of leggings and a jumper and bolted down the stairs. She nearly fell down the final two steps in her haste, then had to grab the bannister to stop herself stumbling again as her eyes took in the scene. Droplets of blood littered the carpeted hall, leading from the cellar door through to the living room. Hope recognised Victoire's soft voice issuing from inside and her legs moved her into the room without any conscious desire for them to do so.

Tonks was kneeling beside a makeshift bed in the corner. Victoire, her hair in a silver braid down her back, was muttering some spells, waving her wand in complicated patterns over the bed. Teddy stood back a little, rubbing a thumbnail agitatedly across his lower lip, his eyes fixed on the unmistakable form of his father, whose face was grey-white, his torso wrapped in bandages. His eyes were closed and he wasn't moving.

He's dead.

The automatic thought was so consuming and yet so utterly unthinkable that Hope wasn't even aware of her surroundings for several seconds.

"Hope!" Teddy, spotting her, came forward at once, hands held out in a placatory manner. "Hope, it's OK, it's under control."

Lightheaded with fear, the evidence before her at total odds with Teddy's words, Hope was not aware of speaking as incoherent sounds nevertheless fell from her lips. Teddy hurriedly led her into the hall, sinking down on the bottom stair she had so nearly fallen over in her haste to find out what was happening.

"Sit down for a minute."

"What happened? I'm fine-" she insisted, as Teddy tried to pull her down to sit next to him.

"Sit down, you're white as a sheet."

"I'm fine." She slid down beside him anyway. "What happened?"

"The potion didn't work as it should have done," Teddy said. "Dad transformed fully, and got himself into a bit of a mess. Victoire's sorting him out though. She's patched up the wounds and he's in a healing sleep. He'll be OK, don't worry. She got here in time."

Got here in time. There shouldn't have been a need for anyone to get here, Hope thought bitterly. She had been in the house all night. Unaware. Oblivious. And sound asleep for the past two hours. Why hadn't she just got up before six like she had intended?

"When did you get here?" she asked, looking determinedly at her knees to avoid seeing the splashes of red surrounding them.

"Just before seven. He wasn't up yet - seemed a bit odd. Then before I could decide what to do Mum came home in a panic. He'd managed to send her a message then passed out."

Victoire came out of the living room, arms laden with coloured bottles, which she placed neatly in a bag by the door before turning to them.

"He's completely stable," she said, putting a reassuring hand on Teddy's head and smiling at Hope. "I'll stick around for a while, but the blood replenishing potions are doing their job and his wounds are healing already. He caught the abdominal artery, I'm assuming with a front claw. Thankfully he managed to do some damage control himself when he woke up, which bought us a fair amount of time."

Hope could not miss the unspoken otherwise. If only she had slept like a normal person instead of staying awake listening to her stupid, racing thoughts, she would have been here to realise. To raise the alarm herself.

"Why did the potion not work?" Hope turned to Teddy, trying to block out the torrent of self-blame, as Victoire retreated to write up her off-duty healing report. "What happened?"

"I don't know," he said gently. "But it's never happened before, and there may be a very simple explanation."

If he'd died it would have been your fault. If he'd died-

"I didn't hear anything all night," she said abruptly. "I didn't know."

Teddy appeared baffled.

"How could you possibly have known? There were silencing charms on the cellar. Dad insists on doing them every time, you know he does."

"But- but I meant to get up early, to make breakfast and then I was awake for ages but I fell asleep. I would have realised-"

"Hey!" Teddy grabbed her wrist, cutting off her rambling. "Hope, even if you'd been awake, what could you have done? He does wake up a bit later occasionally and you know he can't bear us going down there at all. Stop beating yourself up about it. I'd have been in your position too, even if I'd been here overnight."

Unlikely. You're Teddy and you always do everything right.

"I think you should go and get some water - you're still really pale. I'm going to clean up the cellar then we'll talk, yeah?"

Hope wasn't quite sure what made her ignore his advice and follow him down the cellar steps less than a minute later. A desperate desire to do something useful, maybe. She regretted it instantly, the sight that greeted her like a punch in the gut, far worse than the scene in the hall. Blood was everywhere, smeared across the walls, splattered across the bed, dripping on the floor. A distinct claw mark stood out across one of the whitewashed walls. Her father's wand lay near the door and she picked it up gingerly, trying not to look at the bloody fingerprints covering it, then turned to see that Teddy was-

"What are you doing?"

