Thanks to Emily for the perfect, and sadly, final beta. I hope you enjoy being a reader again xx

Thanks to all of you for favouriting/following/commenting it keeps me motivated. You may have noticed my update speed had dropped off since 169 - I have a one year old son who demands most of my time now, so 3-4 weeks will be the average new chapter schedule.

Mrs J xx

^V^

Remus had fallen into a doze before dawn; the rustle of Auror Tonks's page turning and the sleep snuffles of other hospital patients had faded into the background as the weight of his ongoing exhaustion fell over him. He was sure it would have happened much faster if his mind, tired and wrung out as it was, had not kept asking the same circular questions- Why would someone try to hurt him? Did he know the attacker? What if it was all just an accident? But eventually he did fall asleep, heavy and absent of dreams as it always had been in the years before Wolfsbane.

Remus was woken hours later by a hissing voice he knew at once, "Pssst, Uncle Moony, are you awake?"

It was Harry, Remus was sure, but when he opened his eyes expecting to see the boy standing next to his bed he was confused for a moment, because there was no one there. Even the Auror was gone. Remus squinted a little in the bright morning light and then the whisper came again, from the other side of the privacy drapes. "Psssst, Uncle Moony."

Then the curtain was drawn back in a flourish to reveal Harry, lying on his side in the next bed; there was a spectacular bruise spreading across his cheek and his head was heavily bandaged, but he looked alert and his normal boisterous self.

"Fancy seeing you here Professor," Harry said, with a rather ironic grin.

"Harry!" Remus said, eyeing Harry's bandage turban worriedly, "What happened to you?"

"Stray bludger," Harry muttered, his smile slipped away instantly, and his eyebrows pulled down as he continued sourly, "still, I'd rather be in here than in the common room today."

"Oh dear," Remus said, Harry's long expression said it all. Gryffindor had lost the match.

"It's all Draco's fault." Harry said petulantly to the ceiling, having flopped over onto his back. His teasing mood seemed to have evaporated. "If we'd been playing Slytherin like we were supposed to, it would have been a more even match, the wind was so strong, I kept getting blown off course. Bloody Diggory's the size of a beater, how am I supposed to compete with that?"

Remus thought this was a bit extreme; Cedric Diggory, the Hufflepuff seeker, was a sixth year, and a tall one, but he still looked slight compared to the stocky traditional beaters' build of Fred and George Weasley. "I'm sure Diggory would be no match for you if you weren't playing in a hurricane," Remus said dutifully.

Harry smiled a just a little, "Yeah, Wood says we can still come back, as long as Slytherin loses to Hufflepuff," Harry frowned, "or was it Ravenclaw? I dunno, he's hopeful anyway."

"Good. He's an excellent captain." Remus said, truthfully. The only person he'd ever seen with matching Quidditch captaincy zeal was James Potter - James, whose tactics had once included his team and the reserve flying blindfolded so as to gain 'a feel for the air.' In reality it had gained his team several concussions and a broken wrist but since James had led Gryffindor to three cup wins in a row his methods weren't really questioned.

Harry interrupted Remus's reminiscing, "Why are you here? Did something happen at the moon?"

Remus narrowed his eyes at the innocent expression Harry was now wearing, "Why do I get the impression I shouldn't tell you?"

Harry stuck out his bottom lip, "'Cause I'm a kid and no one ever trusts me with anything."

Remus hid a smile. "I'm sure," he said seriously. "I have a feeling that if you were allowed to know your father would have told you already. I'm assuming he and Lily have come to make sure you're alright?"

"Yes," Harry sighed, "They came, Dad said the same as always, 'it's a criminal investigation, I'd lose my job if I told you.' But he still tells Mum." Harry looked quite perplexed at the injustice of it all.

"That's because your mother won't share it with Ron and Neville as soon as she gets the chance," Remus said.

"I'll keep it to myself, I promise," Harry pleaded, "and you don't work for the DMLE, you wouldn't get in trouble for telling me," he added shrewdly.

"First, don't lie," Remus said, but he was smiling. "I think it's wonderful that you have such close friends - you shouldn't have to keep anything from them. Second, I don't know what the hell is going on anyway," he muttered, a little frustratedly, "so I couldn't tell you if I wanted to. I've been asleep since Saturday morning and there's an Auror guarding me. Do you know more than that?"

