Chapter Fourteen: This'll Go Great With My New Piercing

It was late that same night—though it felt like a week had passed—and I was in the Head Girl's room, of all places.

Lily had come to find me up in the hospital wing, looking a bit awkward but prim as ever, to remind me that our tutoring session was tonight. I hadn't wanted to go, as I was the only one currently up there with Sirius, but he'd jokingly insisted that despite his paralysing fear of the dark and lack of cuddly stuffed animals to keep him company, he reckoned he'd be all right on his own until morning.

I was surprised, though oddly relieved, when Lily led me right past the library and we continued on upstairs. The last thing I wanted to do was study, but it might be a tad more bearable in a more relaxed and comfortable setting.

Aubrey was already there when we entered Lily's private room (huh… it was really bloody nice in here actually; perhaps being Head Girl had its advantage after all) and when she looked up from her textbook and spotted me there, her huge dark eyes instantly filled with tears and she leapt away from Lily's desk, launching herself at me.

"Remus Lupin told me what you did for me, and it's so awful what happened to your boyfriend, I can't believe you'd all do something like that for me, I don't deserve… oh, but thank you!" she howled, her voice muffled by my neck, her arms clutching round my ribs so tightly they all but creaked.

I patted her on the back, managing to wheeze out, "'Welcome."

She let go, backing away and turning red (actually, it would be more unusual and worth mentioning to say "Aubrey turned pale") and said, uncharacteristically stern, "You shouldn't have done that."

"I know," I said, with utter sincerity. "I wish we never had. There were better ways to teach him a lesson. We could have reported him for roughing you up, we—"

It was then I became aware of an odd squeaking, gasping noise behind me, and I twisted round in astonishment to stare at Lily, who was clutching her bedpost for support and silently laughing so hard tears were trickling from the corners of her eyes.

She held up a thick, glossy paper wordlessly, as if in explanation for her curious behaviour, shoulders still trembling with what was rapidly developing into an all-out belly laugh.

"You…" she gasped breathlessly between gales of cackling laughter, "…you have to… hahahaaha… admit that it…it was really… hahahahaaa… bloody… funny!"

I snatched the paper from her hand, and turned it over to see what it was.

Snape's face, abnormally blissful and relaxed, stared back up at me with a slightly dim expression (the effect of being unconscious, I thought.) On his head sat crookedly a gold-paper crown, emblazoned across which were the words: "King of Stupid Tits." Rather well-drawn, with admittedly excellent penmanship (Sirius had done a top job, though there had been no need to tell him so, thereby inflating his already sizeable ego), was a speech bubble next to Snape's mouth that declared, "Bow to me, Reigning Patriarch of my fellow tits, and Snogger of my own Greasy, Poofter's Arse. Mudbloods beware, for I may sully your sanguineous impurities with my own lunacy. Merlin forbid."

And directly behind him, stuck to the wall and revealed in the remaining two inches or so of empty frame, was a large portrait of Snape himself rolling and flailing about in a puddle of slimy brown mud, and several witches and wizards (clearly Muggleborn, telling by their attire) staring at him with pitying expressions on their faces and backing away slowly. On one of the wizard's t-shirts, barely distinguishable but yet another of Sirius' ingenious additions, was the slogan, "Say NO to demonic possession."

Underneath was a picture of the Grim.

I choked on a sob, my throat seizing up and vision blurring suddenly. Rigid fingers crumpling the edges of the photograph, I made a determined effort to push back the tears, and it only took about ten seconds for me to succeed.

"Well," I said, turning round to face the other two with a falsely bright and cheery smile—one that wobbled only a little— "I think we got our point across quite clearly, eh?"

Aubrey put an arm around me while Lily, looking very solemn now, took a large stack of photos from her bureau drawer, and we watched on as she systematically torched the lot.

That had been over two hours ago, and though the acrid smell of smoke still lingered in the air, I was doing my best to think of anything else besides Sirius—or Snape, for all that, and what I was going to do to him once we met face to face again. This was no longer a matter of principal, or a moral issue. This was personal; this was war.

