This chapter marks the one year anniversary not of my starting this fic, but of my falling in love with all things Sirius and Remus. I feel so very nostalgic. Now leave me reviews.

Chapter XV: La Deuxieme Chanson de l'Ombre

In the darkness of the large room was silence, silence feeding off the darkness, the darkness, in turn, feeding off the silence. It smelled like shed snakeskin, the air tasting of some violent but unseen green color.

Voldemort didn't entirely trust his werewolf, for not only was the creature strong, but it was smart, too. The insanity didn't matter much, as insanity was only a variable in the midst of it all, a factor that touched upon both thought and action but came from a different place entirely. If anything, it made the creature something more to worry about ­ or, would have, if Voldemort ever worried about anything. The point was, the beast was unregistered, the beast was efficient, and the beast was driven by some inner turmoil that would destroy it very effectively in the end, thus leaving Voldemort with practically no disposal work. All in all, it was a very good deal, and Voldemort was certainly not complaining.

He kept the werewolf around when he was traveling, on the occasion, as the werewolf traveled light and moved fast and understood that, while on the move, it was necessary to be more than silent: it was necessary to, if possible, make negative noise, just as a beast of prey might make, during the hunt.

Luckily, while Voldemort did not trust his werewolf, his werewolf never trusted the places they went to, and kept alert, away, defensive. Voldemort had learned from a very early age that to keep one's enemy or even one's supposed allies on the defensive was to keep them from ever thinking about the offensive, and thus defeated any plans before they were begun.

And that was why he was moving so quickly; striking so fast.

It was with a hiss and a brittle snapping of the air, through the silence came a whisper, soft and sleek.

"And what is it that you wish to see today?" Out of the darkness the bent old man appeared; did not, of course, appear, but he seemed to, as if he had been one with the shadows, and had only just then chosen to take form. Of all those that Voldemort associated himself with, this man was the only one who did not call him master.

"All things of Godric's Hollow," Voldemort replied easily, watching in cool dispassion as the werewolf shrank back from the man's shriveled form, watching, alert, on edge. "All things of Godric's Hollow, and the Wizards within."

"They will destroy you," the man murmured evenly. His sightless eyes did not blink, gray and filmy and the whites like clotted milk. He had been very, very blind for a very, very long time.

"So I must kill them now."

"They will destroy you. An heir of Godric's Hollow, a creature unforeseen, will destroy you." That was the most terribly obnoxious habit the old man had, Voldemort thought to himself, displeased. He never really gave you something to go by, just the vaguest outline of what doom and gloom was to come. Ah, well; he had been making his own future since he was Tom Riddle, and it barely even mattered to him, now, the fineries of prophecy. He did. He was. He would do. He would always be. And it was that simple to him.

"Teiresias," Voldemort sighed, ever patient, ever brittle in his politeness, "is there anything more you can tell me, or shall I simply save myself the time and go to kill Henry Potter at Godric's Hollow?"

There was silence in the room, through Achille's blood, pounding like a heartbeat at the backs of Voldemort's eyes.

"If you had ever read good literature," Teiresias said smoothly, "you wouldn't even bother." The old man folded his hands before him, and took a step backwards, where the shadows claimed him like some sort of delicacy. Voldemort shook his head.

"You keep taking me to such unpleasant places," Achille muttered, puffing breath out between pursed lips, "but it seems to get us nowhere. Cold old men and their cold old words."

"My thoughts precisely," Voldemort replied, pushing the door open and sweeping out into the corridor. "But Septimus was wise enough to invite the man here and now, at least, I know my suspicions are the truth. Godric's Hollow. Will the legacy of that house never cease to haunt me?" He smiled, a glittering, jade smile. "Well, yes, it will, at that," he murmured, dark hair falling forward, swathing his face in shadow. "As to what you said, it was a incredibly stupid, and I do think such thoughts had better be kept to yourself."

"You smell like a snake," the werewolf returned calmly, walking with an easy gait alongside of Voldemort's long, hurried strides.

"You smell like a dog," Voldemort replied, crisply. "And your job, as I recall, is certainly not to talk."

"I don't have a job." Achille shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'm coming along for, as they say, the ride."

"Oh, excellent." They rounded the corner and Achille opened the door to the main sitting room in the Malfoy mansion, where Septimus sat, hands folded, one brow lifted regally above the other. He looked to Voldemort like a king of nothing and to Achille an emperor of paneling and large windows and glittering candlesticks. The chandelier above them winked with pale light. Everything was still a shadow; it was Teiresias's effect on things.

"I hope the meeting proved fruitful," Septimus said, speaking first.

"It merely reassured me that I am correct to follow through on my original plan," Voldemort returned dryly. "Which means, Septimus, that you are to kill Henry Potter, tonight."

"It shall be done."

"Of course it shall be." Voldemort was tightlipped. "You needn't kill the wife, though if she puts up any trouble, you have my permission to." And then he smiled, the slowest of cruel smiles, teeth catching the pale light like paler pearls. "It's high time Albus Dumbledore and his castle in the clouds saw fit to acknowledge us as a threat. It's high time the idiots working under him stop sitting on their prim hands."

"If it is all out in the open at last," Septimus Malfoy murmured, bright-eyed, "then it will only be a matter of days."

"Hardly." Voldemort tilted his head to the side. "It will be a good many years. Which is why," and he began to pull on white gloves, "which is why I intend to have us start, now. If you require any help, Mssr. Baudouin will be delighted to provide you with all assistance possible. I, have other things to do." He nodded, once; Septimus rose, and bowed slightly, at the waist.

"You underestimate yourself, my Lord." Septimus's voice was light, but edged with harshness.

"I think not," Voldemort said, and was gone. He never left with a flashy show of light and sparks; just a rippling in the air, a green rippling threaded with red, and then he was gone, a dip in time, a surreality, a threat as great as day and as terrible as night. Septimus let out the breath he, and all of Voldemort's followers, always held when around him, and rang for a house elf to fetch him his cloak.

"I take it we aren't allowed to make a mess of things." Achille leaned against the doorframe, fingering the dark mahogany wood, polished to a reflective shine.

"Unfortunately, no," Septimus said quietly. "It will give me great satisfaction, however, to kill the man. He was particularly unsavory at Hogwarts and he has continued to be for the last two decades." The house elf scurried in, and the cloak settled about Septimus's shoulders. "Shall we?" He sniffed, lightly, as condescending as possible.

"You think I smell like a dog, too." The bones in Achille's hair clacked. It was his way of laughing.

And then, they were gone into the night.



Through the dark place, like a dark tunnel. Through the dark place like roots all around it, a great tree, a stumbling world, the clouds laboring in the sky. The moon. Slowly beginning to wane. Full only two days ago, now, now pale, now helpless in its cycle. He felt like the moon, sometimes; just like it.

And up to a house with the lights all turned off.

The windows blind in its face, sightless, unknowing. Something terrible was going to happen and in the darkness the house did not know.

He smelled dog.

He smelled dog thick and heavy and hungry.

He smelled dog-like madness, thick upon the thick air, only it was more feral than dog, more dangerous, too. And then there was something refined, something metallic, a wand pulled from robes, the rustle of it as the robes parted, fell back into place. Something very fine. Something very expensive.

Something very fine and very expensive, and something canine and cruel, were going to do something terrible here, and the house would not notice until the lights went on and blinked out, and it was over and done with.

His dreams were a funny place, mumbling and portentous and horrid. They reminded him of his school days. He always woke with a stomach ache.

"Hector."

Sometimes, in his dreams, people called his name; softly, loudly, an in between, a tenderness, a hate, a despair. Sometimes, he heard Arabella, the love with which she used to speak with him, the scorn she had last employed. There was Mundungus, sometimes, too, always the same; a gentle, careful tone, a slight, refined hunger, an insecurity, a hesitance. (Funny he'd never seen those before. It was as if Mundungus thought he might at any moment shatter into pieces and be lost on the howling wind.) Always, there was Damon, behind it all, throughout it all. He loved Damon. He loved Damon. He just didn't love Damon as he loved Mundungus.