"Yes," Harry said at once, his inability to keep a secret springing forth, "I know Sirius and Snape had a duel in the dungeons because Snape tried to poison you, and I know that Mr Longbottom made Sirius and Dad go home because they were being 'unprofessional tossers,'" he snickered as he quoted the words obviously said by Frank. "Neville and Ron were listening outside the dungeon, apparently there's frog guts everywhere." Harry said gleefully, "I don't know if that was Sirius or Dad but someone exploded a barrel of the leftovers from the disembowelling lesson."

Remus coughed to hide the laughter that was trying to escape. He and Severus had a reasonable working relationship, but the man was just nasty. Composed once more Remus said, "Okay, well, I doubt very much that Professor Snape tried to poison me. His job means far too much to him for that - and also if he really did want me poisoned, with his skill I'd definitely be dead."

"That's what Neville said." Harry looked disappointed. "So then why are you in here - if not poison then what? Did someone attack you?"

"You could say that," Remus said. "I think we should wait until I've talked to Sirius and Frank before we make any more guesses."

"Fine," Harry said, resignedly.

The quiet click-clack of Madam Pomfrey's sensible half-inch heels approaching made them both turn. Harry let the curtain flutter back into place and Remus noted mentally that he should praise him for his charm work. Lily would be pleased that all the effort she put in to tutoring Harry in the holidays was paying off.

"Breakfast time," the matron said, as she came around the curtain. "I wasn't sure if your appetite would be normal, or more like it used be after transformations so I have porridge or beef broth." she magicked a tray across Remus's knees and raised the bed slightly, before putting the two bowls down in front of him.

To Remus's disquiet the porridge made him more nauseous than the myriad of potions he'd taken in the wee hours, and he grimaced at Madam Pomfrey. "It's like being a teenager all over again," he said half-heartedly, picking up his spoon and starting on the meaty broth.

"Never mind, dear," Madam Pomfrey said, whisking the porridge away. "We'll get it all sorted for next month."

As Remus ate he wondered where his guard had gone. Auror Tonks, had still been there flipping pages in her magazine when he'd gone back to sleep. She was a bewildering thing. He'd almost come to the conclusion that he'd imagined her change in appearance - a bizarre vision brought on by dehydration and exhaustion - but even without the face changing, she seemed far too carefree, and far too cheerful to be a trainee Auror. The few that Remus had meet during James and Sirius's career were either jumpy and eager to please, or cocky and full of it. Perhaps Tonks was a little cocky, if he had to categorize - but much more relaxed, as if she was already comfortable in the role. Perhaps that's what made a good Auror… Remus had no idea if the few other trainees he'd met had made it all the way to qualification or not.

As though thinking about her had conjured her into existence, Remus suddenly heard her voice. There was the creak of the main hospital doors opening and the sounds of student babble, and then Tonks said brusquely, "Auror Tonks, state your purpose for visiting the hospital."

Remus imagined that she was barring the person's entry, her Auror I.D and perhaps wand on display.

"Er," stuttered the voice of a student, "um, I'm here to see Harry Potter."

"And your name?" Tonks asked, her tone still sharp.

"Fred Weasley."

Remus felt his eyebrows lift in surprise - after James's words in the shack, Remus wouldn't have expected either Weasley twin to be visiting Harry on his sick bed.

"Keep your hands where I can see them." Tonks cautioned, as Fred Weasley's silhouette passed by Remus's curtained-off bed, and stopped just beside Harry's.

"Harry?" the boy said, he didn't sound confrontational, quite neutral in fact.

"What do you want?" Harry asked rudely, and Remus wondered if Mrs Weasley might have been right to look to James for help.

"I," Fred paused. "Look, Ron and Neville said you reckon I hit that bludger at you on purpose."

There was silence and Remus felt a twinge of guilt for eavesdropping so blatantly.

"I don't know," Harry said mutinously, "you and George have been such pricks to us this term."

"You haven't exactly been little angels." Fred countered, his voice becoming more biting.

"I don't know," Harry repeated, but he lost a little of his anger as he continued, "but your aim is always so bloody good and then one minute you call me a thief and the next there's a bludger in my ear."

It was quiet again and then Fred said, "Thanks I guess, but my aim is good when there aren't gale-force winds interfering. I was aiming for Diggory. Wood's already had a go at me."

"Nasty," Harry said with relative sympathy.

"Yeah, worse than McGonagall," Fred said.

"I know, at least you know McGonagall isn't going to jinx you," Harry agreed, "I think Wood gets close sometimes."

"Yeah," Fred laughed. Remus was surprised, he really couldn't understand how they could be so hostile and then have it vanish completely; a common enemy probably helped, he reasoned. "So you're not going to tell anyone that I did it on purpose?" Fred asked.

