Authors note: Standard disclaimer, characters belong to J.K.R and WB and all that jazz. Sorry it took so very, very long for this chapter to get out. I've been suffering from partial writers block, and I haven't been feeling terribly well on top of that. Hopefully my adoring fans will be particularly and specifically adoring (reviews, hint, hint.) For questions, comments, and fawning (if you draw me pictures and upload them) go to the e-group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WAiSaD
Special thanks to Tracy and Amy who've stuck with me through all of this. You guys are the greatest.






Redecorating is something complex and intricate, and Draco hadn't quite realized the magnitude of the endeavor he'd unwittingly stumbled into. For awhile, he followed Ginny around, murmuring in agreement or disagreement depending upon the tone of her voice. At the moment, they were in the master bedroom. While Draco would have preferred to stay in his own room, together they had decided that they would move his belongings to the master bedroom. There were a variety of reasons for doing this, but the most important seemed to be that it was bigger, and would be more appropriate for a couple.

Glin was there, too, wrapped up in brown robes lined with chenille. She had abandoned her shoes somewhere in the vicinity of the front door, and now presented a rather odd picture. She was reclining on a little, cream velvet, fainting couch (one of the few items she'd insisted they keep.) An old quilt, that Draco hadn't even known he owned, was twisted around her body. Sticking out over the end of the couch were her feet, covered in men's athletic socks with the name "Ron" faintly written on the sole in faded, black marker. She was gesturing elegantly with a champagne flute filled with orange juice. Most perplexingly of all, she was wearing a weird, little, turban-like cap.

"Take down the drapes," Glin ordered. "They're too..." here she gestured grandly, probably for effect, almost spilling her juice. "Oh, I don't know, 'funeral home 1887.'"

"She's right," Ginny said, and Draco saw where this was going. With a wave of his wand, the drapes fell off the hooks, releasing clouds of dust. Ginny sneezed, and Draco found himself thinking that she even did that in an endearing fashion.

"I'm thinking light colors," Glin said. "Light colors are all the rage."

"You're right," Ginny told her, picturing the things Glin was suggesting. "Breezy, filmy curtains, white, dove gray and a pale champagne."

"That way you can have both silver and gold accent pieces," Glin remarked. "Yes, that's definitely the way to go."

"What kind of bed?"

Both women turned to Draco, and looked at him wide-eyed. Ginny was surprised that Draco was voicing an opinion. Glin, on the other hand, was surprised that he was still in the room. "You're still here? There isn't anything really that wrong with the one that's here. It's a beautiful antique."

"No." Draco's cheeks flushed and he wouldn't look at either of them. "We just need a new bed."

"It's really not-" Ginny chirped, only to be cut off.

"I won't sleep in that bed. End of discussion." He told her, walking from the room.

"He's certainly opinionated," Glin remarked.

"He already felt weird about staying in here," Ginny reasoned. "It's not even my house. I should stop pushing him."

Draining the rest of her juice, Glin gave her a disbelieving look. "Whenever a woman is spending any time in a man's home whatsoever, it becomes at least partially hers."

"Like common law dating?" Ginny seemed skeptical. "You've actually tried this?"

"I imagine it would work if I were ever required to implement it." At Ginny's perplexed glance, Glin further explained. "Darling, I am what is known as a 'serial single.' I date well and I date often, but rarely, if ever, do I entangle myself with a man emotionally. Translation? Glin doesn't do serious relationships. Serious flirting? Yes. Serious fucking? You bet your ass. Serious relationship? Never."

"What if the man feels differently?" Ginny asked, before brushing an invisible speck of dust off her shoulder.

"They know or they quickly learn and that's exactly how I like it. There's no use mucking up perfectly good sex with feelings and wants and desires and suddenly I get the feeling we're not speaking hypothetically." Glin grimaced. "We decided we weren't going to do any of that relationship nonsense from the get go. It's not my fault he deviated from the master plan."

"You're just being so cold about the whole thing," Ginny remarked.

"It's much better to be cold than to run around being plagued by bouts of irrationality all day long. Speaking of running around, I'll have to do some if I want to get to my lunch with Tonio on time." She stretched, then walked over to the fireplace. Glancing back at Ginny's troubled face, she spoke. "Ron's a big boy. He can take care of himself. And if he can't, he's got you all to do it for him, right?"