He gave a violent jump and whirled around. She stared at him, open mouthed, as he stood there, his own wand in one hand, a tiny vial in his other. A vial filled with bright red liquid that he appeared to be syphoning off a particularly gruesome section of the wall.

"OK, listen-"

"What are you doing?" she repeated, eyes wide, voice much higher than normal. "Why aren't you just vanishing it?"

Teddy looked uncomfortable. "I'll tell you later. I will, Hope, I promise. You shouldn't be down here."

"I'm nearly of age and I don't need protecting," she said automatically, even as she swayed on the spot, the metallic stench of blood coating her nose and throat, so strong she might have been bleeding herself. There was nowhere to look without seeing scarlet.

"Go back upstairs," Teddy said, catching her by the arm, and prising the bloodstained wand out of her grip. "I'll explain in a minute, honest. Please go and get a drink or something. You look like you're going to pass out."

Somehow, Hope staggered back up to the ground floor, made it to the little bathroom off the porch, and deposited the remains of last night's dinner into the sink.

O

Teddy came to see her ten minutes later, by which time she had regained her outward composure, cleaned her teeth and was sitting with a glass of water at the kitchen table, forcing some colour into her face. Victoire had returned to check on the progress of the blood replenishing potions and her mother was no doubt glued to her husband's side. Hope still could not bring herself to go into the room at all. Not yet. Some terrible, inexplicable dread told her she would only see blame on the other women's faces.

"Let me explain." Teddy sat down opposite her.

Hope swallowed and shook her head a little. Teddy shouldn't have to explain his actions to her.

He did anyway.

"We've been trying to think of a way to get something like this for ages. Blood shed from the wolf in its fully fledged form. See, we have blood samples from werewolves on Wolfsbane at the full moon, but not from those who have had a full-on transformation. We can't get them, it's too dangerous, and sedation isn't possible even if we could find someone willing to do the testing - too high a risk of complications. But we need them, ideally, to see if the make-up of the wolf's blood is markedly different.

"And you'll be able to tell from-" Hope gestured vaguely in the direction of the hall.

"Well it won't be a perfect study, obviously, for several reasons," Teddy acknowledged. "But I still might be able to identify sequences that I haven't seen before, and that would be a starting point. Blood has a - well it's hard to explain without getting too technical, but there is a kind of history to it, information I can use even if the study has several variables. I thought it would be worth a shot."

Hope digested this as he gazed at her, almost imploringly.

"Please don't think badly of me."

Her mouth fell open in astonishment.

"How could I think badly of you?"

"I mean, it must have looked bad. Scraping my own dad's blood off the walls and bottling it. And, before you ask I swear it was a spur of the moment idea. It's not like I went down there with the intention of doing it."

"I wasn't going to ask." Hope mumbled. The thought had not crossed her mind. And she didn't think badly of him. Quite the reverse. In the face of a horrendous scene he had had a genius idea which might prevent such horrible things happening in the future, if the cure came good, and all she had been able to do was stop herself from fainting. As usual, she had done nothing of use.

Stop it. Your family don't need your guilt on top of everything else.

"Are you going to tell him?" she murmured.

"I'll have to." Teddy did not sound enthusiastic about the prospect. "I can't base some of my research on his own blood and not tell him, can I, even if it doesn't come to much in the end?"

Hope bit her lip.

"I don't think he'll like it."

"No, he won't."

O

By the evening, Remus was awake and able to eat and talk, although he had done very little of either.

"So – so you know what happened?" Tonks prompted, after a long time sitting in silence. It was just the four of them. Victoire had gone back to the house to give them some time alone.

"It's so stupid," he said bitterly. "I'm so stupid."

"Remus-"

"Alcohol."

Tonks did a double take, then stared at him, bewildered.

"Alcohol? But you don't drink any more. I haven't seen you with so much as a butterbeer since New Year."

"I didn't drink it," Remus said tersely, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That's why it's so stupid."

He glared at the wall as the rest of them stared at him blankly, waiting for an explanation.

"I've been working with the ancient texts on our most recent project, the oldest in the archive," he offered at last.

"Yeah, I know. You said. So?"

"They are fragile documents, magically preserved, and for that reason we can't use our own magic when we're down in the archives, because it would upset the delicate balance of the preserving charms."

"Right."