"Only if you stop calling me a thief," Harry bargained.

Fred let out a little frustrated sigh, "Well then, give it back and we will."

"It's rightfully mine," Harry said, "and you stole it in the first place so you can't talk."

"Bugger off!" Fred said angrily.

"Can't, can I?" Harry shot back spitefully, his voice rising, "'cause I'm still injured from when you hit that bludger at me and made me miss the snitch!"

"That's quite enough," said Madam Pomfrey's strict voice abruptly, "Mr Weasley, visiting time is over. Please see yourself out."

"Mr Potter," she continued, obviously agitated, "while you might be feeling well enough to shout, others are not. Be more considerate."

"Yes Matron," Harry said quietly.

Remus knew better than to try and talk to Harry. He could still hear him mumbling tersely through the curtain, and Fred had left a good half an hour ago. On the bright side, when Auror Tonks knew he was awake she had moved back to where he could see her, so at least Remus had a distraction from the disturbing information that Harry stole things because he thought he deserved them.

In an effort to keep his mind off Harry and his adolescent troubles, Remus asked Tonks the first thing he could think of - which, on reflection, should probably have been about dastardly potion-fiddling assassins, but instead ended up being about their brief meeting during the night.

"Did you really turn yourself into an old woman last night, when Poppy came in with the medicine?"

Tonks nodded. Remus wasn't sure if it was just the brighter light of daytime but her hair didn't seem as pink today, and beneath her eyes the pale skin showed the merest trace of a shadow. He wondered how long she'd been on duty. "I'm a metamorphmagus," she said, "I can change my appearance at will. It's one of the reasons I decided to be an Auror, so that I could have a job where it's legitimately useful, rather than just a party trick."

"I've never heard of that," Remus said apologetically. It wasn't often he came across a condition or ability that he hadn't encountered in the last decade. Being on crusade for the minority meant he'd met a lot of afflicted, infected or affected people. Metamorphmagus was a new one, although he supposed that an ability that by definition meant you could change the way you looked probably wasn't that hard to hide.

"I'm not surprised," Tonks said, "I'm a quarter of this century's population."

"Goodness," Remus said, impressed, "rare."

She smiled and seemed pleased with Remus's reaction. Remus noticed she had a new magazine today: still the same publication, but there was a different homeless looking man on the cover of this one. He had long dark wavy hair, the frayed cuff of his checked flannel shirt hid most of his hand from view, but he appeared to be trying to swallow a microphone.

This Kerrang! thing was obviously about music, and muggle music at that, something Remus was quite fond of. He owned a Rolling Stones album, one of the many greatest hits collections, as well as Ziggy Stardust, Dark Side of the Moon and – like every good Brit – a beaten up old Beatles record, but he didn't recognise the mish-mash of words that graced the cover as names of musical groups, which he assumed they must be, as he certainly couldn't understand why anyone would want a recipe for jam made from pearls. Remus was on the verge of asking about it, when his curtain was drawn back to reveal Frank Longbottom and Sirius, both dressed in full Auror kit.

Even at thirty four years old, with a decade and a half of Auroring behind him, Sirius still managed to look uncomfortable in his uniform. The buttons that ran in a row down the front were open enough to show his shirt beneath, a shirt with its collar open and no tie. He looked quite dishevelled standing next to the neatly buttoned, Winsor-knotted and freshly pressed Frank Longbottom. Sirius's hair was less shaggy and shorter than it had been in their youth, but again looked unkempt when compared to the combed back tidy waves of his partner. Obviously his work was good enough to make up for his lacking presentation, or perhaps the Head Auror - the grizzled grey haired Alastor Moody - felt it a little hypocritical and had given up on him after fifteen years of nagging.

"Moony," Sirius said at once, looking relieved to see Remus sitting up in bed, obviously on the mend, "how are you feeling?"

"Fine," Remus said, shrugging, and then regretting it as his bandaged middle twinged, "like it's the old days."

Sirius frowned, "Not fine then?"

Remus sighed and shook his head, he felt quite frustrated all of a sudden. "I have no idea what's going on mate," he said, hoping Sirius would give him some answers, "Harry knows more than I do, and he's been in hospital nearly as long as I have."

"Speaking of," Sirius said. He flicked his wand and muttered, "Muffiliato."

There was a beat and then Harry said, a little too loudly, no doubt due to the buzzing in his ears, "You're no fun, Uncle Padfoot."

Sirius rolled his eyes, "Bloody nosy kid, anyway, we're here to bring you up to speed - you're relieved Tonks," he added as an aside.

