Minetta Nigellus, twelve years old and fashionable, made her way down the main street of Hogsmeade. She really shouldn't be here, she knew. Coming with Remus or James and Sirius had been very different from coming on her own. And what if she missed the Halloween feast later on? Not what if, she reminded herself tiredly, when. Rick and Mandy would definitely notice she was missing, if only because there would be no one to ignore their fighting. She wouldn't be able to claim she was sick, either. Professor Prewett at least, and probably Dumbledore as well, would be at the wedding, and it was galleons to acorns that they would recognize her. So what was she doing here? She asked herself for the hundred and second time.

She was here because James was always there for her, she reminded herself. When Regulus was picking on her, when she was upset about Remus, when she was just plain bored… and so she was going to be there for him on his wedding day, even if it meant detention later on. But surely it wouldn't? True, she didn't have permission to leave the grounds – no second year did – but these were mitigating circumstances. Well, what would be, would be and all that.

What she was really looking forward to was seeing Remus again. It wasn't that she liked him more than James or Sirius, only that she hadn't seen him in over two months. She'd popped down to Hogsmeade to visit Sirius and James a couple of times, when they could get away from the Auror's College and James had time to spare from planning the wedding with Evans. Besides, they wouldn't have much time for her today. James would be there for Evans – he was marrying her, after all, crazy bugger – and Sirius would be drunk as could be before they even made the first toast. The only thing that dimmed her excitement at seeing her adoptive brother was the promise that he would be bringing lots of fresh study material for her.

Nym was thoroughly sick of studying. She did it all the time, because it was interesting and because, despite her rapidly growing abilities and knowledge, the teachers still expected her to do the same work as her year mates. Especially the new Potions master who had turned out, to Nym's personal horror, to be none other than Snivellus. After only two months, it had reached the point where she was desperate to find a way to avoid going to potions for the next five years (and eight months, not that she was counting).

"Minetta, how wonderful to see you again."

"And you, Madame Rosmerta. You look wonderful." She was almost used to people calling her Minetta now. Almost, but not quite. Nym worried some times that someone would wonder at the little pause it took her to realize that when people addressed Minetta they meant her.

"Isn't she darling," cooed Madame Rosmerta to her friend, as they moved away to greet others they knew. Darling, yes, that was the word. Darling was exactly what Minetta was, and Nym hated to be. She wished she was a year older, so that she could come to Hogsmeade as herself, instead of Minetta Nigellus, the darling and empty headed little pure blood brat. She almost wanted to kick herself when she went around like this, that was how much she hated Minetta.

"Minetta. How are you, child?" Nym smiled and tried not to grit her teeth doing it. Mrs. Honeyduke was sweet, and meant well. She couldn't have any idea how trying this whole ordeal was for Nym.

"I'm very well, thank you Mrs. Honeyduke. And yourself?" Nym smiled and looked interested as Mrs. Honeyduke chattered away. Well, if there was one skill she had picked up over the summer with her uncle, she could smile and keep a conversation going while hating the person and not paying attention. That, and dressing herself nicely, which she did once in a while, if only as Minetta.

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Honeyduke, but I'm afraid I have to steal Minetta away from you."

Mrs. Honeyduke laughed happily. "Oh, you are such an old so-and-so, Remus Lupin."

Nym turned quickly, practically falling into Remus's arms. "Remus!"

He laughed, picking her up and swinging her around as if she was five. "Min!" When her feet were firmly back on the ground she looked at him, studying. The months in Zurich had been good to him, it seemed. He didn't look nearly so old and worn, and someone had found him a set of clean robes to wear for the wedding.

"You found yourself a girlfriend, didn't you?" she challenged him. Remus went bright red, and tried to turn the question aside. "You did," Nym cried triumphantly. "I always knew there was hope for you."

Remus turned, if possible, even redder. "It's not like that…"

"How is it then? Come on." She grinned delightedly. Sirius had never lacked for dates on Hogsmeade weekends, and if James hadn't had Evans, he could have had his pick of over a score of other girls. But Remus had never had the same way with girls that his two best friends did.

"She's just a friend is all."

"Poppycock. You let her find you new robes and put some food in you. You wouldn't leave your books to go through that for just anyone."

Remus sighed, a sound underlaid with a wolfish growl. "I keep forgetting how smart you are, lassie. Fair enough. But I'm telling you now, I don't have a chance with a girl like Bianca, so don't you go getting ideas."

"Bianca? That's a nice name. What's she like?"

"I think the wedding's starting…"

"Remus…"

He told her, with many false starts and hesitant pauses. Bianca helped her mother run an inn behind the National Academy in Zurich. "Not waiting tables or anything," he said hurriedly. "She does the books and helps in the kitchen and stuff." He'd met her when he'd gone for a bite around one in the morning after a long night trying to find a book in the library. "And, of course, it turned out that Julius Santos had taken it just before I got there without signing it out." Julius Santos, it seemed, was the main reason Remus thought he had no chance with Bianca. What would a pretty and intelligent girl like Bianca want with a bookwormish werewolf like Remus when she could have an Italian model like Julius? Nym rolled her eyes at that. People thought men like Santos got everything they wanted because that's what men like Santos thought. The simple truth was that men like Julius Santos were no better than anyone else, and Remus had best get that through his thick skull. Besides, maybe Bianca liked looking after Remus. Some women were like that.