"You look a bit mad," Lily remarked, returning from walking Aubrey back to her dorm. "Crazy-like." She twirled a finger next to her temple and rolled her eyeballs to illustrate.

I barely heard her. "James told me he thinks he's at fault for what happened," I said aloud, my voice sounding hollow and foreign to my own ears. "He told me he shouldn't have said anything to goad Snape on, he should have just hexed him, clean and simple. He said it's because of him that Sirius almost… it's because of him."

"And is it?" Lily wanted to know, sliding down the edge of the bed to settle on the floor next to me.

I looked at her. "Maybe," I decided, after a moment. "James didn't curse Sirius. It wasn't his wand that performed the spell, he never said the words. But yes, maybe he is a little bit at fault. No more than I am, though."

Her brows rose, curving like ruby question marks. "What in heaven's name did you do to make Snape hit Sirius Black with such a Dark spell?"

"I had a big hand in getting those pictures made. If I'd not done my part, I can't see how they'd have managed it otherwise. And it was the photos that drove Snape over the edge; you saw him."

"The way I look at it," Lily began slowly—and I listened more carefully, because for all her other various misgivings, she could usually be counted on for a bit of comforting logic in times of uncertainty— "is that Sirius Black can be a very irritating sort of person."

I blinked. "I fail to see your point."

"Well, he was bound to make Severus angry enough to hex his balls off at some point, wasn't he? Lucky it happened when it did, with so many capable teachers and medical help at hand."

Lily Evans was looking on the bright side of things. Assuming I hadn't, in fact, finally and completely lost it, I could have sworn she was being openly optimistic.

And not by accident.

When had my life decided to turn itself upside-down? And without my express permission, too. Inconsiderate prig, my life.

"Sirius Black nearly died this morning," she went on philosophically, ignoring the funny choking sound I made. "I recognised that spell Severus used, no idea how he could have possibly learnt it without someone purposely teaching it to him, and who would give a seventeen-year-old boy that kind of destructive power? Anyway, my point is that, now he's been exposed, I think they'll be watching him a lot closer from here on in. And so will I. So if he tries anything, expect to see him end up on the fast train to Azkaban." Lily smiled happily at the thought. "Hell, I'll be his send-off. We could make a banner."

I stared at her in incredulous silence for a long moment, before dropping my head on her shoulder and shutting my eyes in a silent, weary gesture of gratitude.

There was one advantage to the world as I knew it going completely off-kilter. It made Lily Evans start off on a vendetta I could really get behind. I was feeling incredibly low and down in the dumps after what had happened to Sirius (after all, Reality wasn't a very enjoyable stranger to be forced to suddenly become acquainted with), but female solidarity and naughty little gits getting their comeuppance and—most importantly—quite a lot of potential to witness a thorough arse-kicking, were all my idea of the upside of being down.

Feeling like total rubbish, Sirius and the rest of us may be; fucked, we were not.

The week following went by both in a blurred series of events, and at an agonisingly slow drag. Lessons were a joke; even my Arithmancy course couldn't capture my total attention, as it had so easily before. Ackerman had looked personally affronted when he'd inquired of me the third Miserian Theory in relation to linear spells, and my reply had been an exhausted, "Oh, who bloody cares?"

Tutoring was in all probability the only time I actually learned anything, because Lily and Aubrey seemed to have taken it upon themselves to be my keepers, and neither would take any of my shit, which was a bit disconcerting to me, but probably good for me in the long run.

I even managed to pass a Charms test Tuesday morning, about which Remus, James and Peter (who still didn't know about my tutoring) couldn't quite understand why I was so happy, but they were nevertheless properly congratulatory.