"Hector."

And then there was the voice which was real, which pulled through his dreams, where the man was screaming out and the wife was sobbing, and everything was a blinding flash of white light, of pain, of sudden, infinite death.

"Hector, there's someone at the door." Damon's voice woke him. He felt like a poem; he felt that he might drown.

"...time is it...?" Hector's voice sounded mangled, harsh, tired, even to his own ears.

"Three forty. There's someone at the door, Hector, calling your name." His eyes opened; there was no light, and that was a comfort to him, at least. He squinted, blinked, had to close his eyes again because it hurt to hold them open. He opened them again after a few seconds had passed, wide open, to acquaint them with the position. Then, he swung himself out of bed, feet hitting the cold wood beneath.

"Cold," he hissed, running his fingers through his hair and, without waiting for Damon's reply, he hurried down the stairs.

"Hector!" It was Mundungus, pounding at the door, because Hector would always remember that voice, no matter what, even in this state of blurry half-sleep. He was aware of Damon coming up behind him, and his brow furrowed, heart suddenly pounding. He undid the lock and the bolt, and opened the door.

"It's three bloody forty five, Mundungus Fletcher, what in Heaven's name are you doing here?"

"We need your help." He took in a deep breath, his face pale in the wavering moonlight. It was like blood stains, the clouds passing over the sky.

"No," Hector said simply, "you don't. And certainly not now." He moved to close the door.

"Hector, we do." Mundungus's eyes closed for a moment. "Henry's been killed. Henry Potter. You used to tutor him in bloody Divination and don't you dare turn your back on us now."

Silence.

"He said, you don't, and not now," Damon said suddenly, firmly, moving to slam the door shut.

"Merlin," Hector whispered, and Damon stopped, fingers on the edge of the door, at the splintering wood. He fumbled.

"Hector," he said.

"I don't want to sound like Arabella." Mundungus's voice sounded strained. "I don't want to hurt you like Arabella, I don't want to force you to be something you're not, but this, this is what you are. We need you, we need you, we've never needed you more. If only we'd been able to see, Hector. If only we'd been able to know."

"Please, Mundungus, leave now." Resignation, in Hector's eyes, in his voice.

"I can't," Mundungus said, "Hector, I can't." Hector swallowed hard.

"You're going to take me away," he whispered, "and I'm going to let you, aren't I?"

"Don't," Damon tried, but Mundungus fixed him with the firmest of looks, and he was forced by the power behind it into silence. Mundungus turned his eyes back to Hector, took his face in his hands, and held him that way, as if he were a little child.

"We do things we are scared to do. We do things that hurt us. We do them when the times demand that cowardice is not an option, that cowardice can never be an option." Mundungus swallowed. His throat was rough, his words ragged. He was tired; he had come a long way. In this light his stubbornness was quite apparent. He would not take no for an answer, not now, not here, not ever again. His words hit home, rang true. "I am terrified, Hector. I am terrified that taking one step forwards or backwards will hurt the people I love, but I am trying because we can do no more than that; we, as men, can do no more than try. And as I see it - from where I stand - what you're doing isn't trying. It isn't even trying to try. Weaker men, lesser men, have gone further than you and I won't see you sit here and rot because you're paralyzed with some idiot's fear. Get your clothes on. Pack your things. We need you. Everyone needs you; everyone. Don't do it for yourself if you don't think you deserve it, but do it for them. For Henry Potter, who was murdered in his bed without warning. For Arabella, who cried herself silly at me after never having gotten through to you. For me, because I'm terrified, just as you are."

"I think you've said enough," Damon whispered.

"Are you on their side now, too?" Hector asked, turning tired, dulled eyes to Damon's face.

"I won't have you staying," Damon returned.

"Thank you," Mundungus said. "Speed is necessary."

"I'll have him ready before dawn." Damon took Hector by the sleeve and Mundungus dropped his hands, guiding him out of the doorway, into the main room. "Because I respect you," Damon whispered against his ear, as he led him up the stairs, "and because I want to continue to do so."

Hector made a lost sound, and could do naught else but follow.

The words rolled over Achille's tongue as they left the house, fleeing into the night; as he was left alone by the edge of the woods, knowing that Voldemort would find him again, when he needed him, and that he could do as he pleased, until then.

"Avada Kedavra." Softly, it was terrifying, dangerous, a secret that could easily move like poison into a king's ear, a secret that could easily kill.

"Avada Kedavra!" Loudly, it was death, sudden and quick, the bite of a cobra, the sting of a scorpion, the squeeze of a python, the breath lost, the breath never regained.

Achille loved it because it was so gloriously simple, so easy to speak, so tender, so affectionate. He wanted to be on speaking terms with death, like that. He wanted to be that close by its side. He wanted to have her on his arm, slipping her arm through his, elbow to elbow and laughter bouncing against laughter.

But he was not a wizard, and he had no wand.

He inspected his dirty fingernails, sitting at the roots of a tree, and listening to the silence of the night, the movements of barn owls, the songs of the bats. He listened to earthworms burrow into the dirt. He listened to insects flick lazily past his ear. He killed a few. Somewhere, people were already panicking over this one insignificant and yet terribly important death, one that meant the beginning and the end and a whole lot of other things Achille was barely a part of. He had been set free; he was in this to kill. And maybe to find that woman, that beautiful woman, who had ripped out his stomach beneath the full, pregnant moon. He was hungry, Achille was. He wanted to fuck her. Maybe, he wanted to kill her; maybe, he just wanted to whisper those two words against the tender lobe of her ear, over and over and over again while she was pinned, subservient, beneath him. Constantly, he dreamed of this. Desperately, he longed for it.

He knew, however, that she was dead.

The dirt beneath his fingers was moist, supple, and fringed with the occasional fuzz of tree-moss. Flowery, soft, it was a pleasant feel. It grounded him.

"Avada Kedavra, Avada..." It would have made a lovely song, one that she might have sung, one she probably did. Her big gold eyes like two big bright coins in the heart shape of her face. Those pretty lips. The way she moved, on the other side of the river, between the gravestones, with her hips just the right amount of wide and her breasts bare to him. She had held out her hands, her arms, wide, and he had crossed the river for her. He had waded through the wet and she had taken him into her arms, in the dusk before darkness.

The death on the face of the man he did not know was an unsightly one, all frozen in sudden, sleepy fear. His eyes had been wide and his jaw had near snapped with the brittleness of his shock. His wife had started screaming and then he had clamped a hand over her mouth, looking at her green eyes, while Septimus left the way he had come. He had run after; she had started to scream again; he had followed Septimus Malfoy, listening to the woman's screams. They were funny, near comical, how loud and how crass they were. Just like fear. Comical, as all that.

"Avada...Avada, Avada, Kedavra..." And it nearly rhymed, too; that was also pleasant.

That two simple words could form the syllables of death itself was a pleasing, almost comforting thought.

Achille wanted to go back to France.

That two simple words like that could get that woman screaming so loud it hurt his ears was funny, was funny funny funny.

Achille wanted to go back to France, the little circle of gravestones. He wanted to find her name on one of them, he wanted to crack the stone, he wanted to dig her bones up and chew on them and listen to them crack. It had been such a long time since he had been in France, the smell of his home, his good, funny, French home, where the earth was sweet.

But everything was incredibly different now, so it didn't matter.

"Avada." The first word, he liked far better, far, far better, because it rolled off the lolling of the tongue. It made him pant just a little. It made him want to run.

