For my original Author's note, refer to La Default Chapter.

Chapter Six: Lupin. Remus Lupin...

The following weeks and months wrought an immense change in Carmen. After the emotional disaster of her first assignment, she now seemed more determined than ever to show her talent and prowess, both of which she displayed in abundance, proving herself a most capable witch. And with every success she let herself slip a little more from her shell, entrancing and reviving the entire Order.

She filled headquarters with music and gaiety, laughing louder than Sirius, cooking better than Alice, drinking more than Hagrid and even proving herself reasonably stronger physically than quite a few male members of The Order, during an arm wrestling competition. Sirius came to Remus the next day asking for something to relieve sore muscles, muttering something about having let her win.

Subsequently, the evening dinners became more elaborate and the liquor cabinet was emptying itself at an immense rate, with members of The Order pounding on Remus' door at all hours of the day, begging for his potion to treat hangover.

These high spirits and growth in Carmen's confidence seemed contagious, and soon, The Order were doing better than ever before, bringing home many glorious stories of battles and information they had won, the Death Eaters they had ambushed and captured to the late night dinner's, along with varies of cuts and battle wounds, cured and seen to by Remus and his now almost empty medical potions kit.

But none were as busy as the infamous 4 Mauderer's, who seemed intent in their mission to turn Remus Lupin into some sort of wizarding James Bond.

Remus on the other hand felt they were transforming him into some sort of sleazy, greasy haired man, who wore silk purple shirts and gold chains, and hung about women in bars saying things like: Baby if I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put U and I together!

Despite Remus' desperate pleas to simply leave him alone, protesting that nothing short of a love potion could make Carmen see him in any sort of romantic light, Sirius and James seemed to have made it their mission not to rest until Carmen and Remus were having 5 hour long debates on the telephone about who should hang up first, and kept pushing the unwilling and unknowing would-be lovers into more and more awkward and embarrassing situations, mostly on Remus' part.

Carmen came down to the kitchen one morning, in a tiny bathrobe (causing Remus to choke on his porridge) to report that her bath would not run.

"Could someone help me fix it?" she asked. James face lit up.

"Well you want Remus to help you." He grinned. Remus dropped his spoon and went even redder than he had been when he was choking.

"Oh I-I d-don't I-"he stuttered.

"Oh don't be so modest Moony," Sirius said, slapping him on the back, "He's a real whiz about the house," he told Carmen, "Does things with a spanner I've never seen before!"

"Sirius," Remus said patiently through clenched teeth, "You know I haven't got the first idea-"

"He's just shy." James said.

"No I-!"

"Go on, off you go," Sirius pushed him out of his chair, "Help the young lady out."

Remus opened his mouth to argue but took one look at Carmen's encouraging smile and faltered. "Well I suppose I could try."

After much banging, clattering and yelling they arrived back in the kitchen 2 hours later, Remus covered in grime and dripping wet from head to foot, apparently not only having failed to fix the bath but also somehow managing to flood the bathroom.

"Well thank you very much for helping." Carmen assured him.

"Well, I'm sure Alice will let you use her bath until we can get yours fixed." He panted.

Carmen gave him a quick thank you kiss on the cheek and retreated back upstairs, while the rest of The Order settled back to watch Remus chase James and Sirius about the kitchen with a wrench.


One Friday morning as Remus was heading down the third floor hallway, poring over a stack of parchment he crashed into James, Sirius and Peter standing all huddled together, in the middle of the hallway.

"Morning Remus!" Sirius said brightly. Remus frowned, picking himself up off the ground.

"What are you lot up to now?" he demanded grumpily, collecting his scattered files off the floor. James smiled and thrust a small piece of parchment into Remus' hands. Written in flowery, loopy writing, the ink flashing all the glittering colours of the rainbow, was a poem which read:

I wrote your name in the sky,
but the wind blew it away.
I wrote your name in the sand,
but the waves washed it away.
But I wrote your name in my heart,
and forever it will stay...

"Who wrote this?"

"I did." Sirius smiled. Remus stared at him.

"You wrote this?" he asked incredulously, "You!"

"Don't look so surprised Moony," Sirius told him rather indignantly.

"W-well whose it for?" Remus grinned.

"Carmen." Peter said simply. Remus snorted.

"Carmen." He laughed. Suddenly it dawned on his and his expression changed from amusement to shocked anger in about a nanosecond. "Carmen?!"

"Of course." James replied calmly, watching Remus splutter.

"But-w-wh-y-can-ho-?"

"It's really quite simple." Sirius said, answering Remus' unasked question, "We write the romantic poem, we slip it under the door and run away, Carmen finds it and is extremely flattered that she has a secret admirer, and then in a week or two, you let her know it was you, she swoons, and we all live happily ever after."

Remus stared at him, apparently lost for words.

"Well then if we've no objections, lets get this show on the road" Sirius said, taking advantage of the stunned silence. He bent down and prepared to slip it under the door.