Ginny couldn't help but think that Glin's voice had gotten a little wistful at the end. Perhaps she wasn't so heartless as she wanted people to think.






A very loud buzzing interrupted a very interesting dream Remus was having about running through the forest after... something. He hadn't really had the chance to find out, because of the damned alarm. Glaring at it, he noticed that the infernal racket was not coming from it, as it registered the time as 7:30AM. It was the door.

He pulled a pillow over his head and bellowed into it. Maybe the annoying bell ringer would just sod off on their own. Pulling the pillow off his head, he sighed. It wasn't very bloody likely that a person who would just hold the doorbell down rather than pressing it once was just going to go away. Even if they did, he'd still be left with an impossible headache.

Growling, he untangled himself from the bedclothes and ran a hand through his hair as he went to answer the door. Yanking it open, he barked. "What in bloody hell is this all about?"

Tracy responded by rolling her eyes and pushing past him into the house. He imagined she would have said something pithy, but she had a very large doughnut in her mouth. She pushed one of the coffees into his chest and he grabbed at it. She plucked the pastry out of her mouth, and took a good look at him.

"Love the outfit." Her voice was a little husky, as if she hadn't been up very long either. Blinking blearily, he looked down to see what he'd pulled on in the way of pajamas last night... and blushed. As was common when the moon was high and full, he'd been feeling restless, and had foregone a shirt completely. As if that wasn't enough, his twisting and turning had tugged his flannel pants down until they were low-slung and riding on his hips. He turned to go pull something else on but Tracy stopped him.

"Hold the other coffee, will you?"

Bewilderedly, he did. She took the opportunity to kiss him thoroughly, and he tasted the chocolate sprinkles that had been liberally sprinkled over her breakfast. Pulling away she winked at him and took a swig of the coffee she retrieved from his hand. "The best part of waking up and all that."

He stood there for awhile, rather confused as to what exactly was going on before she pushed a gym bag into his hand. "We're playing racquetball today. It'll be good for your cramps."

"Muggle racquetball?"

She smirked. "Generally the term 'racquetball' is sufficient. You've heard of it?"

"Sirius used to make me play with him." At her feigned look of being scandalized, he rolled his eyes. "After the introduction he gave himself, everything I say about him is going to land us in the land of double entendre, isn't it?"

"Actually, I can turn pretty much anything into a double entendre, regardless of whether Sirius is involved. Did you hear the one about the woman who went into a bar and asked the man behind the bar for a double entendre?"

"I shudder at the thought of the punch line," he said as he meandered into the bathroom to change into the clothing in the bag.

"He gave it to her."

Remus groaned. "It's too early in the morning for bad jokes. It's too early in the morning for lots of things."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Tracy called to him. Wandering over to the fireplace, she began to look at the photographs assembled there. "I can think of plenty of things to do at this time of the morning. Strenuous exercise, for one."

"Lounging in bed, for another," Remus grumbled.

"I'm kind of partial to combining the two," she replied absently. Wow. She hadn't even thought of that before it had come out of her mouth. She returned her attention to the mantle. There was a picture of Harry and Hermione, presumably an engagement photo, since it seemed rather recent. One of Harry's lanky arms was wrapped around Hermione's waist in a pose she'd seen loads of couples in over the years. There was nothing trite about the smiles on their faces, though. The little Hermione snuggled into Harry's embrace with an air of familiarity that made the viewer feel comfortable. Physically, they were a stunning couple. Both were lean and muscled, not so much that muscle conditioning was a preoccupation for both, but enough that you knew their careers were very physical.

Hermione's hair was pulled back in a French Braid, as usual. Her eyes were a rich, chocolate brown, with little flecks of gold that were brought out by her ginger-colored hair. Harry's attractiveness was more extreme. His hair was still as black as the day he was born, shining a sort of light gray in the glare of the camera flash. As per usual, his hair was just a little bit too long, which was perfectly Harry. His green eyes were flashing, as it appeared all green eyes did in photographs. She wondered absently if hers did.

