A/N: One thing I found while doing research for this fic that made me blink: They issue handicapped license plates… for motorcycles. Am I missing something here?

The other thing that made me blink… well, the person to whom this fic is dedicated will know who she is once she gets to the fruits of my research. -winks at her in advance-

Doom Is Best Served Vicarious

It was getting on midnight and Tonks, of everyone in the room, actually had a job to go to the next morning. Besides, Black had begun to get fidgety and it had put a damper on what had been a swinging conversation.

"Someone come with me," she said, standing. "There was something in the corner getting all rammy earlier. If it's still awake I don't want to face it alone."

Black snorted.

"I'm sure you'll be fine," said Lupin, which was his politer equivalent of Black's response.

Undaunted by having tricked no one, she pretended to have not heard Black and rounded to the back of Lupin's chair. "Really. That's it? And what if you find my half-eaten corpse under Mrs Black's picture tomorrow?"

"Seeing as you're a properly trained Auror, I think that's a risk we're all willing to take." (Black snorted again. Lupin was being a little less obvious than Tonks, but Black knew him well enough to see that Lupin was simply dying to go with her, whatever his patronising and indifferent tone said otherwise. Besides, any time Lupin was actually being rude was a good tip-off that he was hiding something.)

Tonks considered him carefully for a moment, and then poked him in the back of the head with her umbrella. "Oh, thanks. You're such a gent. Just for that you're coming with me, Lupin. Right now."

Black did not find himself hugely surprised when his friend submitted to her rather charming bossiness. They took a good long while, too. This was fine by him: the moment he thought they'd had enough of a head start, he zoomed out of the basement and into the drawing room, where he unearthed the mirror from under the cushion on the armchair. Damn the two of them anyway… it had been an hour since he'd last gotten away to check… no, nothing, and, Black figured, throwing himself restlessly onto the armchair, that it was very unlikely he had missed anything. It had been two months. There was a pattern now. He got up and paced, which calmed him down a little, and he was seated and composed when Lupin returned.

Black badly needed someone to distract his mind from thoughts of his maddeningly silent mirror. He decided to waste that little card that he had been saving as a trump. After all, he was not very patient, couldn't quite remember why he had been sitting on this observation anymore, and anyway was sure he could distract Lupin some other way if the need ever arose. Mildly, he hid a grin and said, "Well, damn it all."

"Hmm?" Lupin's back was to him, as he was closing a window.

"Well, I thought you would leave with her to finish the business I expect you two started out there."

Lupin turned to give him a quizzical look. It was also a wary look, but it wasn't obvious except to those experienced in scaling the intricate walls of Lupin's defences.

"Well," said Black, voice innocent and off-hand, "you are keen on her, aren't you?"

There were certain subtle muscles in Lupin's jaw twitching in the most satisfying fashion. "Come on, Remus, really." Black watched with a lazy smirk as Lupin's mind obviously raced trying to find a graceful way to extricate himself from this that Black wouldn't see through. "You've got to remember that I'm around again and I know you too damn well for you to get away with stuff like this… Ha! Look. You're annoyed with me…" Black chuckled idly as Lupin turned back to the window. "I'm not at all taken in by this saintly professor bit everyone else believes in, you know." Black let a full minute pass in silence, just to turn the screw. "Just remember I'm quicker than you are with a wand, before you resort to anything violent."

My, this was enjoyable. Why hadn't he done it months ago?

Lupin had taken the couch opposite Black and now, at last, faced him with a pointed look. "No, Sirius. We were just talking."

Black shook his head sadly. "Poor girl. There she was waiting in a spidery, shadowy foyer for you to pounce and kiss the living daylights out of her, and all she got was a fascinating chat about the weather."

Instead of acknowledging the main point, Lupin said, blandly, "It wasn't about the weather."

"That's so?" Black put his feet on the coffee table, not without a familiar flare. "So what did you talk about, then?"

There was a pause while Lupin tilted his head to reflect. Then he looked at Black and said, ruefully, "Politics."