"Kedavra." He pushed himself up off the ground and threw his head back and screamed, and then burrowed into the arms of the forest, running, barefoot, over the rocky ground. For now, he was free, Achille Baudouin in a foreign land. When Voldemort would come for him he would be fine again, calm again, wildness scratching at the surface with long, sharp claws.

Whenever Remus returned to Hogwarts he found that he could at last truly breathe again in the welcoming face of the place, craggy, old, filled with the music of home. It wasn't like him to wax poetic on much but he did love just returning to Hogwarts (loved staying there even more) and, as Hagrid rowed him back across the lake in the small skiff, and the water lapped at the edge of it, he sighed, long and low and deep, with utter relief.

"Glad to 'ave you back, he'll be," Hagrid said cheerfully, taking a pause in his puffing at the rows, and giving Remus a knowing smile. They didn't have to say who 'he' was. "And it's right great, isn't it, to come 'ome again." And really, that was what Hogwarts was to Remus: home, in every sense of the world. After all, it was where Sirius was.

"I'm glad to be back," Remus admitted, very quietly, into his scarf. Unlike most people, Hagrid didn't egg him on to be louder, and took whatever he said by weighing how important it was, not how loud it had been said.

It was late at night when they returned and somehow, as Hagrid left him inside with his bags to make his way alone through the empty corridors, Remus didn't know whether he wanted anyone to be up and waiting for him. How could they be, in any case, as they didn't know when he'd be coming home. Well, not to the exact hour, at least. It would have been nice to simply slip himself into Sirius's arms and Sirius's bed so that the other would find him in the morning, and he could sleep the night through, without nightmares, without disturbances, without waking to the lonely cold or suffocating heat.

The Common Room was empty when Remus entered it, empty and filled with numbing, dead silence. He trudged up the steps to the boys' dormitory, shifting his bags to slip the door open, and shut, without making a sound. Without allowing the floorboards to creak, he set his suitcases down beside his bed, fumbled with the clasps on his school cloak, letting it drop as neatly as possible atop the bigger suitcase. He toed off his boots and flexed the muscles in the arch of his feet, sighing, once, as he breathed in the smells. Sirius, in the corners, on the curtains, sliding along the windowpanes. James, upon the arms of chairs and along the bindings of books and in the circle of glinting glasses upon the top of his dresser. Lilly, verdant and willful, in the stray orange hairs and the forgotten school tie and the neatly paired shoes by her bed. Peter, lingering upon the floor and circling the bedposts and perched upon the bedside table.

Home.

There was nothing nicer in all the world than coming home; than being able to come home.

Without wanting to bother with socks or pants, the removal thereof, Remus simply pulled back the curtain to his bed, convincing himself he wanted nothing more than to get a good night's rest, the first in ages. When he saw his bed was far from empty, he froze. Sirius's blue eyes winked out at him from the darkness.

"You've come home." Sirius's voice was slow, sleepy, and filled with relief.

"You're sleeping in my bed," Remus replied carefully, holding the curtain open yet, running his fingers through his own hair in wonder.

"Come to sleep with me," Sirius whispered, levering himself up on one elbow. "I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in ages, without you here."

"And I have, without me, here?" Sirius winced, brushing his tousled locks back out of his eyes. He rested one arm on a bent knee, holding himself up with his free hand.

"Come to bed, Remus."

"I've missed you, Sirius."

"Stop talking and let me hold you."

"What if you aren't real?"

"I'm real, I promise you I'm real, let me hold you."

"But what if you can't?"

"Stop asking questions. Stop talking. Come and see." Remus knelt down instinctively onto the bed, the mattress giving way beneath his knees, and he let the curtain go behind him, bathing them both in shadow. He knew where Sirius was by smell and he crawled his way across the suddenly too-big bed to get to his side, to the sudden comfort of his arms.

Sirius pulled him close immediately with an intake of breath and Remus let out simultaneously a deep, deep sigh, the solid realness of Sirius's arms and chest and even his scent. Hands ran through hair and arms settled finally around shoulders, around a waist, the two of them tumbling backwards onto the bed.

"I thought you were going to come back earlier. I was worried, I didn't know where you were."

"Thank you for the chocolates, and the note. I loved them."

"And Lilly kept telling me I was off my rocker but I didn't give a ruddy damn, I missed you and there was really nothing else to it."

"I don't ever want to go away to a place like that again, Sirius, I can't bear it."

"You won't. Don't worry. You won't." Sirius nuzzled against Remus's cheek and Remus leaned himself into the touch. This way, they had twisted, Remus listening to Sirius's heartbeat, pounding within his chest. Sirius's arms had settled themselves around Remus quite nicely, both hands on the ledge above his hip. "They didn't treat you all right?"

"They did, they did, it just wasn'tÖ" He was quiet for a bit, feeling Sirius's hair slip through his fingers as he stroked it. "It just wasn't here, that's all; it just wasn't here."

"Remus," Sirius murmured, and Remus could hear him, feel him smile.

"Yes?"

"You've got to be the most amazing person on the planet." Remus blushed, and buried his face beneath Sirius's chin.

"Oh, be quiet," he muttered, but Sirius knew the smaller boy was intensely pleased, in quite an embarrassed way.

"I can never be quiet, you know that," Sirius murmured fondly, nuzzling against his hair. "I wouldn't be me if I ever tried." As if to spite what he had just said they both lapsed into silence, contemplative, peaceful, occasionally moving their fingers against the other just to reassure themselves of their tangibility. "D'you even know how much I've missed you?" Sirius asked at last, quietly interrupting the long stretch of silence.

"I can fathom a guess," Remus replied, just as quiet. "If you missed me nearly half as much as I missed you."

"Oh," Sirius whispered, "oh, I do believe I did, Moony. I think I still miss you now, even though you're right here again." He waited for Remus to tell him he'd really lost his mind, heart thudding a little more quickly in his chest.

"I know what you mean," Remus said, gently, nearly startling the other boy. "I think I know exactly what you mean."

"But," and here Sirius fumbled for words, "but I think, wherever you go, and wherever I go, we're always going to come back to this. Right? We can alwayswe can always put our arms around each other again, like this, and have it be all right?" It was a question that begged for reassurance, for affection, for affirmation of what they were too young yet, too afraid yet, to speak of. Sirius was deeply aware of where his fingers touched the ledge formed by Remus's hip, deeply aware of the way Remus breathed into that spot, ribs expanding, contracting, expanding again, with the air that flowed into his lungs. He listened to the sounds of those breaths make their way onto Remus's lips, low and shallow and slowed by something, no doubt thought, no doubt deep feeling.

"What else would we go back to?" Remus finally answered, though with a question. It was rhetorical and somehow, better than any 'of course' or even a plain 'yes' would have been. It made Sirius stop to think, to fully realize that Remus had been thinking the same thing, and now they both knew that it was the truth, not just a desire.

"Well," Sirius said suddenly, "well I'm not letting you leave again, anyway, no matter what Dumbledore says, and that's final."

"Good," Remus whispered, and then, with the creep of slow relief, they both began to laugh, very softly, so as not to wake anyone else. It was laughter that was near hysterical with gladness, hysterical and quiet and shaking them both through and through.

"Don't leave again."

"If it were my choice..." Sirius buried his face like a puppy in Remus's neck.

"Because I don't think I could handle Lilly's form of comfort for another second of my life, that's all, and there's no one else who even begins to understand."

"I know. I'll do my best, Sirius, I'll do my best."

"Moony," Sirius said, and it wasn't a question, just a caress of the syllables, of the name. It made Remus's spine shiver.

"Sirius," Remus returned, because Padfoot was a nickname different than Moony, and the three syllables of the bigger boy's real name were easier for Remus to pour emotion into. He didn't know why.

And then, they kissed, Sirius tilting Remus's chin up and leaning his face down and Remus parting his lips just slightly, instinctively. Sirius drew the kiss out, tugging lightly at Remus's lower lip, and then kissed him again, full on the lips, but chaste, and young. He kissed the corner of Remus's mouth, tasting strange, sterile places but Remus beneath that. He kissed the taste away.