"Sirius I'm warning you," Remus growled, "If you push that stupid-"

But it was too late. Sirius had slipped the letter through the crack and knocked on the door. Remus turned a funny colour of green and dove to the floor, sticking his fingers under the cracks and vigorously reaching for the letter.

"She's coming!" Peter said in a frightened whisper, his ear pressed up against the door. There was desperate scramble to pry Remus up off the floor and the four grown men disappeared around the corner like guilty school boys, waiting with baited breath.

Carmen opened the door and looked about the hallway curiously. "Hello?" she called, but her voice echoed throughout the empty corridor, prompting no reply. She turned back to re-enter her room and almost fell over, when her foot slid forward on a small piece of parchment. She picked it up and glanced about the hallway again, almost waiting for an answer to appear. When she was satisfied no one was about to step forward, she read the poem.

The Mauderer's stood stock still around the corner, straining their ears for some sort of reaction to the poem, while Remus stared at them vindictively, mouthing phrases like: "I am going to kill you!" When suddenly, they heard Carmen let out an amused sort of chuckle.

Remus risked a quick glance around the corner and saw Carmen smile, shaking her head as if she regarded the letter as some sort of joke or prank, but her cheeks were a light shade of scarlet so she still seemed rather flattered by what she had read. She looked up and down the corridor once more and Remus pulled back in the nick of time. Or so he had thought.

"Remus?"

Remus felt his entire body go numb and stiffen with fright. He glanced at Sirius, James and Peter, looking for some kind of help but they just shrugged helplessly. He turned back to look down the hallway again, but found himself instead, face to face with the woman herself.

"Hello." He said stupidly.

"Hi Remus, what are you doing?" she asked, somewhere between amusement and curiosity.

"Oh I'm just- uh chatting with my friends." He said, gesturing back to Sirius, James and Peter. Carmen gave him a kind of funny look and he turned to see that the other three had fled. He flung his files into her face.

"Paperwork!" he said, a little to enthusiastically, "I'm doing paperwork."

"I see...do you- know anything about this. Remus?" Carmen smiled, raising her eyebrows and holding up the letter for him to see.

"No! No that is-I-I mean I don't-" he was saved the embarrassment of answering when they were found by an out of breath Lily, her eyes shining brightly.

"Oh there you two are!" she panted.

"What is it?" Carmen asked, looking very concerned. Lily looked unusually agitated.

"We've just got the word. A full Death Eater meeting has been arranged."


10 minutes later the entire Order sat about the rickety kitchen table, all in deep thought.

"Well," James said finally, "Well we have to move, we can't just let this one go by, no matter how dangerous it is."

"Are you through pointing out the obvious?" Dumbledore said a little sternly.

"The question is, who are we supposed to send?" Alice piped up. Everyone fell back into thought again.

"Well, we have to send at least 10." Sirius said slowly. There was an instant uproar at his words.

"What?" he demanded defensively.

"10 is too many who knows how many Death Eaters will be there!" Lily said shrilly, "We can't risk losing more than we need to, there could be 50 of them all assembled there!"

"Exactly! So we'll need 10 at the very least if we're all going to overcome them!"

Everyone broke out and began arguing again.

"Silence!" Dumbledore boomed and everybody fell quiet. "I do not think it wise that we infiltrate the Death Eaters headquarters this evening in order to conduct a raid. If they are indeed all going to be there they will surely bring invaluable information. If we can take hold of this information we can wait until they move out into the open, they'll be easier to bring in that way."

Everyone sat and thought about this. It didn't make complete sense to Carmen but you couldn't help trust Dumbledore somehow. He gave off the impression he knew so much. He had to know what he was doing.

"So how many are we sending?" she asked.

Dumbledore thought for a moment. "Three." Everyone exchanged uneasy glances, "Three will be quite an adequate number to seize information, keep guard and report back if anything should go wrong." The room fell silent, waiting for someone to volunteer.

"Alright," Carmen said at last, "I'll go." Remus looked horrified.

"I'm going too." James said stoutly.

"Me too." Frank Longbottom said, his voice shaking a little but his eyes fierce.

"Very well," Dumbledore said in hushed tones, "We move at midnight."


That evening's dinner was a nervous and stilted affair, more so than anyone could remember. Particularly anxious was Remus, who kept shooting nervous glances over at Carmen, looking worried and mournful as if he were on the verge of tears. Everyone ate and drank in silence, hardly daring to meet anyone's eyes.

Finally at 11:00pm, it was time to bid the brave trio goodbye. Remus went into James and Lily's room, and found him on his knees, looking under the bed for his wand.

"Hey James." Remus said softly. James gave a start, banging his head on the bed frame. "Ouch! Wh-oh! Hey Remus. You OK?" he asked, shooting him a worried glance, "You look all..." he couldn't seem to find the words, "You don't look right." He finished lamely. Remus sighed.

"No it's just I...I'm worried. About you and Frank."

