thanks for reviewing! keep those reviews coming! 3 Mo

Chapter 2

The next morning when Harry went down to breakfast, the house seemed to be abuzz with chatter about May. Harry, of course, had told Ron, Hermionie, and Ginny all about the night before at their persistent urging. Hermionie had nodded and said, "That makes sense." Harry didn't ask her what part of that made sense, because none of it made any sense to him. As he started on his eggs, May herself walked in, wearing light blue pajamas, and a red robe that was untied. She sat down at the table and immediately food appeared in front of her, courtesy of Mrs.Weasely. May looked as though she was going to pass out face first into her plate. There were circles under her eyes, and her previously elegant hair was askew.

The adults all started to leave, heading to work or other secret order projects. May wandered off to her makeshift room, and came down later, fully dressed. Harry thought that she dressed very oddly, especially for a muggle. She wore knee high brown boots, tight dark colored jeans that were tucked into the boots, a black tank top, and an ankle length brown jacket. Harry noticed that her clothes were wrinkled, and not very clean. They had some patches and holes, and put Harry in mind of Lupin's worn old robes. Her sword was hooked into one of her belt loops. "I'm gonna go to the backyard an practice a little bit. That's where I'll be if you need me," she told the remaining occupants of the kitchen. She clomped out towards he back of the house, her boots making an entirely different sound than the stilettos had the night before.

Harry found her practicing with her sword. She made smooth slashes in the air, each move smoothly transitioning into the next, lost in the soothing dance of her kata. Not looking towards Harry, who was sitting in the doorway to the backyard, she stopped practicing. She had a bag of apples near her feet and she threw them at Harry. "Bring those over there." She gestured to a spot of ground about 6 feet away from her. Harry obediently followed her instructions, with the bag of apples in tow. "Ok, now toss one of those apples at my head."

"What?" Harry asked, bewildered.

"Just do it."

Harry did as he was told, and threw the apple at her head. She sliced it cleanly in half. She told him to keep going, and soon they were through the whole bag of apples, and had a small crowd watching them. "Bravo!" cried Tonks enthusiastically. "Hey, can you teach me how to do something with that?" Hermionie asked excitedly, gesturing to the sword.

"Sure!". "Now come over here and I'll show you how to hold it." Hermionie followed instructions. May took the sword and said, "Ok now, grab on, so I can correct your grip." She handed the katana to her new pupil.

"Ok, am I doing it right?"

"You have to hold it with one hand up at the top, and your other down at the bottom." May moved Hermionie's hands to correct them. "There."

"It's heavy!" exclaimed Hermionie, who had almost dropped the sword when May had released it.

"Yeah, it's gonna be weighty until you get used to it. Ok, now I want you to strike in a downward motion." May gripped Hermionie's hands, and demonstrated the motion. Hermionie did as instructed, swinging violently at an invisible foe.

"Very good! Especially for your first time!"

Mrs. Weasely looked disapprovingly at Hermionie and May. "It's time for lunch everyone! Come inside!"

"Aw mum," Ron whined, "I wanted to practice with the sword…"

After lunch, Harry went up to his room and collapsed on his bed. He turned the events of the previous evening over in his mind while staring up at the blank ceiling. Harry hadn't the faintest idea what to think of this new woman. If she was Sirius's girlfriend, why hadn't she cropped up in conversations before? His brain provided the answer. Maybe she's too painful a subject to talk about. But why? Why? Weren't you paying attention last night to what they said?

Harry flashed back to their conversation before he was summoned into the room.

"Remus?"

"Yes May?"

"Did you ever get over me?"

"No. I didn't." And then he had kissed her. Harry wondered about this. What did that mean? Isn't it obvious? His brain remarked. " Lupin was, and is still, in love with May. He was jealous of Sirius all these years, because he had her, and Lupin didn't. And perhaps Sirius didn't want you to know that he had a muggle girlfriend"

Harry removed himself from the bed. The pieces were starting to fall into place, although he was a little worried about these conversations that he kept having with his brain. He also wasn't too sure whether he actually liked May. Sure, she had tried to kill Snape, but…. Harry chuckled to himself. Sirius would pick a dangerous female… Suddenly a word came to his mind. Betrayal. Was she betraying Sirius? She certainly hadn't protested that kiss. But Sirius was dead. It was selfish to expect her to mourn Sirius's death forever. But he hadn't let go so soon, and she had only found out yesterday! Something in the back of his head told him not to, but Harry had made up his mind. He was going to go ask her about it.

He walked into the room that he eavesdropped at last night, which had been converted into May's bedroom. The curtains were drawn, and the room was dark, except for the flames dancing in the fireplace. She was asleep on the couch. Harry crept quietly into the room, and positioned himself behind her head. The flickering light from the fireplace emphasized the scars that seemed to cover her body. Harry noticed that her face was lined, probably from many sleepless nights and hard days of work. He tapped her on the shoulder. "May? May, wake up" Harry immediately regretted this, as he found himself with a dagger at his throat. He followed the hand that was grasping it and found May's face glaring at him with hatred from her reclining position on the couch. The second he met her gaze, her face softened, and then gained a look of horror.