His lips moved down the line of Remus's neck, over the bobbing of his Adam's Apple, and nuzzled at the scent that threatened to overpower Moony's own, pushing it aside, evaporating it away. Beneath, Remus smelled like tree-bark and winesap apples and autumn, and rain in autumn, and sunlight in autumn, and crackling leaves beneath. Or, he didn't smell a thing like that, and those were just memories encased in scent. He did smell like the wolf, but also bookish, like the boy. It was intoxicating, to erase the unfamiliar smells that filmed over the familiar one, unfamiliar smells of unfamiliar places, unfamiliar people, unfamiliar spells.

The full moon when they had been apart had been horrid, Padfoot at Sirius's back whining, begging and horribly alone. Sirius was sure it had been no better for Remus; was sure that he'd find new scars, soon enough, all along the boy's body. ( Soon enough, but not then. They were small children, here, crying in each other's arms because they'd been lost in a world that was too big for them, at last finding each other, at last, at last returning home. )

Sirius pressed his lips once to the scar at Remus's neck, pressing into it, reminding himself of that strange, animal pact they had made not even too long ago, though it seemed strangely distant, as if done in a foreign land. He smelled himself, there, and that was disconcerting.

"They asked about that scar, in particular," Remus babbled thoughtlessly, mired in his own pleasure, simple and childish though it was. "Because it's on my neck and I couldn't possibly have given it to myself. I said, 'a dog gave it to me.'" Sirius breathed hotly against it and Remus let out a low sound, like a dry, tearless sob. "And they told me," Remus went on, "that it was wise not to tell any friends, what I am ­ what I am ­ because they don't think people ever understand, and I, I didn't think so, either." Sirius's lips sought out the rumble of the words, only half-listening to them as he kissed at the sounds, seeking to devour them whole.

"Sirius," Remus said, after that, losing too much of his coherency to speak properly. He was still rambling, and he knew it, but it didn't register properly enough for him to simply be quiet. "Sirius, Sirius, Sirius, Sirius."

And Sirius's lips mouthed against his skin, 'you're home, you've come home, you're home,' the pattern repeated against that one, pale scar, bunched skin against the smooth standing out, the skin around it impossible sensitive.

Outside in the sky, the cold making everything incredibly clear, the moon was waning, shadow by shadow creeping across its pale face. Like a ghost, it was turning in the sky, marking the passing of time, the aging of its creatures playing across the chest of the earth beneath. The trees swayed and strained in the howling of the wind, an eerie gray bathed in the pale moonlight. Things were black upon gray upon gray-white upon white, in the haunting darkness of the silent night. No leaves stirred on the bare branches, no small creatures scurried upon the hard, dry ground, and no feet crunched brittle twigs beneath them. There was no one about, all animals deep within their slumber, glad for the blanket of winter's rest drawn up around them.

It seemed the only two people in the world awake, with eyes wide open, were Sirius and Remus, in the midst of the warm bed, a tangle of two and yet one in each other's no longer lonely arms.

The day began brightly, with a beautiful, eager sun and warmth, even throughout the cold air. Laughter filled them, all of them, James looking slyly from Sirius to Remus and then to Sirius again, gladness in his gaze. Lilly herself was all smiles, only pausing to needle James once in a period of five hours. Even Peter was laughing, like a young child rather than some precocious and off-putting creature.

They all of them ate lunch together, making sure Remus ate twice as much as even Sirius, the drawn, gray lines of his face worrying to all of them. There was more laughter than it seemed was necessary but relief like their's tended to exaggerate, and none of them truly cared. A game of chess was played between Sirius and James and then Remus took Sirius's place, to try and beat the winner, when Remus grew aware of eyes on them, and looked up. The others followed his gaze, blinking in confusion when they saw Dumbledore standing there.

"I am afraid, Mr. Potter, that I must speak to you in private," he murmured, a calm detachment in his voice, something sad in his pale blue eyes.

"If this is about the slugs in Malfoy's bed," James said immediately, eyes growing wide, "then I swear, it was all Sirius's fault, I never"

"Oi!" Sirius protested, giving him a withering look.

"No, no, no," the headmaster assured them, eyes glinting behind his glasses, "I assure you, it's not about the slugs in Mr. Malfoy's bed, as I had no previous knowledge of that, really, before now." He fixed James with a half-stern, half-saddened look. "What I must talk to you about, I must talk to you about, in private. Will you come with me, to my office?" James gulped, trying to remember any of the pranks he'd been dared into doing recently, and coming up without any. After all, Sirius hadn't been in the mood for that, since Remus was away, and so nothing particularly terrible had been schemed up and put into action for a good while, now.

"All right, sir," James said, pulling away from Lilly, who was trying not to look worried, and trotting up to Dumbledore's side.

"Do come this way," Albus Dumbledore said softly, nodding once to the others, and leading James off. They walked in silence until they reached the entrance to his office; murmuring a hushed "fizzing whizbee," he broke the silence, but only for a moment. Again, Dumbledore led the way up the stairs, with James trudging along behind, and into the small room, gesturing towards a seat.

"I believe you should sit down," he told James carefully, folding his arms before him. Still wide-eyed, James could do nothing but obey, and sank down into the leather armchair with a creak of fabric and a heavy lump in his stomach.

"Yes, sir," he murmured, chastened, "but I can't think of what it is I've done wrong, really, so I have to tell you right now that I haven't done anything, anything at all!"

"I am fully assured of your innocence, Mr. Potter." Again, Dumbledore smiled that suddenly devastating smile, shaking his white head slightly. "The point being, I have not taken you here to speak of such light matters."

"No?" James's first reaction was to be incredibly relieved; then, as he thought about it, realized he probably shouldn't have been relieved at all. "What, uhm, what, then, did you take me here, to speak of?"

"Ah," Dumbledore said, and then he, too, sat, as if he were suddenly too weary to even stand. "This is not an easy topic to begin, Mr. Potter; so you must forgive me." James swallowed, and nodded.

"Well," he said, finally, "tell me, then? Andget it over with, I suppose?" He fixed blue eyes on Dumbledore's own, not sure, suddenly, if he did want to know, at that.

"Two nights ago," Dumbledore began, licking his lips, sitting up a little straighter, "two nights ago, there was an unforeseen event ­ an attack, if you will ­ on a perfectly innocent place, at Godric's Hollow." James's eyes widened further, fingers clenching into fists.

"Godric's Hollow, but that's where I" Dumbledore shook his head, holding a hand up to silence him.

"Do let me go on," he said, and James steeled himself, settling back down. Something in his chest pounded against sudden constriction. "There is a rising force of darkness that we have not yet wished to combat, because we have not yet wished to acknowledge," Dumbledore continued, taking a different route to his destination, now. "But we have learned in these past few days that this course is not an option, for this darkness is rising, and it has begun to strike."

"What does Godric's Hollow have to do with any of this?" James demanded. "What about the attack?"

"I am coming to that, Mr. Potter." Dumbledore drew in a deep breath, and seemed to grow a good few feet taller. James shrunk back, feeling young, and small. "These two nights ago, your father, Henry Potter, was the target ­ though why, we do not know ­ of this first attack."

"My father." James's face had gone white. "Where is he, is he all right? What happened?"

"It was one of the Unforgivables," Dumbledore went on quietly, "the gravest of them all. You have my sorrow, and the condolences of the entire staff." James was silent. "No doubt, you would wish to be with your mother, at this time, as she would wish to be with you. If there is anything that we can do for you, you have only to tell us, and we shall do our best." Still, James did not speak. "And, we assure you, Mr. Potter, that proper steps are being taken to find the culprits and to administer to them proper justice."

"My dad was killed. You're telling me my dad was killed."

