Tonks was late home that night. At six o'clock, Calvin started to make dinner in the kitchen. He had left Remus alone to read the newspaper, something for which Remus was rather grateful, and finally spoke to ask if Remus would like something to eat. In short order, they were both tucking into a shepherd's pie. When Remus asked about Tonks, Calvin said, "Even Tonks can manage a re-heating charm!"

After that, Remus did not have the energy to start a conversation, and Calvin seemed perfectly content to remain in silence. After they had finished eating, Remus noted that Calvin started to get more and more agitated, and kept glancing at the clock. Just as Remus was about to ask what the problem was, the fireplace roared into life, and he spotted Tonks' head there. Calvin had rushed over as soon as he heard the first crackle, and crouched in front of the fire, obscuring Remus' view. He stepped back, but still listened in to the conversation.

"Hi Cal," said Tonks. "Sorry, it's been a crazy day and I'm not sure when I'm going to be back. In fact, I can only talk for a few seconds."

"No problem. I'll be at the Green Dragon until eleven-thirty, and then I will be straight back. Okay?"

"I've got it, Calvin. Have a good evening."

"You too, Tonks. Come out if you're not back too late."

With that, her head disappeared from view. Calvin turned and ooked at Remus. "It looks like it was a pretty bad day." He paused, and then said, "I'm off to work now. Come along."

Remus did not really want to accept. It had been a difficult day and he was low on funds, particularly Muggle money. In addition, conversation with Calvin was like trying to draw blood from a stone. Calvin refused to take no for an answer though, finally saying that Tonks would not like it if he left Remus all alone. Remus gave up arguing eventually, and was dragged out of the house about two seconds later.

The pub was literally only five minutes walk away. As they approached, Calvin said, "At least we didn't have to worry about your clothes; you dress more Muggle than most wizards."

Remus shrugged and did not reply; Muggle clothes were a lot easier to get hold of, and for a better price. The pub itself was a large place with two main rooms. It was nothing at all like a wizarding pub. The main room had tables clustered round the edges and a small space packed with people standing in groups, shouting. They had to shout to be heard above the music. Remus had never heard anything like it before; it was considerably worse than the Weird Sisters in his opinion. Calvin grabbed his arm and dragged him through the throng to the second room. This was still pretty noisy, with the music carrying through, but conversations could actually be held in here.

Calvin led him to the bar, which connected through to the first room, and said, "I figured you'd prefer this side, although if I'm wrong, feel free to go through!" He grinned at that, and his whole demeanour seemed to shift to Remus, to a kind of childish mischievousness. The flash was soon gone though. "I'm just going to sign in, and I'll drop by when I can." And then he was gone.

Remus took a seat at the bar, and surveyed the drinks. There were some pumps for beer and lager, and then some bottles of wine, and a whole array of drinks with names that sounded positively poisonous. He particularly didn't like the translucent blue liquid that was stocked in a set of small bottles. It reminded him of a nasty potion he had learned to brew at school, used to remove warts.

When one of the serving staff approached, he ordered a beer, and was served a nice enough pint of bitter. He sipped at it slowyly, and thought about all that had happened. He did not think that he would be able to go home; he would ask Tonks if he could stay over, and then tomorrow he could think about sorting out something else. He should also try and get in touch with his fellow werewolves. He hoped that none of them had been hurt, as he imagined that his wake-up call this morning had been repeated at several other homes across the country. He had been very lucky to get away unharmed. Idly, he wondered if anything would happen to the editor of the Daily Prophet, but that seemed rather unlikely to him. The leak of the information from the Werewolf Registry had probably been a deliberate policy move by the relevant Ministry official in any case. For some reason, Remus had always found that the people who worked in the Department for Magical Creatures were very anti-werewolf. At least the Wizengamot had stood up for werewolf rights, in some form or another. Remus supposed that Harry was behind that manoeuvre. Remus acknowledged silently that that did not help the children who had been taken two days previously.