My improved mood was not to last, however. I, along with James, Remus, Peter and several others, were pulled out of class during the last period of the day to Dumbledore's office, where we were asked to make signed statements as to the occurrences of yesterday morning, through our own eyes. The Headmaster seemed calm and pleasant as ever, but it was my only visit to his office that I could recall where I was in and out in less than ten minutes—no idle chatter, no subtle jabs; no admonishing words, even.

I scribbled out my version of events quickly, stony-faced but steady-handed, scrawled my signature on the bottom, then handed the parchment to him, finishing just after Remus. After that, it was "Thank you and goodbye" and we all left to return to our classes. I didn't know what was to become of Snape, but I thought I spotted him in the halls between classes one afternoon, so I could only assume Lily hadn't yet gotten her wish.

And I'd been so looking forward to making that banner.

Most of my free time was spent with Sirius in the infirmary. He seemed suitably pleased to see me each time I came in—especially when I'd brought food—, but it was on Thursday night that I realised maybe I wasn't the best company at the moment—what with the stress and the unresolved anger and guilt—and pressing myself on him when he was injured and therefore unable to run away was perhaps a bit unfair.

This became apparent to me when James and Peter decided to stand guard outside the hospital wing, and refused to let me enter— "As per Padfoot's request that he have one night without an hysterical female for company."

I was not exactly warmed to hear such a thing spoken in reference to my own (entirely non-hysterical, I assure you) person, but they refused to budge, and anyway, if Sirius didn't want to see me, the bugger could bloody well rot for all I cared.

I ended up having quite a lot of fun with Aubrey that night (Lily had rounds, but was also avoiding James, who had taken to following me now that he knew I was getting chummier with the love of his life and had indeed asked me to see if I couldn't "put in a good word" for him with her. Shameless arse.)

Saturday night, Sirius was released from Madam Pomfrey's care, and I went to bed early rather than participate in the celebrations the lads had planned (I was still a little tetchy about Sirius' refusal to see me the night before, even if Lily had pointed out that I'd been acting like a co-dependant saddo.)

(Which was a total lie.)

Though I was unsure of the exact time, I was awoken during the night by someone climbing into bed with me. I couldn't see a thing, but even groggy and disoriented, I recognised his smell, wintry and faintly electric.

Sirius slid under the blankets, his body warm against my back, and gathered me close with both arms. He was fully-clothed, but I was aware of every line of his body, much as I tried not to be.

I didn't move, and we were both silent for so long, I thought he must have just fallen asleep. His fingers, curled lightly against my ribs, were warm and very distracting through the thin material of my t-shirt, even though they stayed perfectly still. My chest felt oddly constricted and soothed at the same time, but I never once thought of making him leave. The remorse was still a bit too overpowering for that.

"I'm sorry," I whispered into the darkness, at the same time that he pressed his mouth to the back of my neck and murmured the same words.

Rolling over to face him, his arms still encircling me, I rested my head in the crook of his shoulder, hooked his leg with my knee, and then closed my eyes, breathing him in, with the intention of going right back to sleep.

He kissed me after a moment, just a soft, warm pressure of his lips, and rested his forehead against mine. His breath tickled the sensitive skin between my lower lip and chin, and I tilted my face downward so that the ridge of my brow rested there instead.

"Guess what?" he whispered, and I felt him sift his fingers through my hair.

"What?" I whispered back, my mouth curling against his collarbone.

"You smell good."

My lips twitched and I made a soft humming noise, letting my tongue dip into the hollow at the base of his throat; I broke out into a full-blown smile when his breathing snagged. Slanting my head, I scraped my teeth along the side of his neck, over the vein that stood out slightly in relief there, and pressed myself closer to him when he shivered convulsively.

"Guess what? You taste pretty good," I returned, my voice low.

Sirius shifted abruptly so that I was sprawled on top of him. His mouth lifted to meet mine, open and hot, when I lowered my head to capture it. The heat spread immediately from my middle all the way down to my toes, and up to my cheekbones, suffusing my skin so that I felt consumed by it. I loved this sudden heightening of the senses, the way every nerve-ending caught fire. And I loved how it had only ever been this way with him.