Moving on to the next, a wedding photo in a silver frame. A man, who looked vaguely familiar, was smiling triumphantly while standing next to a pretty woman with red hair and green eyes. Remus and Sirius were beaming as well, and standing so that they flanked the couple. All four of them looked impossibly young. It must have been almost immediately after they'd graduated from Hogwarts. She pulled it down and wiped a bit of dust off little Remus's shoulder. He ducked away a bit from her finger and she smiled.

Slightly behind the others, and a little dusty was a photograph in a dark wood frame. It was of four young men who were walking off a quidditch field. They weren't in any sort of uniform, so Tracy imagined it must have been a pick-up game of sorts. The one with shaggy, black hair who bore a startling resemblance to Harry had his arm looped over a younger Remus's shoulders and was beaming. Sirius was rolling his eyes and glaring at his partner, a chubby little boy who seemed very ashamed of what Tracy assumed had been a poor showing on the field.

A squeaking noise alerted Tracy to the fact that Remus was emerging from the bathroom. "Nice pictures. It makes things homey."

After looking in her direction, he crossed the room to see what she was looking at, and immediately tensed up. "I didn't realize that was there any longer. It was a long time ago. We were so young then. None of us even suspected that Peter would betray us... may already have been betraying..." He trailed off and avoided her gaze and his body became even more rigid. "I don't know why I'm explaining this to you. You know all about me. You probably you more about me than I do-"

"Remus." She cut him off. "Before you say something that pisses me off, I think I'd better tell you that I haven't checked out your background. One of the other people on the team checked you out and submitted her findings to Law. I've been interested for you in awhile, which is why I haven't checked into your background. It would have given me an unfair advantage."

"But you knew about my being a werewolf without my telling you," he countered.

"There are certain things I can't change about myself. One is that I am trained to notice a great deal. I can try not to draw conclusions about the observations I make, but there are times when the evidence that presents itself is unmistakable. I studied werewolves when I was in college at Salem. Some sort of morbid curiosity or something. With that kind of background, Remus, I suspected you were a werewolf the first time I saw you. You don't exactly hide it."

"Really?" Remus looked worried and his brow began to furrow.

"It's not a bad thing. Better to leave it out in the open than to lock it up like a skeleton in the closet. Incidentally, did you know that when we cleaned out the house of Creepy Mrs. Smith in Aurora, we actually found fifteen skeletons in the closet?" She laughed. "Isn't that horribly cliche?"

Creepy Mrs. Smith was an old woman who had been reported repeatedly to the muggle authorities for odd noises and general creepiness. Everyone in the small town of Aurora, Maine had figured that she was just the weird old woman that lived in every small community. Around twelve years ago, however, it had been discovered that she was actually a very old and very powerful dark witch.

Oddly enough, of the people found tortured in her home, none of them were the children who had dared to trick or treat there. Apparently she'd found the muggle children and their little stories about her to be rather endearing. She'd even begun to give out treats a few years before they'd caught her.

While the Cockroach Clusters and Fudge Flies had caused a great deal of whispering amongst neighborhood parents, it had probably been the rather innocent Pepper Imps that had sent flags up with local authorities. Containment within a town, even if that town was rather small, was quite a chore. It had taken quite a bit of magiking to get an entire community of parents to forget the image of their children breathing fire over the dinner table.

"You were involved in the Mrs. Smith case?" Remus said with a faint air of awe in his voice.

"It was my first case when I came out of the academy," she said with a blush. "I really didn't do all that much besides follow the primary officer around for awhile."

"Ah." Remus said. "Well, I imagine that you've scheduled somewhere for us to play, so I suppose you'd better get changed."

"Right." She unzipped her robes, making Remus's mouth go a little dry, until he realized she was wearing a baggy, light blue sweatshirt over a pair of skin-tight, black shorts. On her feet were matching blue sneakers that matched the ensemble. Smiling in satisfaction, she told him, "I really just wore the robes over my clothes to get you to make the whole 'disbelieving guy' face. I really like it when stuff works out exactly as I planned."






Tracy and Remus were wisely given one of the windowless courts at the gym. "Jet," as it was called, was a highly exclusive recreation center, and granted their customers a certain amount of privacy without question. Captains of industry, movie stars and other assorted headliners found the convenience optimal for sweating, regardless of whether the cause was a merger, buyout or good, old-fashioned, physical exertion.