"So, to make sure our hands are free from germs or oils…" he gave a humorous laugh and stared up at the ceiling. "We use hand sanitizer."

Teddy closed his eyes and let out a sigh of understanding, but Hope was none the wiser.

"What's hand sanitizer?"

"It's the muggle equivalent of a hand cleaning charm. A way to wash your hands if you don't have access to soap and water. The IMR discovered a while ago that it was the most efficient way of keeping hands clean without magic when handling the oldest documents. Sometimes muggles have more efficient solutions than we do, it turns out. I've used it before, whenever I've been down in the archives, but I've never had to spend every day in there before this particular project. And sanitizers across the world were strengthened after the Narcoviral curse started. Muggles believed it would stop the spread of the virus, although of course it made no difference whatsoever."

"But why does that matter?" Hope asked.

"Hand sanitizer is eighty percent alcohol," Teddy provided.

"And alcohol prevents Wolfsbane from doing its job," Remus sighed in despair. "Two facts that I know perfectly well, and I didn't put the two of them together until moonrise last night." He spread his hands and glared at them. "I've just been using it, every day, multiple times a day, for weeks now. It will have been infiltrating my bloodstream."

"It's strong enough to go through your skin?" Tonks cut in, obviously sceptical. "It can't be! There must be some other explanation."

Remus glanced at Teddy, as if asking for confirmation, and his son nodded dully. "Not for us maybe," he said. "Most people could probably bathe in it and not notice any side effects, but Lycanthropy would probably adapt the body to absorb it. The wolf wants to escape, it's what the condition does. That's why wolfsbane is so difficult to get right. Any slight mistake with the recipe and it's completely ineffective because it let's the wolf take advantage."

"Stupid," Remus muttered again.

"Remus, come on." Tonks's voice held a warning note. "It's impossible to think of everything. This is why we take precautions. We're all completely fine. It's you we're worried about!"

"I'm fine too," he retorted. Hope met his eye for the briefest of seconds before he averted his gaze again. All she could think about was that night, eleven years ago, when she had hidden in the cupboard, so proud of herself that she would be helping, preventing Dad from feeling sad and lonely. What terrible scene would have awaited her father on moonset, if that had been tonight?

The image brought another wave of nausea and the room seemed to lurch. She wondered if he was having similar thoughts.

"Dad." Teddy was looking anxious and Hope knew he couldn't bear to have his secret a moment longer. "Can I talk to you in private, just for two minutes?"

Tonks and Hope took the hint and left the room, Tonks catching Hope's arm as they came through to the hall.

"Hope?"

She just smiled.

"You OK?"

How could I be OK right now?

"Yeah, of course. I just- got a fright, you know."

"So did we all. These things happen though. He's a tough one, your Dad. He's already recovering. He'll be alright!"

Hope let her mother hug her and then fled upstairs, grabbed Fluffy from the shelf above her bed and curled up in a ball in her bed. Would it help to cry? Probably. But she hadn't cried in years. It was too deeply ingrained in her now to force back any slight sting of the eyes and keep the bland mask glued to her face.

She stuffed the toy dog back on the shelf the second she heard Teddy's footsteps - lighter than Dad's but heavier than Mum's - on the stairs, and waited for the inevitable soft tap on the door.

"Did you tell him?"

Teddy exhaled heavily and threw himself down on her bed.

"Yep."

"What did he say?"

"Very little. He's not happy about it. At all." Teddy sat up again and slumped forwards with his chin in his hands. "But he also wouldn't let me get rid of the blood sample now that I've got it, so..." He spread his hands as if to ask what on earth he was supposed to do. "Then he asked me to give him some time alone."

He looked quite desolate.

"If it helps inform a cure, it will be worth it," Hope consoled. "Dad will know that, I'm sure he's not angry with you or anything. He's probably just in pain from last night."

Teddy chewed his lip.

"Not angry, no, but I think- I think it's more complicated than that, to be honest."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't think I can explain either. Maybe he can't himself. But being a werewolf takes its toll. On everything. I'm appreciating that more and more with every new case study I do. The scars run so much deeper than the flesh wounds, and none of us will ever fully understand, not even Mum. And something like this." Teddy looked vaguely around the room, trying to find the words. "It will haunt him, probably for the rest of his life, thinking about how it could have gone wrong. He still hasn't forgiven himself for that time he forgot his potion at Hogwarts. Or the time you hid in the cellar when you were tiny."