And Lupin made no protest when Black threw himself back and laughed. Lupin was a fair-minded man and knew full well that the joke was on him.

He let Black enjoy it and once the laughter had died down all he said was, "I'd really rather not discuss this further."

"Oh yeah? Something this good?" Black's face was lit as of old. "Just try to stop me, Lupin. Just try."

It reflected rather badly on Lupin that he was so sensitive about the subject that he took up the challenge.

"All right," he said, leaning back himself and smiling at his friend, "I'll give it a shot."

Black, quite happy with the parley, spread out his hands and smirked as if to say, Fire away.

"Where'd you hide that two-way mirror this time?" asked Lupin casually, and the light fled from Black instantly. "Must be somewhere in here, though I must say it was a surprise you didn't have it down in the basement all this evening. Flat on the mantelpiece? Under your cushion there? – ah," he said, nodding at the slightest twitch of Black's eyes. "Well, I was certainly hoping I didn't walk in on a conversation between you and Harry, but as I didn't hear anything outside the door there…"

"How'd you know about that?" asked Black, staring at him without expression, in rather a pale sort of voice.

Lupin waved a hand. "Oh, come on! Giving me a list of things to get from your Gringotts vault (the mirrors among them), being all secretive in your room the night before we sent them all off, pulling Harry aside the next morning, carrying a mirror on you wherever you go since – I never had your brilliance, Sirius, but I'm not blind," he laughed. "I suppose your days of not having to answer to anybody are over too."

Black pressed his lips together, glanced up into a random corner, and finally gave in to a sigh.

"Ha ha," he said, both good and ill natured at the same time. "Very good, Moony. You got me back."

Lupin's expression settled into something more serious. "I further suspect," he said, "that he hasn't been in touch."

Black laid himself out on the couch. "Right in one." He considered. "Now, if you're really good, you'll tell me why."

"He did what any of us would have done that don't want you recaptured," said Lupin sharply. "He broke it first thing so no one could use it to track you here."

Black snarled at the ceiling.

"Well, it's true."

"Isn't," said Black, feeling contrary ever since the tables had been turned. "Most of you lot wouldn't care. I know how I'm thought of. You think I didn't notice that this house is avoided like the plague? What the hell they're going to do when this war actually starts I don't know. Tonight? Tonks only ever lingers here for you. Me, she thinks I'm a miserable, sulky old wanker."

"Well," said Lupin gently, "you are… but we're not talking about Tonks, we're talking about Harry. He's knows an entirely different side of you. Don't kid yourself, Sirius; everyone can see that Harry is fonder of you than possibly anyone."

"Ron and Hermione."

"Yes, yes, I know, but that's… different… and I think you give even them some pretty stiff competition… point being, of course, it's ridiculous to say that Harry is eager to get rid of you. He still wants to move in with you, remember?"

"That was last summer. I'm telling you, Remus, when it was time for them to return to Hogwarts he was itching to go. He barely looked me in the eye when I gave him that mirror. I've blown it. The miserable sulky old wanker has blown it."

"You have not," said Lupin, a little impatiently; he was hoping that Sirius had not picked up on that, but he had. "He may have been a little annoyed with you; that doesn't mean he hates you now." There was a pause. Black seemed unconvinced, so Lupin cast about his memory for a good anecdotal clincher. "Remember the time I called your motorcycle 'lovely'?" Black didn't reply. Lupin forged on. "You were so disgusted that you wouldn't talk to me the rest of the night. But then you had a couple of days without being bothered by me and after that it was all over." Still no acknowledgment. "Sirius?" Lupin squinted; Black's face was all in shadow. "Come on, Padfoot, really – "

"Oh, relax," said Black, snickering. "I was laughing."

"Oh." Lupin was relieved. "Good."

"Yep." And he was laughing freely now. "Last time I've thought of that was fifteen years ago yet I still want to slug you across the face for it. A '65 Thruxton Bonnie 'lovely'! How you're managing to string along a trendy younger witch I'll never understand."