Tracy pulled the door shut, and bounced one of the blue rubber balls at Remus. "Might as well run drills first. I haven't played in awhile and I imagine that you're more than rusty. I'd say we start drilling shorts to the sidewall, then longs to the front, then power and lob serves. Acceptable?"

"That's fine," Remus said, bouncing the ball a few times. He noticed that while they drilled, Tracy seemed very good at keeping the ball under control. She hadn't spent as much time away from the game as she'd implied.

"Ready? I'll serve, if you don't mind."

"Not a problem."

"So, how do you want this?"

"Well," he reasoned. "I'd imagine I'd hit the ball, then you'd follow suit..."

"Behaving like a smart-ass is very unbecoming, Remus," Tracy cautioned. "What're your rules about interferences?"

"Get out of the way or get whacked." At least that's what Sirius had always played.

She flashed a smile that he could easily identify as predatory and assumed her position in the service box. "Zeroes."

He heard a vague whooshing noise as the ball socked him in the stomach.

"My point?" She shot him an innocent look.

It quickly became apparent that playing with Sirius twenty years ago was nothing like playing with Tracy today. While he usually managed to get out of her way, she caught him at least twice with her racket. He didn't care to keep track of the amount of times he was tagged by the ball. She was quicker, but he was more powerful. It would have very nearly been evenly matched if she hadn't been trying to distract him. When she began to sweat profusely, she pulled her sweatshirt over her head to reveal a black sports bra that showed a promising amount of cleavage. Especially when she bent to return some of the lower shots.

"Time out!" He finally panted. "Surrender. 'Stop' in whatever language sadists like yourself prefer."

Tracy turned around from where she'd been about to drop the ball and frowned. She was looking entirely too perky, he decided. Her eyes were bright and awake, as if she hadn't gotten out of bed at some ungodly hour of the morning. Sweat was trickling down her face and dampening her hairline, and her cheeks were flushed. Yet, she kept bouncing back and forth on the balls of her feet, her ponytail swinging jauntily, and looking as if she were having a great time. "You're tired already?"

"What on earth are you? Some sort of human-rabbit hybrid?"

"No, but there's plenty of bunny in me, if you know what I mean." She waggled her eyebrows suggestively for effect. "But we can quit if you want. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve."

He groaned and moved to help her pack up their equipment. They tramped upstairs to the desk where they had checked in earlier. A muscle-bound oaf, whose nametag actually sported the cliche "Hans," handed Tracy a little key ring with the gruff words "number 14."

During the walk to "number 14," Remus had a great deal of time to ponder what exactly "number 14" meant. Was it another competitive area where Tracy would pummel him brutally, yet again? Was it some sort of gym equipment, which would tax his nearly broken body? Was it...

The contemplation halted as they stopped. Tracy unlocked the first of two doors under a large "14," sign, and pushed him inside. She threw a pair of shorts from the gym bag at him before the door swung shut. "Put these on, then come out the other door."

Once inside the little room, he could ascertain that it was a restroom. There was a nice little shower that he took quick advantage of. He imagined that Tracy didn't like to be kept waiting, so he scrambled into the shorts and exited out the door she'd indicated.

He emerged into a small room with a large tub in the center. It was the size of a large horse tank. Not really big enough to swim in, but a little too large for just bathing. One glance at Tracy proved that they were doing something in the water, he just wasn't sure what. She was wearing a one-piece black swimsuit, not deliberately provocative, but certainly not matronly either.

"Ever been in a hot tub before?"

Right. He'd heard of those. Heard quite a bit actually, but it was all from Sirius and usually those descriptions were heavy on blondes and light on setting details. "Not much, really."

"Right. Well, it's really simple. You just sit in it awhile. It's good for cramps."

While he was maneuvering himself into the water, he queried. "Exactly how do you know all this about cramps? I know you studied, but it usually isn't all that in depth when it comes to dealing with more than the most clinical aspects of the change."

"Let's just say I've suffered from similar experiences."

"Like what?" Remus asked curiously.

"Menstrual cramps, Lupin." She barked. "Get with the program. And before you blunder into a hideous and embarrassing mistake, yes, I'm currently having them."

"Oh."

Tracy pushed a button on the side of the tank, and the thing began to bubble. Remus began to flounder about, bewildered and more than a little frightened. "Tracy- eep! - something has malfunctioned - oh dear..."