Hope knew another guilty squirm that Teddy hadn't intended to induce and forced it back.

"Do you wish you hadn't taken it?"

"No." Teddy appeared surprised at the question. "Of course I feel bad if it's upset him, but I believe it will be helpful and that it will do more good than harm in the long run."

His confidence and trust in his own decisions was impressive.

Maybe I'll be like that when I'm twenty-four.

Highly unlikely.

"What are you up to tomorrow?" Teddy asked, after a long silence. "Want to come round and help pick the colours for the bedrooms? One of them can be your room!"

Hope already had plans to meet up with Cadmus, something she had been looking forward to until the events of that morning. Now, the prospect of putting on her oldest, grossest clothes and messing around with colour changing paint for a day with Teddy and Victoire was far more appealing.

But a commitment was a commitment.

"I can't," she said, carefully removing all trace of reluctance from her voice. "I'm meeting up with someone from school."

"Someone?" Teddy enquired, eyebrows raised, a slight smirk playing on his lips.

Hope hesitated. She had never had secrets from Teddy before. But having put off telling her family about Cadmus when they had first got together, it was becoming a bigger deal as time wore on. Now eight months into the relationship, she was still unable to convince herself that they would accept the news as readily as Dom and Roxanne had insisted they would.

Hope knew it was stupid. So stupid. Stupid because her family had always preached tolerance and acceptance. Stupid because they had impressed upon her time and time again that she should trust her own judgement and make her own decisions. Stupid, above all, because she liked Cadmus very much and had no intentions of breaking up with him, regardless of her family's reaction.

Yes, there had been the odd difficult moment last year, times when Cadmus had been a bit moody and distant and she hadn't known why. Other times when he had been a little too insistent on the physical progression of their relationship for her liking. The odd argument that had sprung up from seemingly nothing at all. Ultimately, however, he was fun and attractive and engaging, someone she had come to rely on for daily support, laughter and interesting conversation. Her best friend, at least within Hogwarts.

Her boyfriend.

It still felt weird to say it out loud.

"Yeah, just someone."

Teddy did not insist.

O

Hope met Cadmus at his house the following morning. He had already told her that his father would be away on some sort of business, which was a relief. Hope hadn't yet encountered him at all, and after what she had heard about him, was happy to postpone that meeting for as long as she could. Cadmus's mother, a small, mousy woman with a nervous demeanour and vacant expression, did not pay much attention to her, merely nodded and smiled and disappeared off to whichever room of their enormous mansion she spent her days.

Morella, on the other hand, was standing by the kitchen stove helping the family house elf Tilda with some sample recipes. The two were chatting away to each other animatedly as they worked, which warmed Hope to see. The rest of the Flint family treated Tilda as though she were invisible.

"Here Hope, try this!" Morella said at once, and the elf immediately bowed and presented Hope with a large piece of apple cake, which she accepted, relaxing as Morella came bounding forwards to greet her. Morella always gave her reassurance about Cadmus. She was one of Roxanne's best friends, even if she was the worst gossip in the world, and she was warm and bubbly and kind. So that surely meant her brother must be warm and kind as well, even if he wasn't as outwardly vivacious.

"Amazing cake, thank you!"

Tilda bowed low for a second time and Hope watched fondly as she scurried back to the stove on her tiny little plimsolls. None of the Weasleys or the Potters owned house elves - Harry and Ron had repeatedly told Hope that Hermione would have thrown a fit - but Hope always enjoyed visiting those in the Hogwarts kitchen, and the few that she knew of outside the castle seemed reasonably well looked after, Tilda included. At least they were allowed to wear real clothes now and had proper welfare rights, a progression that was, of course, down to Hermione as well.

"I'm so jealous of Roxanne and Dom!" Morella said, taking a chunk of cake herself, and perching on one of the high seats by the kitchen table. "Especially getting to go to New Zealand. I've always wanted to go!"

Hope concealed her immediate flash of guilt by taking another large bite of cake. Dom and Roxane's latest letter, read twice but otherwise ignored, was currently stuffed into her drawer at home, but she nodded along as Morella continued to exclaim over all their fascinating adventures and wonderful photos, lamenting how she had elected to take a job instead of going travelling as well. Tilda offered Hope some more cake as soon as she had finished her last mouthful, but sensing that Cadmus did not want to linger in the kitchen, she declined politely before following him upstairs to his bedroom, trying to ignore the stab of disappointment that they couldn't have stayed in the kitchen chatting to Morella about Dom and Roxanne's travels and sampling Tilda's new recipes.