After a week like the one just passed, I was eager, by rights, for a bit of a break; with Christmas fast approaching, I was having some trouble containing my impatient excitement for the hols.

The stress wasn't over yet, however. It was full moon tonight, and with Sirius out of the hospital wing, the lads were planning as ever to embark on one of their traditional "forays into the wild". I tried to dissuade Sirius from going, because he wasn't quite at his best yet—something made obvious last night, when I only tried to prop myself up with a hand on his chest and he made a sound like wounded animal—and yes, I did consider the fact that I was simply a fat cow and had crushed his liver or some other crucial organ with my immense bulk, but I'd done that plenty of times before (put my weight on his chest, I mean, not crush his organs) and he'd never reacted that way before.

But when I pointed this out to him—with perfect rationality and tact—he just looked at me like I had at last gone round the twist, and said, "They need me with them."

And so that was the end of that.

Remus was looking off all day, his skin seeming more tightly stretched over his bones; his movements jumpier and yet somehow more fluid; his eyes more yellow than gold. It was fascinating to witness, but you couldn't help wondering the sorts of things going through his mind leading up to the transformation.

Was he scared, even after so many years? Did he still dread the pain of bones and joints and tendons shifting and breaking and re-knitting, the all-over itch of coarse, sprouting fur, the terrible, mad knowledge of what was happening to him, yet again?

He had told me once, when we were younger, what it felt like to become the wolf, and even then I think he was almost sugar-coating it a bit, for my sake. It was just one of many reasons I loved Remus Lupin: even when he was cursed with such a life-altering burden, and had every right to be bitter and hateful towards the world in general, he took into consideration other people's sensitivities.

Usually on the day of the full-moon, he and I would spend a few hours alone together, as the lads would have him all night, and I wanted him to myself for a little while. He'd said once that being with me before helped to calm him, and I had never forgotten that, nor the way him admitting to something like that had made me feel.

Today, we were out by the lake, bundled up in cloaks, boots, mitts, hats—the whole shebang, as it was bloody freezing. We had spread thick, woollen blankets on the hard, frozen ground, cast a few Heating Charms, broke out the hot chocolate, and settled in for an afternoon of it.

On the day of the full moon, Dumbledore always fully relieved Remus of his prefect duties, and I knew he was looking forward to a day of leisure and enjoyment before his own personal hell set in—a description that was fairly accurate, though James liked to refer to it simply as Remus' "furry little problem." I thought this might be avoiding the issue a bit, but was nonetheless surprisingly thoughtful of my thick-headed-by-reputation cousin.

In the case of emotional issues anyway. His marks were certainly decent enough.

"You didn't put milk in this, did you?" I asked, sniffing my mug and letting the steam warm the tip of my numbed nose.

"Of course not, it's all dark chocolate. Sirius tried to add a bit of, er… something else to it, but no milk ever got past my watchful eye," he assured me, leaning comfortably back against our tree trunk.

I settled back also, satisfied with his answer, and proceeded to scald my tongue blissfully with the first sip.

Eyes watering, I glanced over and saw that Remus had closed his own, a thoroughly peaceful expression on his face.

"Oi, Remus, you haven't gone and died on me, have you?" I demanded, only half-joking, nudging his ankle with my foot (after what had happened to Sirius, my thoughts had turned a bit morbid and pessimistic of late.)

The corner of his mouth twitching upwards told me otherwise. "No, I—ahhh…" His face suddenly became drawn, as if he was in a great deal of pain, and he went sort of rigid, the groove between his brows deepening.

Despite my knowledge that he often got pangs or echoes of what was to come in the hours before moonrise, I couldn't help the jolt of fear and the concern in my voice when I reached out and said, "Remus?"

"F-Fine," he said, his voice a bit unsteady. I could see him visibly reigning his composure back in, and he repeated, his tone much firmer, "I'm fine. Just… you know."