"Cool it, Shecky. That's what it's supposed to do." She eased herself into the tub.

"Shecky?"

"Muggle comedian. Slapstick. Not terribly funny, in my opinion."

"Right."

They sat for a few moments in silence before Tracy spoke up. "You can't think of anything but the period thing, can you?"

He averted his gaze. "Not really."






Ginny took all the notes she had down to Draco's office. He was sitting in his chair, brooding as she'd suspected. "I think we're pretty much done, planning wise."

"Huh." He grunted, but didn't take his eyes off the paper in front of him.

"Glin's left. She says she's over Ron, but she just looks so sad. She's not being honest with herself, I think."

"Hrm." Another noncommittal noise.

"I'm running off to the moors of Scotland with Aidan: a lad long in arm but short of kilt..."

"Umn." He monosyllabized.

Rolling her eyes, Ginny walked around to behind the desk chair. Sliding her hands down the leather upholstery until they met his shoulders, she began to knead the muscles there. "You're awfully tense, Draco. You're working much too hard."

"It needs to get done," he said in a voice he intended to be gruff. In reality, he almost purred. He hadn't had a backrub from Ginny since before the accident. He'd been afraid to ask, because he'd been worried about her being weak.

She leaned down so that every word she spoke brushed against the shell of his ear. "After we go shopping, how about I stay over and give you a nice, long massage?"

"Shopping?" He crooked and eyebrow in suspicion.

"You need tons of new things. Curtains, furniture, linens, a bed..."

A feline voice came from the doorway. "Planning on breaking it in together?"

Sirius chuckled. "Minerva and I have returned from our walk"

Draco mumbled something practically unintelligible, save for the phrase "bloody cat."

Ginny giggled. "Draco and I need to go to Diagon Alley. Can the two of you behave yourselves if we leave Marigold with you?"

"Black and I get along just fine. It's the rest of you that seem to be stirring up arguments all the time."

"Can you really watch Marigold for over two hours without using lewd language or comments around her?" Draco was skeptical.

"I raised the lot of you at Hogwarts and you never heard a 'bollocks' or a 'bloody,' now did you?" Minnie raised a paw and began to clean her face nonchalantly.

"Right." Ginny and Draco said in chorus.





Harry was looking at a great mass of green and pink tacks in what appeared to be a mere bulletin board, but Hermione assured him was "the master seating plan."

With the wedding a mere two weeks away, Hermione had picked up the pace on things. The RSVP's had all been received, and the respondents had then been termed "green pin" or "pink pin" indicating which side of the chapel they'd be sitting on and so on and so forth. Hermione had been worried that Harry would be upset that he didn't have as many pins as she did.

He just thought it was a bloody lot of pins, and who really cared?

Wisely, he had not told Hermione such a thing, and the wedding was still on, if only he would count a number of monogrammed napkins. Secretly, he suspected that Hermione knew exactly how many napkins there were, and she just wanted to get him out of her hair.

He really didn't mind all that much. The wedding would be nice and all, but he'd be glad to have Hermione back afterwards. She'd become incredibly girly lately, which was nice when it involved exciting girly things like lingerie and stiletto heels, but not so nice when it involved weird little crying binges over the department store running out of their china pattern. Unfortunately, saying "don't worry, we'll just mix and match" hadn't had the mood lightening effect he'd hoped, and they hadn't spoken for two days after the incident.

When it came down to it, he'd really only partly been joking.

"Harry, can you come over here and help with the party favors?"

"I'm counting napkins."

"Well, leave that for later. I need you to put all these little cards inside the little gift boxes. Put it on top of the gift, please. All the gifts for people in the wedding are in this box, and their card will correspond with the name on top of the gift box. All the other gifts are in these ten boxes." Hermione sat for a moment while thinking of all the ways that Harry could screw the task up "Actually, why don't you just do the regular gifts, and I'll take care of the personalized ones later."

Harry smiled and nodded. He got the feeling it was something he would be doing quite a bit in the next two weeks. Opening the first box, he realized that he would be putting notes in well over 300 boxes. Their small wedding with just family and friends was turning into the social event of the century. Somehow, he didn't think anyone else found that fact terribly alarming.






"Bellisima, you look so tired!" Antonio cupped her chin in his hand and clucked disapprovingly. "Is that cold still bothering you?"