Hope had been to the Flint house several times before, during the previous Easter holidays and, grand and impressive though it was, she could not warm to the sparsely furnished rooms, huge open stairways and pale grey stone walls. The house was immaculate, but that didn't help either. Having grown up with mess - at least from her mother's part - the lack of it was somewhat disconcerting. Cadmus's bedroom was much like the rest of the house, a chilly, high-ceilinged, impeccably neat room with bare walls and a solid oak four poster bed sporting black and silver hangings. An enormous notice board - by far Hope's favourite feature of the room - hung above his desk, and on it he had pinned his many drawings: sketches of trees and animals, fun caricatures of people, colourful doodles and a large drawing done in bold charcoal of the lake that lay just beyond the borders of their land.

"What's up?" he enquired, as she perched herself on the edge of his bed, still looking at the drawings, admiring a couple of his newer ones. "You seem distracted."

"Oh... nothing."

Hope didn't feel like going into details, but Cadmus's forehead was furrowed in concern.

"It's not nothing! What's wrong?"

"I'm fine."

He sat down next to her.

"Come on, tell me."

"OK. Um. Dad was injured yesterday. Something happened with his potion and he transformed - you know - fully, and he was hurt. Vic fixed him up but-" Hope shivered suddenly, whether from the temperature in the room or the memory of the blood stained cellar she wasn't sure.

"Sounds bad."

"Yeah. It was kind of scary. There was a lot of blood." Hope's voice wobbled dangerously, but she quickly collected herself. She was not going to cry in front of Cadmus. "I just didn't sleep well after all that," she finished. "So I'm tired. I am fine though."

He came closer and gave her a sudden hug, his arms strong around her, and Hope felt comforted as she relaxed against him, suddenly soothed. This was what relationships were about, wasn't it? Support and sympathy and being able to talk about sad and frightening events. It had never been like this with Adam.

She still did not let the hug endure too long, not wanting to appear weak next to Cadmus, who always presented such a stoic and tough exterior.

"As long as he's OK now," Cadmus murmured.

"Yeah, he's better already today."

Hope really didn't want to discuss it further, and Cadmus seemed to understand. He did not press her for more details, in any case.

"I made something for you," he said, after a pause. "Took me ages!"

He crossed to his desk and pulled out a flattened scroll of parchment, and Hope stared, eyes widening, as he passed it to her. It was a picture of her, done in the same charcoal as the picture of the lake that was pinned up on the board. The Hope in the drawing stood tall in her quidditch robes, broomstick in one hand and a quaffle under the other arm, gazing into the distance, eyes large and soulful. Cadmus had breathed life into every stroke of charcoal, the colours easy to imagine even though it was a black and white drawing, the hair sketched with such detail that you could almost see every one. He had even captured the exact pattern of freckles on her nose and the tiny scar across her left eyebrow which she never bothered to morph away, remnants of falling through the glass sliding kitchen doors at the age of seven.

Hope was lost for words.

"It's beautiful," she murmured at last.

"Just like you."

Having never known how to take compliments about her looks, Hope chose to ignore this comment. How silly, she had always thought, to admire beauty that could be switched on and off quicker than the flick of her wand.

She tried to pass the drawing back to him but he shook his head at once.

"It's for you! To keep."

"Wow. Thank you. I- I love it."

"Took me ages, all week."

About to thank him again, Hope paused, suddenly confused.

"Wait, I thought you were on that work experience placement thing this whole week?"

"Oh it got cancelled in the end. I've just been helping Mum a bit with stuff in the house. I told you that, remember?"

Hope couldn't remember at all, but then, her memory was atrocious of late, she thought guiltily. Her parents had also pulled her up on things she had forgotten to do since returning home for the holidays and she knew their patience was wearing thin.

"I must have forgotten," she muttered. "Sorry."

Unconcerned, Cadmus pulled her towards him, and Hope tensed slightly, wondering if he was going to try and take things further like he had several times in the past. Surely he wouldn't pass up the opportunity now that they were alone in his room on his giant four poster bed.

But he did nothing except hold her and kiss her, his hands resolutely on her back, and Hope felt her lips break into a smile even as she kissed him back, warmth spreading through her and making her forget about the chill in the room all together.