Before he could continue down that line of thought, a click of the fingers startled him. Calvin was standing across the bar from him, smirking. He leaned on the bar, and said, "How's your beer, Remus?"

"Not too bad, thanks. Nice place. Do you work here often?"

"You could say that. Hang on a moment." Calvin rushed over to serve a customer. After about half an hour there was another lull in demand, and Calvin headed back over, accompanied by the other bartender. This was another young man, of about Calvin's age, with a broken nose and blond hair gelled into spikes. Remus noted that the tips had been dyed pink. It did not really suit the blond's colouring, making him look washed out.

Calvin waved at Remus and said, "So, this is Remus Lupin. He's an old flame of Tonks." He glanced sidelong at Remus to see how he reacted, but Remus did not move. "Remus, this is my good friend Bobby." His lips twitched, as if he wanted desperately to laugh.

Bobby stuck out his hand. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Lupin." They shook hands, and then Bobby said, "So, you're sniffing round old Tonks again, then, are you? Can't say as that I blame you. Lovely woman."

Remus stiffened, thinking that Bobby had laid a subtle emphasis on the word 'sniffing', but then decided that he was over-reacting. "Oh no. I was in the area, and thought I'd drop by and say hello, but she's still at work."

"Yeah, she works too hard. She needs someone to look after her." He winked jokily.

Remus said, "Well, it seems that Calvin is doing his bit. He's a pretty good cook.'

"That he is, but he's family. It's not the same. Well, excuse me, Mr. Lupin, I have to get back to work." The blond turned to go to the other side of the bar, waving to another customer. As he arrived, Remus saw him start to laugh hysterically, and felt mildly perturbed, before deciding that he was just being paranoid.

At eleven o'clock Calvin called last orders, and the unhappy punters started to leave. Remus sat waiting for Calvin to finish tidying up. Bobby said, "Hey, Cal, do you want to go clubbing next weekend?"

The black-haired young man shrugged. "I wouldn't mind, but I'm a bit short on cash at the moment."

Bobby said, "No problem. I just won the lottery." He fished a ticket out of his back pocket, all the while smiling rather toothily.

Calvin rubbed his eyes wearily. "Bobby, you can't keep doing that. You should stop playing."

Bobby looked rather affronted. "Hey, I won fair and square, man. Three hundred squids."

"Three hundred pounds? That's still a fair bit, Bobby."

"So, you want to go? We can head into central London. Do some dancing."

"I'd love to. I'll see if I can get the okay." Calvin looked over at Remus. "Mr. Lupin, how about you? Fancy some clubbing?"

Remus looked at the pair of them, and sensed that he was the butt of a joke. "Oh, no thank you. It's all a bit beyond me."

Calvin grinned again, and then hung up his towel. "Alright, let's go. See you later, Bobby."

As they walked back, Remus, feeling oddly cheered, decided to ask. "So, what's clubbing then, in the Muggle sense?"

They arrived back at 54 Mulligan Street just before eleven-thirty. Tonks was at home, although Remus could easily see that she was very tired. She did not look surprised to see him, but nodded, and then said, "Hello again, Remus."

"Hi. Sorry to drop in on you like this unannounced. I came by earlier, and Calvin took me with him to the pub."

Tonks waved away his words. "I was sent over to your house this afternoon. To be honest, I was a bit worried about you. It was a bit of mess. The folks there said you leapt out of a window and ran off." She blinked suddenly and looked away at the windows. "I'm glad you're okay, Remus."

Remus held his arms out. "See, I'm fine." She grinned at that. "Hard day at work?"

"And then some. After we got hold of a copy of the Daily Prophet, it was too late to do anything about it. We were getting calls from people all over the country. All we've been able to do is clean up. I've been round to most of the houses. As it's known that I'm not anti-werewolf, I was asked to try to find as many werewolves as I could. The Ministry would prefer to know where you all are, rather than have you chased out of your homes."

Remus sat down in an available chair, rather heavily. "All of the places listed were attacked?"