The young Auror got to her feet at once. "Thank goodness," she said. She picked up her bag from the floor, and tucked her magazine away, then she looked askance at Remus, "No offence, Mr Lupin."

"None taken," Remus smiled, "guarding a snoring man would not be at the top of my list either."

"That part wasn't so bad," Tonks replied, with a twitching lip, "it's frisking school children that really isn't that fun."

Both Frank and Sirius laughed at this, and Remus thought he must be missing some Auror in-joke.

"Mad-Eye's gone and taken a personal interest in this case," Frank explained at Remus's curious look.

"Only 'cause it's you," Sirius said to Remus, and then he growled in a reasonable approximation of Alastor's gruff voice, "Check every damn person that enters that hospital, kids and staff alike. Can't have Remus-bloody-Lupin going wild on us – every sodding werewolf in the country will lose his job, imagine if the papers get a hold of it!" Sirius continued, pointing his finger like the head Auror tended to do, "Disaster!" he finished dramatically.

Tonks snickered and Remus was both pleased and exasperated to have the old man's special interest.

"He'll expect a briefing from you at eight tomorrow morning," Sirius said to Tonks, "you're off till then."

"He would," Tonks said, "why does he want it from me?"

"Because you're his pet," Frank put in.

Tonks looked about to protest but then Sirius said, "It's much better to be pet than peeve, believe me."

Tonks lifted her eyebrows and Frank said, "Haven't you noticed Black's got a deeply ingrained fear of walking sticks? During the war Moody whacked him nearly into paranoia - to this day if you lift a cane in his direction he'll heel like a good dog."

Tonks was looking between the two older Aurors in disbelief.

Sirius just shrugged, and said seriously, "it's getting better now that he's cut his hours back a bit."

Tonks shook her head in amusement, "Right, well I'll see you both in the office tomorrow," she turned her bright expression on Remus and said, "and I'll see you next time these two need a break," she twiddled her fingers in a happy farewell, "bye Remus."

"Thanks," Remus said as she left.

"Remus now, is it?" Sirius said offhandedly, as he perched himself on the side of Remus's bed, close to his feet.

"That is my name," Remus replied, feeling defensive, although he really didn't think he had a reason to be. "I don't let everyone call me Moony, you realise."

Sirius lifted an eyebrow at the snippy tone, "You're the victim, she should be calling you Mr Lupin."

"I asked her to call me Remus," Remus said, not wanting Tonks to get in trouble, "it's fine."

"Alright, this is what we know so far," interrupted Frank, thankfully putting an end to their pointless conversation because there was a sly little twinkle in Sirius's eyes that belied his nonchalant question. Frank flipped open his notebook and summarised for Remus, "On Friday afternoon Professor Snape brought the Wolfsbane potion up to the hospital wing; he came directly after classes finished, the same time he brings it up every afternoon in the week preceding the full moon. It sat in its cauldron on its portable fire to ensure it was fresh, until five-thirty when Madam Pomfrey measured out the two doses. You and Miss Reeves arrived at six fifteen. The two doses were alone in the office for forty-five minutes, and in that time five different people were in the hospital wing: Poppy Pomfrey, Wesley Fawley the NHS inspector, Draco Malfoy, Flora Black and Greta Reeves. However, with the inspection distracting Madam Pomfrey, it is certainly possible that someone could have slipped into the office unnoticed.

Remus's voice was shocked as he asked sharply, "Flora is a suspect?"

"Not really," Sirius said, "she and Greta were only here to see Draco, and were never out of Poppy's sight."

Frank looked down at his notes again, "Draco was having his bandages re-done and had been here since five."

"He missed dinner?" Remus asked.

"Looks that way," replied Frank.

"Odd kid," Sirius said, cottoning on to Remus's train of thought, "What sort of teenage boy misses an opportunity to eat?"

"Flora was out of Poppy's sight," Remus said. "Greta told me. She said Poppy had to get some sort of inventory list for Fawley, they were talking to him while she was gone."

"Shit," said Frank. "Now we're going to have to question her too."

"Will Moody take you off the case?" Remus asked Sirius, concerned - he didn't really want to have to trust a stranger with something like this.

"I don't think so, not as long as Frank interviews Flora," Sirius said at once. "It's not really more of a conflict of interest than you being the victim." He looked uneasy for a moment, "No, I think this is too high profile for Moody to trust anyone else with it, he's already worried about media fallout."

"I'd say Flora's lack of reasonable motive will get her crossed of the suspect list pretty quick," Frank said. "Her godfather is not someone she would have any reason to hurt and Greta, who could have been in danger too, is one of her best friends - it seems pretty farfetched. The plus side is that this is being kept entirely confidential, so there will be no press asking questions or casting doubt on the investigating Aurors loyalties."