It really was stupid that she hadn't told her family about this relationship yet. She would do it soon. Tell them that she was with Cadmus Flint, had been for months, and that it was great.

O

Hope returned home that afternoon to find Lily had come over to visit. Lovely Lily, as she was fast becoming known at Hogwarts, adored by the younger students, doted on by the older ones. Outside school, anyone who knew anything of Lily Potter senior now commented on the likeness between her and her granddaughter, although Hope knew Lily herself was sick of the frequent comparisons.

"It's ridiculous," she had lamented to Hope the previous week. "Grandma Lily can't have been as perfect as everyone makes out. No one is. And I'm a long way from perfect, so I wish people would stop acting like I had an idyllic life where nothing goes wrong and I never make mistakes."

Hope had held her tongue. She of all people should know that a carefree, happy-go-lucky exterior could hide a maelstrom of emotions behind it. All the same, Lily did seem quite perfect to her, with her broad grin and listening ear, her soft features and generous nature, her ability to chat to anyone without a single awkward pause or uncomfortable silence. Seeing her sitting out in the garden, laughing away with her parents and Teddy, Hope felt a dart in her stomach that felt uncomfortably like jealousy. Lily looked so at home.

Lily would have got up on time to make breakfast and check on Dad yesterday.

"Hey!" Lily looked up at her and beamed as she came through into the garden. "I'm glad I didn't miss you. Where have you been?"

"Err. Just out."

"With Cadmus, I suppose?" Lily's eyes sparkled.

"Cadmus?" Teddy echoed at once, ears pricking up at this. "As in Cadmus Flint? That's your someone from school?"

He was grinning, but Hope's heart sank like a stone.

Thanks Lily. If nothing else, you and James share the same big mouth.

Remus's face was unreadable as he digested this exchange, but Tonks raised her eyebrows as well, her eyes snapping over to Hope.

"Cadmus Flint?" she repeated slowly. "Marcus Flint's son?"

Hope didn't like the expression on her face.

"It's no big deal," she said shortly, sitting down and taking a cookie from the plate in the centre of the garden table. It was delicious - no doubt Lily had made them - with huge chunks of melted chocolate and a gooey interior. "Is that the book you were telling me about?" she added, turning to Lily and picking up a book entitled Invisible Witches that was lying on the edge of the garden table.

"Yeah, I brought it round for you! Honestly, you need to read it. It's so eye opening."

Lily seized on the subject change gratefully, and her family allowed the matter to pass without further comment. Hope, however, had a feeling the discussion wasn't over.

"I thought they knew," Lily whispered to Hope later, as she pulled on her shoes in the kitchen, ready to go home. She looked very anxious. "They knew all about Adam, didn't they? And you've been with Cadmus for months-"

"Yeah, I know." Hope cut her off with her usual shrug. "It's fine, don't worry. I just... hadn't got round to it yet."

Lily did not press her for further explanation.

"Everything's OK though, isn't it? Did you have a good time with him today?"

"Yeah." Hope reached for her bag. "Yeah, it was great! Look, he did a drawing of me."

She was suddenly self conscious as she pulled it out. It felt like very much showing off, even though it was someone else's artwork.

Lily took it, mouth open.

"It's incredible," she breathed. "Look at the way he's done the robes. And your hair. It's so lifelike!"

She paused, tilting her head thoughtfully as she continued to stare at the drawing.

"What?"

Lily hesitated again before replying.

"Nothing. You just - I was thinking you look quite sad in it, that's all."

"I do?"

"It's not a criticism," Lily said hastily. "Just an observation, you know. But it's amazing, he's so talented. You'd never have thought he was an artist on the face of it, would you?"

She glanced at her watch.

"I'd better go, I promised Mum I'd help with dinner. Sorry again though."

"Stop apologising, it's fine."

"I still feel bad. Come round next week, yeah?"

"Sounds good. Bye Lil."

Hope looked down at the charcoal drawing again once Lily had disappeared in a whirl of green flame. Did she look sad? The drawing seemed a perfectly accurate representation of the reflection she saw every day in the mirror.

Sad or not, it was still an unbelievable piece of artwork. That her boyfriend had drawn. Especially for her.

'What's that you got?' Teddy had come up behind her.

"Oh nothing." She shoved it back in her bag. "How was the colour scheme picking today?"

"I left Vic to it," he grinned. "It was more like a one person job in the end. My opinions were politely welcomed then disregarded completely."