Tonks nodded. "I'm sorry, Remus. I didn't have much luck finding anyone either. They'd all gone to ground. Not that I'd have done much different myself." Calvin came in from the kitchen, bearing three mugs of tea. Tonks took hers gratefully. "But all we have now is a bunch of scared werewolves, a lot of scared people, and no guarantee that anyone will transform securely next full moon."

Remus said gently, "Most of the werewolves that I know will go to great lengths to transform safely. They don't want anyone else to suffer like they do."

Tonks said, "Most, Remus, most. It's the rest that I have to worry about. This will make it even harder to track down whoever was responsible for that murder." She looked up at Remus. "I placed in a request yesterday for any info on Quadrille Beaufort. Nothing came up."

Remus said, "I went to see him yesterday, actually, at Sorrel's. He works there."

Tonks looked annoyed. "You went to see him? A suspect? Merlin, Remus, how's that going to help?"

Remus cringed slightly at her tone. "I didn't say anything about the murders, Tonks. I just went to check up on his smell, to check that I wasn't mistaken. I had a reason to go anyway. I usually take a message to his daughter after the full moon, and he didn't give me one last time. Anyway, you don't believe a word of it, so why should you care." His fists were now clenched.

"Calm down, Remus. I'm sorry. It's been a tough day. I'm sure you didn't give anything away. So, what was your nose judgement?"

"My nose told me the same thing as last time. That it was Quadrille. He said that he'd had a rough transformation. Been very tired. Somehow, and I don't know how, it was him. But he doesn't know."

Tonks rubbed her forehead, looking incredibly weary. Remus suddenly thought that she needed a hug. She said, "So, what exactly happens at Sorrel's? You guys go in, you take your potion. You go to your cell, and you transform. That's it?"

Remus grimaced. "Well, I would prefer not to use the word cell, but that's basically it. We get there early, and take the Wolfsbane."

"Wait a minute," Tonks interrupted. "I thought that Wolfsbane had to be taken two weeks in advance or something."

"That was the old version. In the new improved version, you can take it a few hours before. I hadn' had this new version before going to Sorrel's. It even tastes better than the old one! Although that might just have been Snape's version, specially brewed for me."

Tonks looked interested at that. "New version. Right, I remember now. Developed, what, three years ago? By someone in the Ministry?"

"Yes, Bletchley. He's younger than you, you know. Supposedly a potions genius."

"So what's different about the potion then? Apart from the sweetness. Or maybe... Yes, that should be the first line of investigation, I think. Checking out the potion."

Remus was quite surprised. "You mean you're actually going to follow this up?"

Tonks was slightly offended. "I'm an Auror, Remus. I try to find the truth. That means using all information available, even if it might be tricky to declare how I got that information." She was smiling by the end of the sentence. "So, are you going to stay here? We've got a spare bedroom."

"Oh, if I could that would be great. I don't have anywhere else to go this evening. I'll sort something else out tomorrow."

"No need. You're welcome to stay here. In fact, I insist." She smiled disarmingly. "I won't tell the Ministry where you are!"

Remus was reluctant to agree, not wanting to impose. Tonks did not press him. "So, how did you like the Green Dragon?"

"It seemed nice enough."

Calvin suddenly said, "It was a pretty quiet night."

Remus had jumped when Calvin spoke. He had forgotten that the lad was there. He flashed a glance at Tonks, worried that they had been indiscreet. She caught his eye, and then said, "Don't worry, Cal is the very soul of discretion." Remus was hardly reassured.

Calvin said, ignoring Tonks, "We met Bobby."

Remus noticed that Tonks looked confused. "Bobby? Who the hell ..." Remus was quite puzzled, but then Tonks' face cleared up. "Oh, of course, Bobby. He's a great guy."

"Yeah. He's won the lottery. He suggested going clubbing at the weekend to fritter away his three hundred pounds. Want to come?"

Tonks smiled. "Oh, I don't know. But you should go."

Calvin did a perfect impression of a whining child, "Thanks, Mum." Tonks sighed exasperatedly, and reached over to slap his knee.