"I am afraid that is exactly what I am telling you, Mr. Potter."

"And what am I supposed to say to that?" James's voice sounded as if it were being filtered through tin. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling above, bright, glistening, wet.

"There is not much one can say to such news." Dumbledore was grave, and there was something about his presence that was wonderfully comforting to James's numbed heart. It made him feel. "If you wish for me to get any of the others, anyone at all, to share this with you, I can do so."

"Sirius," James answered immediately, "I want Sirius here." Because he'd known Sirius for practically all his life, and he didn't know yet if he could allow himself to cry as he was about to in front of Lilly.

When Sirius entered the room, ushered there in questioned quiet, James turned bleary, numbed eyes to him and he knew what needed be done without knowing what happened. When James clutched at him, arms around his shoulders, and began to cry, soft sobs, hot tears, all of it dignified, Sirius held him close, and gave Dumbledore a questioning look, defiant, angry, scared.

"S'my dad," James whispered, voice cracking, into Sirius's neck. "S'my dad, he's dead, my dad's dead." Sirius's eyes widened. Moments later, his arms grew tighter around James's waist. He was unable to say anything, anything at all, to help or to comfort.

"He was cursed," Dumbledore said from across the room, "by an unknown wizard the night before last. Mrs. Potter is fine, but Mr. Potter was killed on the spot. There was nothing that could be done; if there had been, believe me, we would have done it." It didn't even occur to them then, to ask who it was 'we' were. "And believe me now, that we will do something about this tragedy, as quickly as is possible."

"I'll kill them," James had begun to whisper into Sirius's collar, "whoever they are I'll kill them, they won't stand a bloody chance!"

"Mr. Potter," Dumbledore warned, as Sirius tried to soothe him, "do not say such careless things."

"They killed my dad!" James screamed, pulling back, cheeks streaked with tears. "They killed my dad and I'm going to kill them!"

"Calm down, before you make any promises," was all Dumbledore said to that, finding for a moment that he was not truly strong enough to look at this boy, in his grief.

"S'all right, James," Sirius was murmuring, against James's temple, "it's going to be all right. We'll pay 'em back, don't worry. Of course we will. Of course we will." James's tears had turned into sniffles, now, like a little child's, and Sirius's was wiping the tear streaks from his cheeks with the edge of his tie. The Gryffindor colors were splotched darker in some places, with the salty wet. The action was affectionate, tender; Dumbledore found himself aching for his childhood once more.

"There will be a meeting of the Ministry," Dumbledore spoke with calming finality. "Something shall be done about this; such madness, such a killing, shall not go unpunished. In the meantime, Mr. Potter, you are to stay with your mother for the funeral, and you may return to Hogwarts when you so wish to. As I stated before, anything that needs be done shall be, for your sake. Do not do anything rash, for the men who have done what they did to your father will stop at nothing to get what it is they want, and it would be best to punish them efficiently, severely, swiftly ­ without their inflicting any further damage. Is that understood?"

"Don't give him any bloody lectures," Sirius growled, eyes narrowing. "He understands you well enough." Dumbledore looked taken aback, but Sirius hardly cared, turning his attention to James once more.

"You'll find, Mr. Potter, that your bags are packed. Your mother wishes for you to come to her, right away." The headmaster sounded oddly chastened. "I am sorry, terribly sorry, that this could not have been prevented."

"My dad's dead," James said, dully, thickly. "There's nothing can be said about it."

The painful thing about that, Dumbledore thought to himself, as he watched the two boys leave, one leaning heavily on the other, was that James Potter was one hundred percent right.

And the saddest thing was that Albus Dumbledore knew without a doubt that it had all only just begun.

Lilly held him close and kissed his forehead, her movements graceful, and wise.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"I don't know what to think of that phrase," James murmured, arms wrapping around her waist. "I just don't anymore."

"We're not going to be able to make it better," she replied evenly, with sad green eyes, "we're not able to fix it. So we tell you, we're sorry. Because we hurt that you're hurting. Because we love you."

"And you...?"

"Because I love you." She leaned down, and kissed him, and he tangled his fingers in her hair. "We won't be able to make it right," she said, when she'd pulled away, her eyes darting about, suddenly bright, "but we're going to do all that we can to see that, that the people who did this, will pay. Maybe not soon, but you never know. Sirius and Remus and Peter and I. We're going to ­ not make it right, but ­ make it even. Even if Dumbledore says thinking that way is wrong."

"It just reminds me," James said quietly, "it just reminds me that I'm only a bloody child."

"And I'm also a bloody child, and every great witch or wizard in the world once was scared, and small." Lilly threaded her fingers through tousled black hair, ruffling it. "You're going to be one of the best, James Potter; people are going to know your name forever."

"I thought, my dad" James swallowed thickly. "Thought my dad was that way, too."

"Bastards," Lilly hissed between clenched teeth, "the bastards that did this..."

"I will kill them," James said softly. "Merlin, I don't even know who they are, and here I am, swearing to kill them! What if I'm no better than they are?"

"A thousand times, James Potter. A thousand times better, and don't you forget it." Lilly licked her lips. "We all have such faith in you. You're the best of us. Everyone knows it. The smartest but not just the smartest, there's something, something in you ­ I know Dumbledore knows it, the way he looks at you sometimes. Like you're not just a little boy. Like you're going to be the greatest thing the world's never seen the like of before."

"I've lost my dad," James replied evenly, "all I want is to hide behind my mum and never have to face the world again, or anyone in it."

"It will be all right," Lilly promised him, "one day, James. One day, this is all going to be all right."

"It's hard to keep on. It's hard to keep being me when maybe I might not be who I am, at all. My mum. I can't bear to face my mum. What in Merlin's name do I say to my mum?"

"You say, I'm sorry." Lilly ran the backs of her knuckles along the side of James's cheek, and shook her head, watching him with a deep, deep affection.

"I love you too, Lilly." He lifted a hand and took hers by the wrist, kissing her palm a moment later. It was funny, the terrible thrill she took from that, the rivers of grief and the shocks of fiery happiness, all twined into one creature, knotting up the very center of her stomach. She nodded, and felt him kiss the place where palm joined to wrist, the slight hardening of flesh at the first spot, the slight softening at the other. "You have soft wrists, and you can be a right bint, but somehow you always know what to say."

"As do you, James Potter." Lilly smiled shyly, face delicate in a way James had never seen it be before. "Only you just don't know it yet." She kissed his lips lightly, tousled his hair once more, and took a step back. "And you'd best be going, or you'll be late, you know."

"I know."

"You're all packed up?" Lilly inspected a fingernail, suddenly unable to keep from crying. James patted his suitcase on the floor, beside him.

"To the very last sock," he whispered. "I'm scared."

"S'going to be all right, James. You're going to be all right."

"I'm scared of what it's going to be like. You know. Getting to the 'all right.'"

"Aren't we all." Lilly took a few steps forward and embraced him. "Your all right is going to be something special to see. I feel kind of, kind of honored to be there. To see it."

"Thanks, Lilly."

"I'm so sorry about your dad." James nodded, once, and picked up his suitcase.

"Wish you could come with me."

"Some places I can't go. Some things I can't help you with. I'll be here for you, when you come back." James looked pale.

"I feel," he said, "I feel like when I turn my back, everything's going to disappear."

And with that he squared his shoulders, turning his back on Lilly, his bed, the warm safety of Hogwarts, and left to bury his father, to scatter the ashes of childhood to the curling wind at Godric's Hollow.

James was gone for three and a half weeks. In that time Lilly was sullen, silent, and while Sirius tried to be of help he eventually gave up, too terrified of her barbed words. The only one who could talk to her was, surprisingly, Peter, though she spent most of her time alone, studying, or looking in general quite dangerous. No one blamed her.