He did not seem bothered, merely amused.

"And is everything OK with Dad?'

"Yes." The relief in his face was evident. "We had a chat today. He seemed totally normal, so maybe you were right and last night he was just in pain. Or else he's now managed to repress his own feelings about it. That's far more likely, actually," Teddy added after a thoughtful pause. "The usual 'let's pretend I'm perfectly fine when I'm actually having an internal meltdown'." He rolled his eyes in despair. "I couldn't do it. I don't think I got any of the bottle-everything-up genes."

No, they were reserved especially for me.

The thought, oddly, brought Hope comfort rather than despair. Maybe she was more like her father than she had always thought.

O

Hope agreed, with some reluctance, to help her mother with the food preparations for dinner. It was what Lily would have done, after all, but she knew exactly where the conversation was going to lead. And sure enough:

"So, Cadmus," Tonks began. Hope was not fooled by the casual tone nor by the way she wasn't looking directly at her as she took down some vegetables from the cupboard and set them slicing and dicing with a flick of her wand. "Is he your boyfriend?"

Hope avoided her gaze as well and began peeling her own carrot by hand.

"Yeah, I suppose so."

"Have you been together long?"

She could have lied and said it was a very recent development, or pretended that they were only casual for the moment, but she hated lying to her parents. And lying always came back to bite you in the end.

"About eight months."

If her mother was shocked at this news, she hid it carefully as she nodded, her brow furrowed in thought. She seemed to steal herself, then:

"Love, just be careful, yeah?"

Hope glowered down as she chopped roughly at the carrot.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Again, there was no instant reply. Hope had the impression she was choosing her words very carefully.

"I want to make sure you're happy, that's all. Please can you try and slice that carrot more evenly."

Hope stabbed at it moodily with the knife instead.

"You're judging him based on his family, aren't you? Because you don't like his dad. I thought we didn't do that."

"I'm not judging him," Tonks said at once, her tone still carefully controlled. "I've never met him. Know nothing about him, in fact. That, more than anything, is what is concerning to me. You've been with him a while, must have known him for much longer if he's in your year, and you've never mentioned him to us, not once."

"Oh I wonder why. You're being so supportive right now."

Guilt pierced Hope's chest as the sarcasm spilled over and her mother's shoulders dropped a little with visible weariness. Was this really the right time to be snappy with her, when Dad had nearly bled to death the day before?

"I don't have to tell you everything," Hope continued more contritely, making an effort to slice the second carrot into perfect circles.

"No, you don't," Tonks acknowledged. "And if the reason you didn't tell us is that you thought we would judge him based on his family then I can only apologise. You're right, making assumptions based on someone's relatives is completely wrong, and I should know that better than anyone. I'm wondering if there's another reason that you've never talked to us about him. That's all."

Hope supposed she could have shown her mother the drawing and asked for her opinion. Or told her about how she and Cadmus had got together in the first place, how he never failed to make her laugh with his blunt humour and how they had in-depth, fascinating discussions on topics that wouldn't have occurred to her before. How she liked him so much more than she had ever liked Adam. Maybe she could have explained that, despite her ongoing feelings, she didn't always understand him, that she didn't want to take their relationship further but he always tried to anyway, that sometimes she felt wrongfooted by what he said without being able to work out why. Her mother had been young once, she must have been through similar issues with previous boyfriends. Maybe it would be nice to have a proper heart to heart for once.

The impulse was gone as soon as it had come.

"There isn't," she said simply. "Cadmus is great."

oOo

August

Hogwarts letters were sent out in early August as usual. Hope tried to pretend she wasn't expectant. But surely Dom and Roxanne were right. This year had to be her year. Last year, she had been disappointed, yes, but had accepted it. Daphne had deserved the captaincy and she had been a fantastic captain. The goal difference at the end of the season spoke for itself.

But this year there couldn't be anyone else in the running. She had been on the team for nearly three times as long as everyone else. She was a solid player and she always trained hard and surely even Edgy Edgecombe who didn't like her wouldn't be able to justify giving the badge to someone else.

When Hope untied the letter from the owl's leg, however, it did not feel any different than normal and it only took a few seconds after opening it to see that there was nothing inside. The letter read exactly the same as usual. Hope screwed up her face, disappointment returning with a vengeance. How was it fair, after five solid years on the Ravenclaw team - and five victories - that the badge should go to someone else?