Sirius grinned, "I'm sure Hermione will be accusing us of conspiracy and lack of open government in no time."

Remus gave a little laugh at that. "Perhaps you shouldn't tell her then, for her own good."

"Perhaps," Sirius agreed. "So, other than someone fiddling with your potion, the only other obvious avenue at the moment is something in you affecting the Wolfsbane's effects. A curse, or a counteragent slipped into your teapot."

"Teapot?" Frank asked, flicking pages in his little book as if expecting to find reference to a theory on teapot tampering.

"Kids have teddy bears, Remus has a teapot," Sirius said, succinctly. "If you were going to get to Remus you'd go through his teapot."

Frank looked at Remus, obviously expecting him to deny it. "I don't take it to bed with me," Remus offered, as Sirius sniggered into his hand. Remus worked very hard to keep his face straight. He was very fond of his old tin teapot.

"Odd, the pair of you," Frank huffed. He checked his notes again, "well, that's all we have for now, I'll be back with Severus sometime this week so he can check you for curses."

"Why do we have to use him?" Sirius complained, "the Ministry has actual curse breakers, surely they'd be the people to use."

"Don't be so difficult," Frank said tiredly. "Snape already knows about the incident, we're trying to limit the people involved and he is certainly knowledgeable in curses that affect potions, probably more so than most of the Ministry curse breakers. You don't have to come."

"I heard about the, er, altercation," Remus said, "in the dungeon yesterday?"

Frank scowled but Sirius only shrugged, "He seemed to be the most likely culprit, the man who brewed the potion that didn't work. And I wanted an excuse to jinx him."

"Merlin, Black, you really can't say things like that!" Frank groaned.

"I also heard there was an explosion?" Remus pressed.

Sirius laughed, "Blame James for that, I wish I could take credit. James got a little too into the interrogation, he's a bit out of practice."

"First time in years I've seen Potter interested in a case," Frank said, appearing to be over his grump, or perhaps after so many years he just knew when to pick his battles with Sirius. "He's normally too wrapped up in his combat classes."

This was true, Remus realised - James really had no place in accompanying Sirius and Frank to question Snape, other than using it as an excuse to decorate the Potions Master's office with frog innards.

James worked in the cadet training department for Ministry Law Enforcement, their specialist in combat and field work. His trainees were not just Aurors but the regular Law Enforcement Patrol and the practical arm of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures too. James was still a qualified Auror, having completed his interrupted final stage of training after the war had ended, but it was plain to everyone that his calling was teaching, not investigating. Mad-Eye had encouraged this; after all, it was no secret that the Head Auror disliked anyone under the age of thirty, so he was very glad to pass the buck. Tonks was apparently the exception to this rule, if she had earned the title of Moody's pet; she must be very talented, he mused, or maybe there was a story there.

"It's not really surprising though," Sirius said, breaking Remus out of his distraction, "of course James is worried about this, it's a pretty big deal, if Remus had bitten anyone –" he looked at Remus apologetically, "Merlin, we'd be lucky to get the chance to investigate at all before they lopped his head off."

Remus winced. Hearing Madam Pomfrey call it an 'assassination attempt' in her clinical way was much less real than Sirius's casually thrown out mention of decapitation. Remus thought of the damage it would do to the werewolf population, how it would erase everything he'd worked for in the last ten years. Not to mention the horrific cold fear that stole over him at the idea of having his head cut off… certainly something he'd like to avoid if possible.

Sirius seemed to know exactly what was going through Remus's mind. "Don't worry Moony," he said, patting Remus's blanket covered knee, "whatever is going on here, we'll figure it out. Longbottom and I have the best success rate in the office."

"Yes," Remus said, trying to sound like his normal unruffled self, but the panicky flutter inside him caused his voice to waver, "but decapitation is hardly a sentence that can be overturned, so you really only have until the next full moon to figure out what went wrong or who is trying to hurt me, or it could happen all over again."

Sirius met his eyes. The determination Remus had seen in his friend many times before was plain in his face, but Sirius seemed uncharacteristically earnest as well. Remus knew that there was no doubt that Sirius and James would be there to help him take all the precautions necessary to avoid disaster, but the fact was that normal transformations were horrible, debilitating things; if someone had cursed him so that the potion would no longer work, he was possibly facing a life without Wolfsbane, which was a very grim prospect indeed.

^V^

Thanks for reading xx