Sirius spent most of his time tight by Remus's side and Remus was only too happy that this was the situation, comforting Sirius by staying close by, always within touching distance. A pall had settled over them, something distinctly chilling about the loss of life, the loss of life so close to home. The days passed with dreary antipathy and the nights were spent in each other's arms, Sirius finding solace against Remus's body, Remus only too glad to give it. He had lost a parent, himself, at so young an age that this did not come as so much of a shock to him, as it did to the others. While he was sorry, as grieved as any of them, it was not something that seemed so unexpected; he was used to deaths, was wise in their ways, and was not stunned into a shell, as so many of the others were.

"I just hope he's doing all right," Sirius confided against Remus's shoulder, late one night when neither of them could sleep.

"Of course he's doing all right," Remus assured him, stroking his hair.

"Well, it is James, after all," Sirius said, but he didn't sound so sure, and Remus couldn't think of anything else to say to back up his original statement.

A few nights later and it was the full moon.

Headmaster Dumbledore gave Sirius permission to take the day off from classes and study, so that he could sit with Remus in the infirmary, so that they could keep each other distracted from their own personal torments. They talked the day through, with long silences in between separate conversations where they simply held hands, and watched the light change, dancing through the filmy curtains of the infirmary. It was a nice day, a nice day at last, it seemed, for so many of the previous ones had been gray and dismal and gloomy. Such weather had been the last thing troubled spirits needed. It was going to be just them tonight, Padfoot and the wolf, with no Wormtail, and no Prongs. The knowledge was sobering, and as they ate their dinner ­ chowder and bread and butter, comforting food for the winter ­ they were quiet about it, neither one of them wishing to talk much. Still, though, the silences between them were incredibly comfortable ones, not awkward, not jarring. There was simply no necessity to stumble about for speech, and therefore, no desire to place up unnecessary words between them like barriers. They had known each other for too long, they understood each other too deeply, for such a lack of true intimacy.

Besides, Remus was never one to waste words and, around Remus, Sirius was able to adopt the useful and mature habit. Around everyone else, unfortunately, he was still as opinionated and raucous as ever.

They made their way out into the darkness quietly and stuck close together against the whip and sting of the frigid cold wind. Sirius kept one arm around Remus's shoulders, holding him in close against his body, using his own body to protect the smaller one that was nestled up against him.

They used the stick to freeze the massive and deadly arms of the Willow, and crawled through the dirt and darkness, feeling impossibly small, neither of them able to speak, now, as they had been for so long in cultivated silence. It seemed as if words would not have been enough for either of them.

It was the first time Sirius would see Remus change; it would been in monochrome, through Padfoot's eyes, but it would be stored and remembered, and the two of them were scared of what it would, exactly, mean.

When the sun dipped deeply beneath the horizon line and the last, violent purple of day was spilled like blood into the onslaught of darkness, Padfoot growled with the tension in the room, backing into a corner out of fear. Something snapped against his muzzle, and he watched as the boy cried out, again, again, and fell to the floor, curling in on himself in a fetal position. The air crackled. The boy was still screaming; then, there was silence, as the boy had bit his lip, hard enough to draw blood, in order to keep quiet. Padfoot whined, tried to take a step forward, but couldn't bring himself to.

Hands changed first, flesh morphing into claws and fur. Up the wrists it traveled; and it had begun at the feet, clutching at the ankles, dragging itself up the calves, the shins. Convulsion after convulsion wracked the now-inhuman form as it lay there, unable to do anything. Padfoot smelled blood on the air, and pain, and misery. He whined again, helpless, as the fur burst through skin and the body changed, bones breaking, reforming, sinews and muscles stretching to fit against the new structure.

Now, there were no boy cries; now, there were wolf howls, and Padfoot recognized the scent in the air as one he had missed the past full moon, when the cycle was due to come full circle, and didn't.

With a low, rough bark, Padfoot pushed himself forward and nuzzled in against the wolf's neck, coaxing it into some recognizable form of consciousness. The wolf whimpered, and snarled, and then recognized the creature by the overwhelming and sudden onset of smell.

They tussled for a bit, and then drew apart, panting, listening with cocked ears to the eerie quiet of the room. Distracted by nothing at all, Padfoot turned his back on the wolf, sniffing the corners of the place, lifting his leg to mark a particular spot where his own scent had faded.

It was then, during that moment of weakness, ironic simply because it was a showing of dominance, too, that the wolf let out a low, plaintive howl, which seemed to double as laughter. It bolted down the stairs, Padfoot startled, but right on its tail, and threw itself, once, at the splintering door.

Werewolf strength itself was double the amount of force needed to break the door down. The wolf was out into the clear, treeless night in an instant. The sharper shards of wood from the door managed to get through its thick hide, and buried deep into its skin. It howled, up at the moon bright and unfiltered through clouds or the splay of leaves, and Padfoot froze behind it, close to staring.

They were atop the hill; below them, Hogsmeade, stretched out, demarcated by the occasional twinkling light. There was the scent of people, people living their lives, doing their jobs, sleeping and laughing and playing and sitting still and making love, upon the crisp air.

And the wolf went wild.

Barking and howling and near screaming with delight it began to move, so sudden Padfoot could barely scramble into action fast enough to bound after it. The two of them went down the hill, wind whistling past their perked ears, muscles at the ready, teeth bared. The wolf was on the hunt, for something fresh, for the flesh it was meant to tear into with its deadly teeth. Padfoot himself was putting up chase, to keep the wolf from its purpose. The dog's tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth, and his breath came in pants.

The wolf was big, and the wolf was deadly, and the wolf was overpoweringly strong. And, what was most important: the wolf was too damn fast.

The hill was behind them, now, and they were on the border of Hogsmeade, moving through uncut grass, stones digging into their paw pads. On the air, now, was the scent of something living, breathing, male; there was the sound of him, moving across a street a little ways away, crunching gravel beneath his feet. He puffed his breath out, and the wolf could feel it condense upon the air, could smell it, could nearly taste it. The man was wearing mittens but had stuffed his hands into his pockets, anyway. It would be an easy kill, and it would be perfect, to start the night. The wolf began to growl, tensed, focused on the presence all too far away.

It was then that Padfoot pounced, barking loudly in warning. The man heard the sound, and felt a shiver run down his back. It was high time, he decided, that he got back inside, and he hurried quickly over cobblestone to rap on the door of his mother's home, who scolded him as if he were still a child, before welcoming him into the warm, glowing house. (Because it was late, didn't he know, and waking people up at this hour of the night when they'd been off gallivanting Merlin only knew where before this was simply unheard of, unheard of, and there's some lamb heating by the fire just now, if he was hungry for it, which gods only knew he wouldn't be, probably ate something terrible on the way home.)

At the loss of its prey the wolf found itself angrier than it had been in a long time, so that the fight between black dog and its rust-colored opponent lasted far longer than was usual, and covered also a greater amount of ground. Padfoot barked, over and over in warning, causing Hogsmeade children to wake, crying, in their beds. Their mothers soothed them, peering out their windows, and seeing only the shadows fighting. Still, shivers ran down their spines when they heard the howls, the matching barks, and they thought of the weathered house, the sounds that often came from within, atop the hill. They spent the night watching over their children in worry.

After what seemed like hours of fighting the two finally fell still, muzzles stained just barely with blood. Tongues hanging from opened mouths, they caught their breath, ribs expanding and contracting as they panted for desperately needed air.

They regarded each other with caution; then, Padfoot limped over to the wolf's side, and nuzzled against his neck, gently, against the strange knotting of skin and fur that was the slightest outline of that one particular scar, the one that marked the wolf as the reluctant submissive. The wolf allowed the touch, and bowed its head, too tired to protest this reminder of who had triumphed over whom.

Padfoot herded the wolf back into the shack with grim, pale eyes glittering in the full moonlight.

