Disclaimer: not mine people

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Remus Lupin sighed and ran a nervous hand through his hair before pushing open the door to the library where he would be working.

Or at least to where he would be working up until the next full moon.

He stepped inside cautiously, grateful that the library was empty so that no one could see the nervous blush that adorned his features, he's spent the last three months scrounging off friends and family, unable to find himself a job due to his condition and even before that he's only been able to keep a job up until the first full moon, or, with the kinder managers, the second full moon.

And now that he'd finally found himself a job again, he found that he wasn't really sure what to do.

He walked over to the front library desk and looked around, a door was slightly a jar behind the front desk and a dim light was glinting out from the crack in it casting shadows on the floor.

"Hello?"

There was a thump the other side of the wall and a few muffled swear words before the lights in the rest of the library flashed on and a girl walked out from the dusty back room.

"You must be the new-" She cut herself off when she looked up at Remus, scowling lightly, her delicate features narrowed in a glare. "You're Remus Lupin." She stated as though that would explain why she was sending him such hostile looks.

"Err... yes. I am. Please to meet you miss- um name?" He held a hand out to her and she sneered at it turning her back on him and walking back through the small door she'd come out of.

"Narcissa Black." she snapped back at him over her shoulder.

"Ohh! You're Sirius' cousin. I remember you, you were in the year below us at Hogwarts weren't you. I didn't know you worked here."

"Yes well, you don't know a lot about me. My parents insisted that Andromeda and I left home and got jobs."

"What about Bellatrix?" She exited the small room with an armful of books in cellophane wrapping and dumped them on the desk in front of her.

"That's the stock room." she informed him ignoring his question for the time being whilst she made a start tearing the wrapping off the books with her long nails.

"Bella was lucky. She married Rudolphus last year, she just relies on him for money and housing now. Here, start sticking these onto the inside covers of these books." She pushed the pile of newly unwrapped books and a set of library stickers across the front desk towards him and he opened the book on the top the the inside cover idly, taking his time peeling off the sticky back plastic on the back of the first library sticker whilst he talked.

"I didn't know that Bellatrix married Lestrange. It is Rudolphus Lestrange you were referring to correct?"

"Yeah. Like I said, they married last year, Dolph proposed to her right out of the blue and she said yes obviously, I mean they have been together since their fifth year now." She pulled the book Remus had just finished sticking the library label to and stamped in with a property stamp front and back before pushing it aside into a new pile.

"That makes sense I guess... what about you and Malfoy." She scowled at Remus for the casual use of her boyfriend's last name, reminding him that he was indeed talking to a Slytherin.

"Lucius," she snapped putting a stress on his first name, features hardening again like they had done when he'd first walked in. "Is not yet ready for commitment, which is fine by me because I wouldn't say yes if he proposed right now anyway."

"Why not, I thought that you Slytherins only married for, well you know, money and wealth and power and stuff." he waved his hands in the air uselessly, trying to find a different way of wording is thoughts that didn't sound so indelicate.

"For your information we Slytherins are just the same as anyone else! We fall in love and sometimes we get married! Of course we used to have arranged marriages which would help ensure the survival of bloodlines etc but that was a long time ago and so did everyone else to!" She picked up the stamped and labeled books and flounced off with her nose in the air haughtily, dropping to her knees in front of a shelf slamming the books down next to her with a bit more force than was strictly necessary and began to stack the books on the bottom shelf.

Remus sighed to himself and ran a hand back through his hair, this was not going well.

"Look Narcissa... Narcissa, come on talk to me." She continued stacking books and he sighed walking over to stand besides her, he'd seen Lily and Alice and Molly give the silent treatment to the other boys, and even occasionally to himself, enough times before to know what she was doing.

"Come on Narcissa, this is my first day, cut me some slack will you."

She jumped up crossly giving him a scathing look. "Big Deal! If you don't learn now then when will you." she crossed her arms across her chest and continued to glare at him, surprised when he managed to hold her gaze but refusing to avert her eyes.

Finally her let out a dramatic theatrical sigh and smiled at her hands on hips. "Come on, I'm sorry, we just got off on the wrong foot, remember I'm only used to dealing with Gryffindors," She gave him a small smile then seemed to realise what she was doing and gave him a withering look, a tinge of suspicion in her eyes.

"But lets put that behind us now." he continued happily. "I said I'm sorry, I retract all accusations on Slytherin marriage me lady." He gave a theatrical bow, catching her hand and pressing a kiss to the back of it looking up at her and winking. "Forgiven?" he asked.

She smirked down at him in amusement. "Come on then, you can make it up to me by stacking these books." She nodded to the half stacked pile she'd been working on near their feet. "It'll save me from getting my robes dirty kneeling down on that floor."

Remus stood up letting go of her hand and pretending to sweep a hat from his head holding it to his chest. "T'would be an honor me lady."

She laughed then and smiled at him before walking off and leaving him to his job.

Dropping to his knees, all theatrics gone, he smiled to himself and reached for the first book.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

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Reviews

Nina: thanks for reading, I've just planned out up to chapter 24 of this story so hopefully I should know where it's going and should hence forth be updating relatively quickly.