"Oh! Oh my God, Harry, it's you. I-I'm so sorry… It's a reflex… I'm so sorry." May lowered the dagger and put it into a small sheath on her belt. "I-I have some advice for you Harry," she said, while sitting herself upright on the couch. "Don't ever wake me up, unless you're halfway across the room."

"I kind of figured that out already…" said Harry shakily. He still hadn't recovered from almost being stabbed.

"Look Harry, I'm really sorry. I never meant to do that. It's just a reaction. If you had my job, you'd probably do the same thing." Her head drooped downward, and her thick brown hair covered her face like a curtain. She patted the vacant space on the couch next to her, and Harry sat down.

"May, I have to ask you something."

"Ok, shoot"

Harry wrenched up his remaining courage and decided to go for it.

"Are you in love with Lupin? Or are you still in love with Sirius?" Harry cringed, and waited in the awkward silence that ensued for her to respond. May clasped her forehead in her right hand, resting her elbow on her knee. Her expression looked rather pained.

"Harry, in all honesty, I don't know. I really love Sirius, I really do, but I hadn't seen him in years. I know this sounds rather harsh, but aside from his infrequent writings, it was like he was already gone. He was in a world of his own, a world I was not a part of anymore. I hadn't seen him since he was put in Azkaban." She put her hand on Harry's shoulder, and sat up. She looked at Harry, and her gaze seemed gentle but deep, as if she was looking into his soul. "Let me tell you something Harry, if there was any way he would have wanted to go, that was it. He always said he wanted to die with his boots on, and he got his wish." She averted her gaze and turned her head toward the entrance to the room. "Remus, you can come out now."

A defeated looking Lupin retreated from behind the door. May smiled up at him, and Harry could see some sadness in her expression. Lupin slouched over and sat down next to May. "Does that answer your question?" To Harry, it seemed that she was asking both he and Lupin. Harry merely nodded in reply, and got up to leave.

"Harry, you don't have to leave. You can if you want though."

Harry started to walk out off the room, but suddenly turned around and spoke.

"Why do your clothes have so many holes in them?" Harry shot at her acidly.

May looked thoroughly shocked. "Why? Do you have a problem with the holes?"

Harry just frowned, waiting for an answer.

"I get shot a lot."

"Well why don't you buy new ones then?" Harry was now scowling.

"The same reason Lupin doesn't. I'm dirt poor." Lupin seemed to find this quite funny, and was forced to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing aloud. Harry just gave a surly look to both of them and stormed out of the room.

The Assassin

"May, do you really think my clothes are that bad?"

"Yeah. You should really work on your mending skills," she noted, fingering a badly mended section of Lupin's robe

"Well yours aren't any better!"

"I know." They both started laughing hysterically, neither of them knowing what exactly was so funny.

May wiped the tears from laughing on her sleeve. "Do you know why Harry seems to have so much teenage angst?"

"Because he's a teenager?"

"Wow. I guess you're right." She started laughing again. "God, am I drunk or something? I just can't stop laughing…"

"High on life I guess."

"Remus, we could always make each other laugh, couldn't we?"

"Yes." He paused for a few seconds. "May, you're not helping."

"Remus, I have no remote idea of what you mean."

"I'm falling for you again."

"Oh. Well I guess there could be worse things."

"Right." Thy stared at each other for a while, and then suddenly Lupin lunged and kissed her. May was surprised, but kissed back. They laid back on the couch, and suddenly May broke the kiss and spoke. "Remus, do you really want to be my rebound?"

"Truthfully, No. But I'd rather have that then nothing." The kissing resumed, and at about 1:00 they fell asleep on the couch.

The next morning, May awoke with the curious feeling of an arm across her chest.

An arm…? Her brain thought drowsily. She lifted her head up to see who the arm belonged to. When she saw, she almost fell off the couch in surprise. Oh shit…I really hope we didn't…a feeling of relief washed over her when she saw that they were both fully clothed. Lupin's arm was removed when he rolled over and muttered, "I can fix that… I can sew better than you…" She poked him on the nose. "Remus, wake up. Wake up!"

"What?… What are you doing here?…" he said drowsily.

"What am I doing here? This is my room, you idiot. And you're lucky I woke up first, or else I probably would have stabbed you. "

Lupin sat up with a start and looked around the room, blushing furiously. "Oh wow. Ok I'll go downstairs now…"

"You might want to brush your hair first. You have a flat spot here." She sat up and finger-combed his hair. "There, all better." she grinned at him. "Are we going to Diagon alley today?"

Lupin nodded.

"Oh, I'm so excited! I've never been there! I've heard so much about it!"

"I bet you'll love it. Well, I'm going to go change into fresher clothes."

"Yeah. Meet ya downstairs." She stood up and grabbed her sword. She tramped off down in the direction of the kitchen, not bothering to change into clean clothes. All of her others were dirty anyway.