The rest of the night he stood, alert, guarding the open door, while the wolf sat before him, and whined out in despair.

It was late at night when Hector and Mundungus arrived at Hogwarts, a dark night, and chill. Hector felt naked returning to this place, his new wand tucked safely into the pocket of his equally new cloak. Mundungus had seen fit to buy him everything he would need; they had gone shopping in Diagon Alley and Hector had gotten the distinct impression that he had become a little child again, running after his father through the crowded walkways, excited for the first day of school at Hogwarts. Mundungus had even decided to buy him a gazing crystal in a Divination supply shop, a new one, it seemed, for once upon a time, as they said, Hector had known them all. The shop had made shivers run up at down Hector's spine because everywhere he turned he could see only the future, in the mirrors, in the crystals, in the cups of plain, undisturbed water or murky tea. Mundungus had picked out one of the finest crystals the entire shop had to offer and had quieted Hector's protests with one simple, strict look ­ again, so deeply like Hector's own father might have given him, had he wanted a gold cauldron rather than a simple pewter one, foolish child. Sheepish, Hector had kept quiet, forgetting that his hair was lightly threaded with gray and scuffing his foot as Mundungus took care of things for him.

Afterwards, they piled onto a train to Hogwarts, not the express, as Hector was sure Mundungus wanted all the time there could be to talk, before they arrived on school grounds. It must have been painfully apparent how deep his dejection was, but some people, it seemed, simply never forgot the workings of an old friend's mind and face. There was to be, obviously, no protesting.

Mundungus swung their suitcases up onto the luggage racks above two empty seats, nestled away in their own private compartment, then slid the door shut, and drew the curtain down upon its window. Privacy, filtered with late morning sunlight, encased, entombed, the little square of space.

"So," Mundungus said, as he sat, facing Hector, hands limp in his lap.

"So," Hector replied, refusing stubbornly to give Mundungus a single inch.

"Look. I know you're not happy about any of this."

"Whatever gave you that impression?"

"But I think you're a damn stubborn git, you know, and I can say this as it's true. If anyone knows, then I know."

"Thank you, Mundungus, that's a great help." Hector fidgeted for a moment, and then turned his pale eyes to stare out the window, sunlight playing over his face. Mundungus watched him for a while, then got out of his own seat and slipped in to sit by Hector's side, with the same, unselfconscious grace he'd had since puberty had passed.

"What you don't get is that I'm at least trying to be," he told Hector sadly, with a shake of his head. "That I'm doing this, taking you back, for your own good. Because I know you, and I know you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you woke up one day and found we'd all died, and you never even tried to stop it." Hector winced; Mundungus could feel something inside of the slighter man crumple. "Well, you know I'm right," he added, scowling down at his own hands.

"Failing without trying is significantly easier on the spirit than failing because you simply were not enough," Hector said suddenly. Mundungus looked up, startled, then pained.

"Yes, isn't it. But the Hector I love would never have said such things, and the Hector I love must've been scared by something dreadful to have to say such things now."

"And what if he was?"

"Was that why you left us, then? Was that why you went away, without even saying goodbye?"

"I knew that if I tried to tell you goodbye you'd keep me from going, when I'd already made up my mind"

"Because it wasn't the right path to take, you knew it then and you know it now!"

"and so I left without telling either of you to save us all the trouble. I would have left sooner rather than later. Do you think it didn't hurt to go?" Tired eyes met tired eyes. Mundungus licked his lips.

"Do you think it didn't hurt to be left behind?" Mundungus asked, stunning Hector into shamed silence.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't bear the fate I might face. Of losing either of you, not by my own choice." Hector clenched his hands into fists, then relaxed them. A moment later he tilted his head back, staring up at the moldings circling about the edge of the ceiling, trying to keep his eyes focused, trying to keep them from getting oddly blurry. "It was easier to walk away. And before you start on me, yes, I know, easier wasn't the right path, but I was terrified, for reasons I could hardly explain. Seeing the future, seeing what it might hold ­ and only might, mind you, as things change every second, but the terror never fades ­ well, the least it did was give me a blasted headache for nights on end. The worstah. The worst drove me away. As far away as it could, as you know."

"If you'd have told us" Mundungus began, but Hector shook his head, cutting him off.

"If I'd have told you," he said quietly, gently, "then Arabella would have yelled about why she just didn't see how I could be such a bloody weak-willed creature and you would have shook your head, feeling sorry for us both, yet still not quite able to understand. Because Dumbledore didn't ask of either of you what he asked of me ­ yes, yes, our burdens were equally great, but I was not strong enough, not ever strong enough, to bear mine alone."

"I didn't know you thought of yourself as alone." Mundungus watched Hector pick nervously at his fingernail. "I always thought you'd know you had us."

"And if I came crying to one of you two every night for as long as I managed to bear what I was doing I'd have dragged you both down with me. I kept it to myself because I did not want either of you to suffer on my account."

"Hector, if you come crying to me or laughing to me I want you to know it hardly matters, so long as it's me you're coming to." Hector nearly cut himself with his own nails; he dropped trembling hands to his sides and closed his eyes, drawing in a deep, steadying breath.

"Talk is easy enough. Actions are entirely different. Emotions are entirely different, again, from the other two."

"I would have done anything," Mundungus swore, voice barely audible, so Hector had to strain to hear it. "I would have done anything to keep you happy, to keep you from leaving."

"And what if you failed?" They were both silent, regarding each other levelly.

"At least I would have tried," Mundungus replied at last, muscles tightening in his jaw.

"You always were stronger, kinder, better than I," Hector returned with a fond misery in his voice that made Mundungus, grown man though he was, want to cry.

"I was not. Just wanted to keep the people I loved safe, that's all."

"And you could manage it, whereas I could only see future pain coming; could likewise do nothing to stop it."

"Sometimes, I just don't recognize you," Mundungus murmured, face looking drawn and tired and mapped with sudden weary lines. "Sometimes, I just don't know if I ever really knew what it was I was looking at, when I looked at you, to begin with."

"You did." For a while, the silence seemed alive, so powerful and so thick. "It's just I never grew up, that's all, and you and Arabella did. So I let you down."

"The only way you let us down was by letting the thought of letting us down keep you from confiding in us." Mundungus reached over, touching Hector's shoulder with his broad palm and callused fingers. "If you'd have just come to us, just told us, then we would have done something to help you."

"It was my gift," Hector said suddenly, "my gift and my curse and the only way you could have helped me was by coddling me. I wasn't strong enough to do things on my own but the last thing I needed was the humiliation of being babied by anything other than my own stupid actions!" Mundungus shook his head in defeat, in disappointment, dropping his hand back to his side and shying away from the man he sat next to.

"The things you say," he murmured, at that, "how can you possibly truly mean them?"

"I'm coming back with you, aren't I? So of all things, you won't have to feel guilty about not being enough. Because you were, the two of you were everything; I was the one who was lacking. I'm trying to make you see that." Dust caught the sunlight that streamed in brightly through the window from the noonday sun, flickered brightly, and then passed on, the vividly short cycle replenishing itself. It was funny, Mundungus thought, because the air in the car felt unnaturally still; how, then, was the dust moving? Some unknown force of nature, it seemed, that said each little speck of dust had no right to more than a breathless few seconds of glorious sunshine. It was unbearably depressing.

"You're coming back with me because I didn't give you any choice, because no one gave you any choice."

"I could have put up far more of a fight, and you know it," Hector pointed out quietly, and the statement was enough to silence Mundungus for a moment of thought.

"So why didn't you put up a fight?"

"Because everyone's got to grow up at some point," Hector murmured sadly, "and terrifying as it is, you're right. All those things you said to me were right." Again, he had to keep his half-unfocused eyes on the ceiling above him, to keep from breaking apart into a thousand terrible pieces. "I don't know," he continued, speaking as if to himself, "I don't know. Sometimes you don't have a choice, as to what you're going to be. Sometimes, you have to listen to the people who love you. Sometimes selfishness masquerades as something else entirely but when you get right down to it it's selfishness, all the same."