"And Carmen?" Remus stared at James for a moment, before giving a sort of embarrassed nod, letting his chin fall on his chest. James sighed.

"Go and talk to her." He said, slapping Remus on the back. Remus' head shot up.

"What?"

"Go and talk to her." James repeated, as if he was talking to a dense child. "Look, I'm going to be looking out for Frank and Carmen tonight, you know that, and I know they'll be looking out for me. But...well...things go wrong and if something should happen to..." he looked into Remus' nervous face, almost afraid to say it out loud, "You don't want to spend the rest of your life just thinking what may have been."

Remus looked at James in some surprise, "Wow that was really profound." James shrugged, trying not to look too impressed with himself.

"Yeah well, it's the truth." He gave Remus a little nudge towards the door, "Go you idiot!" he grinned.

Remus smiled a little nervously, "Where is she?"

"She's out on the back porch."


Carmen exhaled her cigarette smoke, sending plumes of smoke out into the night. A jasmine plant had curled itself about the porch railing, it deep, exotic perfume filling the evening air. She sighed and took another drag, trying to keep her shaking hands steady, telling herself over and over again that it was just another assignment, the same as the past 7 or 8 she had taken on during the past couple of months. Yet there was the same nagging voice in the back of her mind that kept repeating: An army of Death Eaters. An army of Death Eaters...

"Carmen?"

Carmen jumped a little and spun around to the doorway, where a man lay immersed in shadow.

"Yes?" The man stepped into the light. It was Remus Lupin.

Carmen gasped inaudibly a put on a pretty smile. "Remus."

Remus looked at the cigarette in her hand and frowned. "I didn't know that you smoke."

"I'm trying to quit."

Remus' mouth twitched, "That seems to be working well."

"I don't do it that often anymore. Only when I'm nervous. Or after sex." Carmen laughed, flicking the butt into the garden.

Remus went bright red at the mention of sex and looked down at his shoes. Luckily, the dark concealed most of his crimson complexion.

Sensing his discomfort, she hastily changed the subject. "So, what uh, what did you want?"

"I just wanted to wish you good luck. Not that you'll need it of course I've seen how incredible you are at this." Now it was Carmen's turn to blush.

"Thank you Remus but I," she turned around and leaned on the railing, staring down into the jasmine bush, "There's going to be a fleet of Death Eaters there tonight. And of course I'll have James and Frank there and they're incredibly gifted but..." she broke off, and gazed up at the starlit sky.

Remus hesitated for a moment, and then heard James' voice inside his head.

You don't want to spend the rest of your life just thinking what may have been...

Carmen could feel him moving in closer and her heart skipped a beat or two. Suddenly, he reached out and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder and she let out a small moan, her entire body shaking. Remus turned her to face him.

"You are the most gifted, clever and," he swallowed, "beautiful witch I have ever known." He moved in a little closer, Carmen's back pressed against the railing and Remus pressed against her front. He had a nice, clean smell...

"You're going to amazing tonight," his voice was now a whisper, "I can tell."

Carmen felt a sort of heat course through her, an entirely brand new sensation. She didn't know what it was but she had a feeling Remus had something to do with it, and she wanted more. Carefully, she took his hand and placed it on her cheek, pressing it against her soft skin with her hand.

She could feel Remus trembling, tiny beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He rubbed his thumb against her cheek and she closed her eyes for a moment, as if to savour the sensation. She opened them once more and looked into his eyes, her gaze not wavering for a moment. Her eyes sparkled, like the eyes of the girls he'd read about in books, and her full hair cascaded over her shoulders and onto her chest like a waterfall. Slowly, but steadily, she began to get closer. And closer...

"Carmen!"

A man's voice sounded out loud and clear into the night, breaking Carmen and Remus out of their reverie. The broke apart instantly, both too shy to catch each other's gazes, both unsure of what to say. Suddenly the back door flew open and Frank and James appeared.

"Oh there you are!" Frank said. He suddenly noticed Remus and Carmen both standing there, far apart from one another, looking as if they'd received an electric shock. Both were red and shaky.

"Did we interrupt something?" James asked, looking significantly at Remus.

"No," Carmen said with a shake of her head. Remus simply looked at the floor.

"Well then," Frank said after a slightly awkward pause, "Let's get going then."

"Right," said Carmen. Slowly, she turned to face Remus and looked him in the eye.

"Buonanotte Carmen." he whispered, and something of a sad smile graced her face.

"Buonanotte Remus." She smiled. And with Frank and James at her side, she disappeared into the mist of the waking night, Remus watching her mournfully, an aching in his chest until she had vanished, leaving only a cigarette butt, glowing in the garden...


Ooh! We came so close! None the less I'm sure he'll have another opportunity. But for that to happen you know whatcha must do? That's right! Go review crazy! And I won't budge until I have 30 reviews in total! (Sticks nose stubbornly in the air) Hey it's not blackmail! It just shows how much and how many of you care!

Anyways, here's a little hint of things to come:

Vieni qui e baciami...

Amalita.