"A reclusive bookworm, okay," Remus sighed. "My imagination can stretch that far. But a werewolf?"

"Why not?" Nym shrugged. "We all know you're a werewolf, and we don't give a hoot."

Remus smiled sadly. "You, Paddy and Prong are three in a million."

"And there's billions of people in the world. Maybe Bianca's one in a million too."

Remus stared into the middle distance thoughtfully. "That she is."

Evans and James (or rather, Nym amended, Lily Potter and James now) were married in a simple ceremony. However fancy Lily's parents wanted the ceremony to be, James wouldn't hear of it, and Lily, for a wonder, had sided with him.

"She gave this big sigh and went 'he doesn't have the attention span for it, mother'," said Remus, by way of explanation for this unprecedented event.

Sirius giggled into his champaign. "What's she talkin' about? Jimmy-boy is the only one of us who can last a quidditch game wi'out hexing, hexing stuff… penuts, nuts to pelt people."

Remus smiled and tried to take the crystal goblet away from him. "There's a difference between a quidditch game and a wedding."

Sirius scratched his head, perplexed. "One's gotta… gotta whatshamacallit. A buncha balls. But Prongs, he's gotta, a buncha…" Remus shut him up with a quick wand flick. He sighed and looked at his friend who sat slumped on a table at the back of the party hall. Sirius's mouth was still moving, and, as Nym watched, his brain finally caught up with the fact that, as much as he moved his mouth, no sound was coming out. Nym saw this register and then, as realization hit, Sirius toppled slowly over, apparently unconscious.

"Will he be okay?" Nym asked, as they left the slumbering form of Paddy to sleep off his many bottles of champagne (and various other things from before the wedding, taken to cure his hangover from the bachelor party the night before).

"Paddy? He'll be fine. He's not bad until he loses control of his morphic field and ends up with scratching his head with his foot. Thank god he normally passes out before then." Nym tried to picture Sirius doing this, but found it impossible. Joker he may be, but doing something like that would be far below Sirius's dignity. "Hey, isn't that your friend?"

Nym followed Remus's gaze to the punch table. There was Fenbrus Burlax, captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team, talking to… Nym stared. What was Zack doing here? That was when the chair which had been lurking just to the side leapt into Nym's path, tripping her. Down went Nym, and the chair, and the table cloth, the cutlery, and kindly Professor Sprout, who had been talking to Mr. Honeyduke.

It seemed to Nym that the room around her went silent except for the clatter of cutlery as everyone turned to look at her. Remus assured her later that this had not, in fact, been the case, and only a few people even noticed what happened. All the same, right then Nym felt very small and stupid, not to mention exceedingly clumsy.

It was Fenbrus who helped her up, while Zack saw to Professor Sprout. Nym only just stopped herself thanking him by name. "Thanks Bruce," Remus cut in before she could slip up. "I think Minetta's a little tired is all. Or maybe Sirius has been sharing his champaign."

Bruce laughed. "That one? He wouldn't share if she was Aphrodite herself. Nice to meet you, Minetta, whatever the circumstances." Nym smiled back and said it was very nice to meet him too. As always, she found it difficult to talk to people she knew well in this second persona.

"Here, Smith, I've found you another player. She's more graceful than most of those louts you have." Bruce laughed again when Zack went a bit red. "Just jokes, Minetta, just jokes." He nodded to Remus and wandered off after a pretty waitress carrying a tray of alcohol.

"Don't mind him," Zack said, a bit roughly. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, thank you." Nym was hard pressed not to say she knew Bruce didn't mean it, he never did. But of course Minetta wouldn't know that. "I'm Minetta, by the way."

"Zack." He looked a bit uncomfortable for a moment then, "would you like to dance?" Nym later reflected that Bruce must have been slipping Zack a fair amount of champaign for him to ask the question like that. The Zack she knew was cool and confident, able to talk to anyone about anything (expect the Marauders, who he still seemed to hold in awe). The Zack that asked her – well, Minetta – to dance was shy and blushing, tripping over his words as though afraid to say them. He tripped rather more through the dance, too, until he finally caught the rhythm and relaxed a bit. That was not like him at all; normally, she was the clumsy one. She kept hoping he'd say something, but he never did, and her few attempts at conversation fell flat. You just couldn't keep a conversation going on your own.

Zack excused himself at the end of the dance, red-faced still. He didn't come talk to her again, though Nym saw him looking at her often throughout the rest of the evening until, happy, tired, and just the littlest bit drunk, she wandered through the secret passages back up to the castle and into her bed.