"A bit," she replied non-committally. She'd even begun being irritable towards Carlos, who'd seemed a bit snippier than usual when he'd packed up his brushes and stormed out of her trailer this evening. Perhaps it was more serious than she'd thought. That doctor from the emergency room had left a message with her cleaning lady the other day, and Glin once again resolved to call him back. It hadn't sounded terribly urgent. Still, maybe it had something to do with her present mood.

"It's this dreadful damp English weather. Every day- rain, rain, rain. And the city is so crowded I wonder how anyone has enough air." He brushed a nearly invisible strand of hair out of her face. "Never fear, Bella. I've got the solution. You need a little vacation. I have a villa off the coast of Italy. You take a little time off, and get these nasty British doldrums out of your system."

"I-"

"No protests." He placed a finger over her mouth. "I am a temperamental photographer. It is best to humor me."

"I'm just as much a temperamental model. I have things here." She shrugged and wrinkled her nose. "There's Harry and Herm's wedding to help with, and I promised Ginny I'd help her put the finishing touches on Malfoy Manor... I'm not trying to be busy, I just am."

"I thought the wedding was in May?"

"They've moved it up. Two weeks from today."

"They don't consider that you have other commitments?" He questioned darkly.

"They're in love. They don't think that me planning a bachelorette party and getting fitted again for my bridesmaid gown is really going to throw that much off. Honestly, it won't. I'm having Hex cleared out for the party, and Angelina's going to get a few of her buff guy friends to man the bar."

"Have they names, these 'buff guys?"

"Not that I'm interested in. Besides, I need to cool my jets for awhile as my mother would say. I'm swearing off men for a good month at least."

"So no drunken flings with the groomsmen? It's an American custom, no?" His eyes twinkled as he teased her and then darkened at her answer.

"The only unattached one in my age bracket is the very reason I'm swearing off men."

"Donald- the foolish one?"

"Ronald- the one night stand gone awry," she corrected. "Men: always clingy at all the wrong moments."

"Cara, why not let me arrange to have him dealt with?"

Glin laughed. It had become rather common for Antonio to make little comments like that. Most of the Italians she knew didn't care to be associated with the mafia, but Antonio joked freely about it. It was refreshing.

"No need. I've got the situation under control. He hasn't even tried to contact me in the last week."

"Good." He traced a cool thumb down her cheek. "I don't like plebeians troubling mia bella."






"I can't believe we bought all that. Good Lord, Draco, you should have stopped me!"

"But you looked so cute with all those little shopping backs and delivery orders," he said, touching her nose. "It's not like I don't have the money."

"We really didn't need three hundred count sheets, Draco. They cost more than a month's worth of groceries."

Ginny was spooned up against him, and he nuzzled her shoulder. "Your skin is so soft. We wouldn't want it to chafe..."

"Don't encourage me. And that bed. We didn't need a king sized bed. Full would have been sufficient, queen more than adequate. King sized is just ridiculously excessive."

"I really like that you say 'we' without even thinking about it." Draco completely ignored the topic, as was common for him when he was close to sleep. He was always the most honestly when he was barely conscious. "It makes my heart beat faster, but in a good way."

"Now you're just flattering me to distract me from the fact that I've just wasted thousands of galleons of your money."

"One bed with all the trimmings. It was supposed to make up for my being an ass earlier."

"It doesn't have to," Ginny told him sympathetically. "If I'd thought about it for more than a moment I'd have realized what all the fuss was about. Of course you wouldn't want to sleep in his bed."

"I don't want him touching you," he said in a troubled way that almost broke her heart. "It'd be like he was touching us, and I don't like to think of him when I think of you."

She turned in his arms to face him. "He can't touch us, Draco. He can only hurt us now if we let him."

He sighed and rested his head on her shoulder. "Sometimes it's really hard."

"I know, darling." She stroked his hair, feeling the silk sift through her fingers. "You're so strong and brave though, to try and protect us from all of the world. Sometimes I worry that it's taking its toll on you."

"I forget sometimes now," he mumbled into her hair. "I forget that I was ever... different, and that the two of you were hurt, and sometimes I look at you with Marigold and I can't help but think that if you had been her mother, things could have always been as easy as they are when I forget about it all."