"Like I said," Mundungus soothed, taking one of Hector's hands in his own, his eyes bright, too bright, "like I said, you always were the best of us, even if you didn't believe it. Even if you still don't. Why do you think we loved you so much?"

"I'm sorry," Hector said, "I'm sorry that I left."

"Maybe we didn't understand you just as you didn't understand us."

"It would seem so." Hector's lips quirked up into a rueful smile. "Or maybe we just knew each other far too well to see what was happening to us."

"I just hate thinking it's never going to be the same again." Mundungus rubbed his thumb over the back of Hector's hand absently, noting how smooth still the man's skin was, how like the hand of so long ago that he had held during nightmares or cold nights.

"Once in a while I think, it's all my fault." Hector let Mundungus hold his hand that way, watching the movements of the longer, thicker fingers, inspecting each small twist, each stillness, too. "But then I know that no matter what happened between all of us we were going to have to grow up sometime, and better sooner than later; in these times, as Dumbledore said, it is best to be prepared."

"Maybe you did us all a favor." The train sped forward over the line of the tracks, the sound outside louder than the mouth of a waterfall, but within, there was only Mundungus's voice, slipping over the silence. "Maybe you helped us, and we'll never know. All I can say is, you're coming back, and it's home, isn't it, 'cause you and 'Bella were the only home I had, from the start." At that, Mundungus's hand tightened over Hector's and Hector returned that tightness, his eyes closing and his breath hitching in his throat. "It hurts to see you in a different home," Mundungus admitted, after that, "but it makes me so happy, too, to know that you're all right, that someone's taking care of you, even if it isn't me, anymore."

"Mundungus," Hector began, but the other shook his head, and cut him off.

"Don't say it, Hector. It hurts a little more to hear it, I think."

"Mundungus," and here, Hector was ignoring his friend completely, because he hated nothing more than someone assuming they knew what he was going to say, "Mundungus, if you think the fact that I love him makes it so I love you any less, you or 'Bella, then I don't know what you've become, either." Mundungus, changeless and powerful and filled with the passion, the stubbornness, of his youth, looked stoic and even more unchanged when the words passed Hector's lips. Stoic, yes, and sad, too, Hector noted, with a moment's shock. The hand that held his own felt more real, suddenly, more solid, as if it were the only thing keeping Hector grounded, attached to this world, while being the only thing that could hold him up, and stop him from drowning. Mundungus's eyes, too, were sad, like a spurned puppy that didn't know which way to turn for its next meal of scraps. "Mundungus?" Hector asked, the confusion in his voice devastating and young.

"It can't be your fault that you never knew me, if I never knew me," Mundungus replied, his voice sounding labored, strained. "Even if you were the best of us three at that sort of thing."

"I wasn't," Hector protested, "you were."

"Don't be silly," Mundungus scoffed, "don't be a fool."

"Even more of a fool, you mean."

"Well, yes." Mundungus hazarded a smile. "Well, yes, that." Hector's expression was softened and encouraging, as if he were asking Mundungus to smile again, please, just for him, and so Mundungus attempted to once more. This time, he succeeded. The look of relief on Hector's face was reward enough.

"Thank you," Hector murmured, his voice wry, but there was truth in that statement, and Mundungus knew it. Maybe they still knew each other, as well as they ever had. Maybe they knew each other yet better.

"Your problem," Mundungus said, into the silence that followed, "is that you've always thanked people too much for them to tolerate you."

"Your problem," Hector evenly returned, with laughter in his eyes, "is that you've spent too much time looking for ways to say 'You're welcome,' and then refusing to ever bloody say it."

In the small confines of the car the two grown men began to laugh like little boys, childish in the gentle sunlight.

The boy was sitting up against a wall, right smack in the middle of the empty hallway, his books scattered out about him and his eyes bleary, red. A trickle of blood ran from his nose over his upper lip, shocking red against his pale skin.

Mundungus stopped, frowned, and turned on his heel to make his way over to the tiny figure, tucked up into himself as if he wished only to disappear. He was crying, small, shuddering, soundless sobs. Mundungus knelt down by him, peered into his scared little face, the structure of it sharp and gaunt, and offered out a smile like anyone else would have held out a hand.

"Hey," Mundungus Fletcher said. The smaller boy, trapped like a pinned butterfly, stopped his crying to stare up into the biggest, kindest eyes he'd ever seen.

"Hello," the smaller boy said finally, in an accent Mundungus couldn't put his finger on.

"You're bleeding," Mundungus pointed out, jabbing a finger in the vague direction of the other boy's nose. At that sudden movement, the small figure jerked back in fright, nearly slamming his head against the wall. "Oh," Mundungus murmured, "uhm, sorry. Didn't mean to startle you. But, your nose. 'S bleeding, you know."

"Oh," the smaller boy replied, the wariness in his eyes fading slightly.

"Did someone hit you?"

"No. I fell." The indignation, the assertion, with which the small boy spoke revealed his words to be a lie but Mundungus was impressed with this sudden, aggressive bravery. He approved of this boy's nature, he decided.

"Gotcha," Mundungus said, flashed a grin. An expression like a rope, tossed out to a man drowning, surrounded by miles and miles of lightless sea. "Let me fix it up for you? Or you won't look very - presentable." His mother overused that word like anything but he figured it was quite appropriate in this situation.

"All right," the smaller boy said, then, carefully, "thank you. How are you going to fix it?" But Mundungus had already pulled out his wand, pointing it directly at the tip of that too-pointy nose, and before the smaller boy could even be frightened, the spell had been cast.

"Cessanguino!" Mundungus dared the nose back into ship-shape, dared the blood to dry up, dared it to stay there, marring the smaller boy's pale face. Big, owlish eyes blinked down, crossing, trying to see the job Mundungus had done, and then fixed on Mundungus's face once my, rapt and amazed.

"Wow," the smaller boy said. "Where'd you learn to do that?"

"Some boys on my block back home kept trying to beat me up," Mundungus said, proudly, puffing up for a moment like a pigeon, before he deflated. "They kinda won, a lot. So, I had to learn how to fix myself up, didn't I? And there you have it. Comes in handy." Mundungus was grinning again, and the smaller boy was staring at the smile like it was his only hope in all the world, the sun in a land with no memory, even, of light. To anyone watching they formed a penumbra, the bigger boy intense brightness, the smaller boy overwhelmed, and lingering in his shadow. "Well, didn't it?"

"What?"

"Come in handy, I mean." Mundungus replaced his wand into the folds of his robes. "So what's your name?"

"Hector Karnaugh."

"S'nice to meet you, Hector."

"What's yours?" Mundungus nearly winced.

"My what?"

"Your name." Those owlish eyes blinked widely.

"Oh. Uhm." Mundungus mumbled something, looking away. "Fletcher."

"I didn't hear you, the first time. I'm sorry." Mundungus heaved a great, plagued sigh, and gave up.

"Mundungus Fletcher," Mundungus mumbled, scowling, "there, now you know, just don't make anything of it, all right?" It seemed that, of all the things Hector could do, what he did best was blink.

"What would I make of it?" he asked, wide-eyed.

"Well," Mundungus said, furious that he was blushing, "well, I don't know. My parents had a sick sense of humor, don't you think?"

"I suppose?"

"Let's not talk about it," Mundungus said quickly, busying himself with picking up Hector's things to give the blush time to fade. "We'll be late for supper if we don't hurry up and I don't know about you, but I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." The question of why Mundungus would want to eat a horse was hot on Hector's lips but something inside of him decided against asking it. When Mundungus offered out a hand to help Hector up Hector took it, and for the next seven years they never left the other's side.

Fate was funny, like that.