It's beginning to feel like a slumber party, this reunion between me and Sirius. Here we are, sitting wrapped in hot pink furry blankets, sipping chocolate out of mugs at three in the morning. We've been talking for hours. Remus apparated back to his appartment after we made plans to meet tomorrow, and reluctantly he left Sirius under my protection for one night. Some protection I'd been. Immediately I pulled Dad's record player into the flat's small sitting room and put on the Sex Pistols, which greatly pleased my cousin, who hadn't heard them since before Azkaban. This relaxing background melody has prevailed throughout our chat, ranging from Muggle music to Wizarding politics, in which I have been doing most of the talking, with only an interruption here and there from dear Sirius. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure Fudge is on his way out."

"Makes sense," he chimes in.

"He's like a bloody dragon guarding the very last of his gold. He's not only cooked, he knows it. He's holding on for as long as he can."

"You know he sent Rubeus Hagrid up. No reason at all."

"Sent him... oh, erm, I heard about that." Delicate topic, Azkaban is, I'm sure. Skirting around it.

"I saw him. Tried to smile at him, you know. He didn't even see me."

I keep silent, even though I'm morbidly curious about what the prison was like for him. I sip my chocolate.

"You know, none of them did. That's what guilt will do to you. You keep thinking about what you could have done better, and suddenly you can't live with yourself. You're fucking dementor fodder by then."

Meekly I ask, "How did you deal with it? I mean, obviously, you weren't guilty."

He smiles, and it isn't Sirius's smile. It reminds me of the one time in my whole life I saw Snape smile for real. It was rather horrid.

"We're all guilty. Maybe we were only in the wrong place at the wrong time. I just happened to be self-riteous, and the dementors hate that."

"Oh." We pause, and simultaneously finish our chocolate. I banish the mugs to the kitchen. It's time to change the subject. "So, Lupin's looking... er..."

"Terrible? Atrocious?"

"Older, was the word I was going for. Although the moustache needs to go."

Sirius laughs. "Remus never was one for keeping up appearances. I don't know when he started to grow that thing. Probably just hasn't thought to get rid of it."

I think about the man who arrived at my door hours ago, and about the oddities in his manner. "He's a weird one. Is he really a... you know?"

"A werewolf? Yeah." I shake my head. You think you know a guy...

"Poor man."

"He's used to it."

I smile wanly. "Is he?" But somehow I cannot bring myself to believe that anyone could get used to something like that. I know the way the Ministry treats lycanthropes. Even Mum talks about them like they're scum, and she's one of the most liberal witches out there. "Does he have, you know, much of a job?"

"Remus? Naw. Collects a check every month. He did the Gringotts goblins a favor a couple years back, but he's kept it all hush hush. Still barely enough for rent. He lives over in Brixton." I shudder. "Smart bloke, Remus. I still tease him, you know, but I care about him. He needs... well, I'm too out of touch to know what he needs." Sirius shakes his head. I put my head on his shoulder, and he puts his arm around me. We sit like this for a while, and it's okay.

"It's just been forever since I've seen you. I want it to be like old times, but I know it can't," I say, snuggling into my blanket.

"It can. We can call old Remus up and play hippogriff again." He grins wickedly. "You know, we hounded him about that."

"What?"

"About how he used to play with you. Every day that two weeks in summer. You remember? At James's house? You were, oh, five, six, and Remus couldn't get enough of you. Said you were... what was it? Precocious? Something like that. He tried to read thick Latin books to you, tried to teach you algebra...and you just scrunched up your face and turned your eyes red or something. we all loved you." I am about to cry, for the ninth time tonight.

"I miss James. I even..." I stop.

"You miss Peter?" he asks quietly.

"No. I miss believing everything was okay. You know?"

"I know." We sigh, and drift off into daydreams for a few minutes. Finally I declare that it's time to sleep. I give Sirius my pink blanket, because he will not under any circumstances take my bed away from me, and he curls up on the couch. I pretend to go to my room, but instead I go to the kitchen and work on papers and think about Sirius, and Richard, and Remus, and the stupid bloody Ministry, and I wonder if Sirius is even asleep, because I can't hear him breathing in the next room. And it's now time to wake up.