"Okay…" I leaned slowly back against the tree, my gaze trained on him, and asked instead conversationally, "So how's the whole prefect thing working for you?"

He laughed, sounding surprised and delighted at the same time, and I was pleased to see the lingering pain ease away from his features.

In our fifth year, when Remus had first been made a prefect, we had all given him a hard time for being a traitor and for "going over to the other side." He had assured us that he most definitely had not, that we were being ridiculous, and he was still our friend, even if he meant to take this responsibility bestowed upon him seriously.

For the first month or so, none of us were really sure what to think, afraid to do any rule-breaking in case Remus decided to snitch on us after all. For all that first month, every morning or at some point in the day, one of us would ask dubiously, "How's the whole prefect thing working for you?" And he would always reply—

"Don't worry, I haven't thrown you to the wolves yet."

"Good." I returned Remus' grin, then sipped some more hot chocolate, feeling all of the sudden completely relaxed and content. "Remus?"

"Tia."

"Have I ever told you I… well, that you mean quite a lot to me?"

He looked over, surprise registering in his eyes beneath the wool cap he wore, which had caused wispy, light-brown hair to scatter over them. Then he gave me a crooked, pleased sort of smile and said, slowly, "You haven't. But I think I've always known."

"Oh. Because you do. Mean a lot to me, I mean. All you lads do."

He nodded, gazing off at the black, smooth-as-glass surface of the frozen lake with a serene expression.

I waited a moment, my heart beating a little fast. When he said nothing, I nudged him with an elbow and prompted, "Well?"

He glanced at me in curiosity. "Well, what?"

I blinked—at the shock of how much it hurt to put your heart on the line and then have it go completely unacknowledged like that. Remus—of all people—I'd thought—fuck.

"Never mind," I muttered, setting aside my mug and starting to get up, my face burning with anger and embarrassment. I had only just rolled up onto my knees when his hands closed around my wrist. It was—as always—very warm, and I could feel his body heat through my sleeve.

"Tia—"

"No, don't worry about it," I told him quickly, trying to sound off-hand and failing horribly when my voice trembled childishly.

His fingers tightened a fraction and it felt like he barely had to pull at all before I'd toppled back over and he had risen to his own knees to grip my shoulders and stare directly into my eyes. His look was gentle, but intense, in that way that was unique to Remus Lupin. So many things were.

"You want me to say it back, is that it?" he asked, voice soft with an odd, underlying fierceness that made the fine hairs on my forearms rise as I shivered irresistibly.

I shrugged sulkily and mumbled something noncommittal.

"I won't say it back, Tia, because it's not what I feel. You don't 'mean quite a lot to me'," he went on, effectively throwing the words back in my face, with sudden, simple cruelty.

I blinked again, my lips parting on an expelled, shocked breath, as if he'd just punched me in the stomach. I wouldn't have been able to say anything if I'd wanted to. What the hell was he doing? Remus wasn't like this; even on full moon, my Remus wouldn't—

"James and Sirius are best friends," he continued, in that same even, determined tone—and going rather off topic, if you asked me. "I'm very close to them both, but I can never have what they've got together. I'll never quite belong to that, have as much a part of that as they do. And Peter idolises James. He's a good friend, too, but if he had to choose between us, well… it's not much of a contest, is it?"

I was silent and still staring, utterly confused at this point.

He wasn't finished, though. His eyes, that oddly beautiful yellow that I still wasn't accustomed to after so many full moons, flickered over my face, then settled on my own gaze again, softened this time; his fingers digging into my shoulders were as unyielding as ever, though.

"But you, Tia," he continued, almost urgently, "you're just you; untouched, unclaimed. Sirius' girlfriend, James' cousin, Peter's mate to muck about with. But you're still just Tia, and you have never been anything else in my eyes. I love you, which goes a bit beyond 'meaning quite a lot' to me, I think."