"Hogwarts letter?" her mother enquired from behind her. Hope remembered Teddy receiving his Head Boy badge, seated on this very chair, seven years before. Quidditch captain wouldn't have been quite as big an achievement, but it would have been something.

"Yep." She balled up the envelope and threw it with ease into the recyclator in the corner to show that there was nothing inside it. It coughed a little and immediately spat out a blank, pristine sheet of paper. "Same old."

The look on her mother's face told her that she understood exactly what was going on behind the careless shrug, but she didn't press the matter.

"What do you want to do for your birthday?" she said. She had been asking the same question for days now. "Turning of age is a big deal, Hope. Why don't I invite some of the Weasleys round and we'll have a barbecue or something. Just a nice, casual get together."

Hope didn't want to have a get together, casual or otherwise. She was feeling more and more recently that she wanted to be left alone. But then, the Weasleys were her friends. Quite literally her only friends, or so it often felt. What good would it do her to alienate them as well?

"OK." She forced a grateful smile. "That would be nice. Thank you."

"Invite Cadmus as well," her mother said. "We'd like to meet him."

Hope recognised the olive branch, grateful for it, but the thought of Cadmus being here, in the warmth and safety of her home, made her wary for reasons she couldn't quite explain.

"He's on a work experience placement all that week," she lied easily. "Thanks though!"

O

Hope looked round at the faces of the people she had always loved the most and tried to summon some enthusiasm. Where was it? Where had all the fun gone from her life?

"Hope!" Rose came running up to her, late as always, with a card and beautifully wrapped present in her hand. "Happy Birthday! Did you get quidditch captain? Mitch was dead sure you would when I met up with him the other week."

Hope wondered how many times she would have to answer that question before the start of term.

"Nope." She could feel her father's eyes on her but avoided looking at him. Nothing was a bigger test of her resolve not to cry these days than his sympathetic, half-concerned expression whenever he thought something was upsetting her. "I guess Mitch got it himself. He's got two years left at school and he's a great seeker."

Rose looked so appalled that Hope would have laughed if the subject hadn't been such a sore one. "You're a way better flyer than Mitch," she protested. "You're the best player in the school now, everyone says so."

Hope forced a smile, the compliments hurting rather than helping, and focused on the present that Rosie had handed her. A book, naturally, but one that looked like it would be an interesting read. And as evening fell and the crowded house became overwhelming, she slipped outside to take a moment's peace and quiet and read a few pages of it. Then she closed the book and sat there, gazing out towards the thick trees and breathing in the warm summer air, appreciating the sudden stillness. She wished she could stay here at home, instead of going back to school. Hogwarts didn't have much to offer her any more.

"Hey Pal!"

It was James, of course. She waited for him to ask her why she was out here all alone, but he didn't, and she felt a wave of fondness for him, coupled with regret at how little time she had been able to spend with him the year before, all because of Adam, a stupid boy who she didn't care about at all.

"Got something for you," he grinned, sitting down next to her. "Something fun for your final year. But keep it secret, yeah?"

Hope took the ragged piece of parchment he handed her, confused for a split second until understanding hit her.

"The Marauders' Map?"

"Yep! It's for you. You know the password and I doubt you'll have any problems working it."

Hope gaped at it before looking up at him again.

"James... you can't give it to me."

"Why not?"

"I dunno, what about Albus? Won't he want it?"

"Albus?" James snorted. "Albus isn't a marauder. I don't think he's spent a night out of his bed in his life."

"First time for everything."

"Maybe I'll let him borrow the invisibility cloak for this year," James admitted grudgingly, "Maybe. But the map is yours by right, Hope. You're Moony's daughter. Yeah, Prongs is my grandad, but I never met him, my dad doesn't even remember him, and everyone knows Remus is the reason the map was made in the first place. If anything it should have been yours and Teddy's all along."

Hope still hesitated.

You're Moony's Daughter.

She had never really thought of it like that before.

"Take it," James insisted. "I don't need it anymore and I want you to have it. Have some fun with it, and if you want to keep it when you graduate then you should. But for Merlin's sake give it to Lils, not Albus, if you end up passing it on."

Hope smiled down at the map. It was a cool gift, no doubt about that.

What will you use it for? You don't have any friends to sneak around with.

Firmly, Hope told the voice in her head to shut up and, feeling a lot more cheerful, she headed back inside with James to re-join the party.

OOO