"I love you, Draco." She told him, kissing his forehead. "I hope that doesn't complicate it all too much."

"Loving you only makes it easier," he said, snuggling her down into the covers and falling into a sound sleep.







Tracy was nudged awake by a cold wet nose. Looking up to the clock on Remus's bedside table, she saw a green blob. Refocusing her eyes, she saw that it was around 2:30 in the morning. "Hmm???"

Remus whined in the back of his throat, and danced about nervously on his paws.

"Remus, what is it?" Tracy rubbed her eyes and yawned. Remus's bed was incredibly comfortable, and if she hadn't already been fairly dedicated to getting into it, this would have sent her over the edge. It was soft, but not too soft, and it smelled... Well it smelled like Remus. Human Remus, not wolf Remus, which would have been weird, she supposed...

The wolf that was Remus took her shirt in his teeth and dragged her out of his bedroom to the front door. Scratching it lightly with his paws, he made the whining noise again.

"Oh. You need to... right." She opened the door and he ran out. Calling to him, she said "I'll just make a cup of tea, and you can do your business and when you want in just scratch. Right." She supposed it was normal to feel weird talking to a wolf, even if that wolf was Remus. Wolves couldn't talk back. It was like when you suddenly realize that although you made a strict vow to never talk baby talk to your cat, and then all of a sudden you were calling it "wittle miss princess pants."

Yawning, she padded into Remus's kitchen and put a cup of water and a tea bag in a mug, which said "I'm an animagus in the sack." She popped the whole thing in the microwave, daring not to check to see if there was a little icon proclaiming it "microwave safe." Tracy lived her life on the edge, and sometimes girls like her just had to throw caution to the wind.

She'd found the mug in the very back of the cupboard, behind all the boring plain red and gold mugs. It really was boring how dedicated to their house colors former Hogwarts boys were. She suspected the mildly lewd mug had been a present from someone who'd found the plain mugs just as boring as she did. Maybe one of the Weasley boys. They seemed to have a great deal of fun.

Her tea beeped then, and she went to stir it, but heard a scratching at the door. She let Remus in, and they stood there awkwardly for a moment before she spoke. "I don't need to go clean up...whatever, do I? I mean, there are laws some places and I just..."

Remus looked up at her and winced, or did as good an imitation of wincing as a wolf can do. He shook his head.

"Good. I kind of draw the line at cleaning up boyfriend's fecal matter." There once again was an awkward silence. "Well, I made tea. You want something? Water? Milk? I actually don't think that tea would be very good for you, and on second thought, milk makes cats all yicky, so maybe we'll just stick with water."

He followed her soundlessly into the kitchen.

She poured some water into a cereal bowl, and set it on the floor for him. Carrying her tea from the microwave to the counter, she explained. "Yes, I'm adding sugar, even though it's peppermint tea. It makes it taste like a peppermint candy, and I'm an adult and I can have sugar in my tea if I like."

He looked at her expectantly.

Tracy took a big gulp of her tea. "Yes, I'm rambling, but I really think that's just because it's rather hard to carry on a conversation when there isn't any sort of feedback on the other persons part. D'you know what I mean?" Tracy once again got the feeling that perhaps she were going more than a little crazy. "Okay, well, I suppose you'll just think I'm an ass in the morning, and we'll be done with it, and that'll be that."

Remus rubbed his head endearingly against her leg, and it was like he was saying "it's all right, I understand your dilemma perfectly. You are handling this with style and grace, and I think that you are fantastic for doing this for me." Only Remus would never have put it quite so sappily.

Tracy gulped her tea some more. "Right. Well, I think you're a really pretty wolf. Or maybe I mean handsome? Whichever. Really, though, you look lots like a big puppy, only, you know, more menacing. Which is good, cause you're a wolf, not a dog. I just mean that if I were going to get a wolf-looking dog I'd want him to look just like you, actually. It's nice."

Remus bumped up against her again, and yawned over-theatrically as canines have a habit of doing.

"Tired? Well, I'm pretty much done with my tea."

She was crawling into bed, when she noticed that Remus was curling up in front of the now dead fire. "Remus, you don't have to sleep on the floor. It's not like we'd be doing anything. You can lay in the bed if you like."

Remus waited a few moments before hopping up on the bed and settling near Tracy's feet.