I goggled at him, mouth now hanging wide open, feeling totally blown away by this unexpected admission. It was nearly a full minute before I was able to find my voice (even if it was more than a bit shaky and hardly sounded like mine.)

"You're… you're in love with me?" I squeaked in disbelief.

It was his turn to gape in shock. "In—in love with you? No! I said I love you, not that I'm… interested in you romantically." He blushed at the very idea.

"Oh. Oh." I blushed also, experiencing an oddly pleased, sort of squishy feeling inside. "Well. In that case, I love you too. That's sort of what I meant before, when I said… that thing… er… well, now you've made it sound really stupid," I finished, breathless with exasperation.

"Insignificant," he corrected, almost reflexively.

"Yeah," I responded dryly. I deflated suddenly, a relieved grin blooming on my face. "Shitting arse fuck, Lupin, you scared the hell out of me. Imagine telling Sirius that one of his best mates fancies me in a serious way."

Remus laughed, clearly relieved as well after having got that settled and off his chest. "Er… no, I'd like to keep my teeth where they presently are, thanks anyway."

A short while later, it had gotten quite a bit colder, and the air held a comfortable, cosy sort of silence, as if it were thicker than usual.

Remus and I opted to move away from the lake, as the wind coming off it was bitterly cold and getting to be a bit much, its slick surface acting as a sort of slipstream generator, with us caught in the middle of it.

I suggested, genius that I was, that we move higher up in the already frigid atmosphere (though for his part, Remus didn't exactly veto this idea.)

Thus, we ended up on the very top of Gryffindor Tower, having "borrowed" a pair of brooms from the school games shed by way of great stealth and sneakiness (i.e., I distracted Hagrid with my dazzling wit and incredible good looks, while Remus made off with the broomsticks and then hid in the outer-edge of the forest to wait for me.)

Once again bundled in our blankets, Heating charms doubled and with an ever-replenishing supply of hot chocolate at hand, we chatted happily and aimlessly as another hour passed.

"I've decided to tell my mum I want an electric guitar for Christmas," I announced, through the small hole I'd left in my cocoon of blankets so that just my nose and mouth were exposed. I took a sip of chocolate, quite proud of the little set-up I had going.

"Tia," Remus said, his tone extremely bland. "You are tone-deaf. In fifth year, you accidentally handed in Octavia Perks' sheet-music for your Arithmancy homework. And you once asked Professor McGonagall if she thought the whole 'different keys thing' was really that necessary. One was more than enough to do the job, you said."

I sipped again, with perfect propriety to show just how unaffected I was to hear that other people had, in fact, heard about that little momentary intellectual lapse of mine, in my fifth year. McGonagall still sniggered a bit whenever she bolted or unlocked a door.

"Yes, well. Obviously I won't actually attempt to play it. But I just want to see the look on Dad's face when I open it Christmas morning and say, 'Wicked! This'll go great with my new piercing.' And we shall sit back and take bets on which vein in his forehead pops first."

My father, with his Irish temper and rather overprotective nature, could be more than sufficient entertainment for an otherwise dull holiday. Mum and I often had a laugh at his expense, though I was fairly certain—fairly—that he knew it was all in good fun. He hadn't booted me out of the house yet, at any rate.

"You are a diabolical and patricidal child," Remus informed me and, ploughing right over my delighted cackles with a contradicting gleam in his eye, went on, "No, I'm completely serious. I really do think you will end up nowhere good. Fifteen years from now, I can see you in either the gaol or dead from finally having consumed your own weight in chocolate."

"Oh, you're one to talk, Remus Lupin. We get the same order from Honeyduke's every month, and who is it always ends up having to give the rest of hers away to Peter because she can't eat it all herself? The answer is me, Remus, because you are not a 'she'. However, if you've been keeping something from me for seven years and are indeed a she, then now is the time to confess the truth, when it would be convenient to push me off the Tower and have the double advantage of relieving yourself of a terrible secret and silencing your sole witness forevermore."

Remus stared at me for a long moment with an incredulously appalled sort of expression, then reached over and slowly but firmly pried the mug from my gloved fingers. "You are not to have any more chocolate. From this point on, you are cut off. If I hear that you have had more, I will track you down and quote Shakespeare at you. In a clippy, stuck-up accent. Is that what you want, Tia? Do you want to bring that upon yourself?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "You wouldn't dare. You know I can't stand 'Hamlet' in a clippy accent, if you dared t—oi! Don't dump it, I haven't finished dr—"

"'Frailty, thy name is woman! A little month, or ere those—'"

"Aaagh! Shut up! Bugger, all right, have the sodding chocolate. I don't care if you… you—what—Remus, is it snowing?" I pushed back my makeshift hood to get a better look at the sky, which did indeed seem to be a sudden swirling grey mass of fluffy, pristine flakes.

He smiled. "It looks that way."

I threw aside the folds of my blanket and stood up, face upturned to catch the first of the lazily descending flakes on my nose. A silly grin spread across my face.

"It is snowing! I didn't realise it was supposed to today, or I'd have brought more blankets."

Remus had stood up as well, his hands in his pockets, looking pleased with my reaction to the abrupt change in weather. "I could sort of tell it was coming. You know, because of full moon. As it gets nearer I can almost feel in my bones all the subtle changes, the way the sky moves, like a tugging, a light sort of pressure… and now I sound even more out of my mind than you do."

I shook my head, smiling at him over my shoulder as the snow continued to fall. "I believe you. And I think I understand. This is really wonderful, Remus, thank you."

He shrugged, seeming a bit uncomfortable now. "It's not as if I can control the weather. I just thought you might like to be out here when the first snow came, instead of stuck inside the Three Broomsticks or someplace."

"You thought right. It's beautiful, isn't it? I know I'm going to hate it once it melts a bit and makes a slushy mess of the grounds, but now, when it's still all white and clean… Sirius will want to have a snow-fight, I expect." I wrinkled my nose, secretly not really minding the idea, but imagining the state I'd been in afterwards, and wondering if James was planning to use his broom and Chaser skills in another blatant display of unashamed and unsportsmanlike cheating, same as last year.

If such was the case, then Sirius was definitely on my team, and he was definitely using his Beater's bat for like purposes.

Satisfied with this decision, I lowered myself down and settled back against the over-hanging Tower wall, gathering my blanket about me again. When Remus did the same, I shifted and laid my head on his thigh, so that I could continue looking up at the snowy sky, not minding when the flakes caught in my eyelashes and brows, and then melted, soaking them with cold water that dripped into my eyes and trickled down my temples into my hair.

I thought of the lads out in the snow tonight, with Sirius not quite healed, and Peter, small as he was in Animagus form, all of them in the bitter cold—for surely the temperature would drop even further than this once the sun had set, and without these extra Heating charms.

I knew it was futile to try and argue against them going—and I also hadn't the heart to convince them all to stay behind, leaving Remus alone tonight—but the worrying didn't stop. Even if they'd proven time and time again they were quite capable of taking care of themselves, there was still the odd, irrefutable occasion when they'd managed to fuck it up royally, and these were usually the thoughts running through my mind over and over when they went out on full moon, rather than their far more numerous successful "nature romps".

"You lot be careful tonight, eh?" I pleaded, turning my head a fraction to look up at the underside of Remus' nose. Though a bit red from the cold, it was tidy like the rest of him, and I was gladly spared from viewing anything I'd have rather not seen.

His lips twitched, and he leaned his head back against the over-hang. "Well…" He sighed deeply. "I won't say I'll try, because, let's face it—I'll be having far too much fun to think about caution." His tone was self-deprecating and ironic all at once; once again in that so-very-Remus way.

I wished he wouldn't do that, but I laughed like I knew he wanted for me to do, and replied, "Ah yes, but you're the responsible one, Remus—you've got to keep those hairy beasts in check. God knows what kind of dangerous shite they'd get into without you around."