Remus had found a public Muggle telephone box. Unfortunately, there were very few of the red cubicles left – most of them were now clear plastic, with the British Telecom logo embazoned on the door. Remus felt much more exposed in them. He dug out some Muggle change and called the three names on his list. To his surprise, all of them denied any knowledge of a Tom Stannard. They all made this denial without hesitation.

Remus could not think of any further avenue for this particular search for the moment, and decided to discuss it with Tonks that evening. As it was nearing lunchtime, he bought a sandwich at a small cafe and considered his plan for the afternoon. He had arranged to go to the Dantans at three thirty, which meant that after lunch he would have to visit the Channings straight away. He tried to remember if Marcus had ever said anything about his family, but he had only met him a couple of times, and they had never exchanged more than pleasantries.

Accordingly, he Apparated to a spot in Exeter that he knew, and walked a couple of miles to get to the Channings house. It was a rather large detached house, with reasonable gardens. It was also wrapped with a Muggle repelling charm. Remus walked up to the door and knocked. An old gentleman opened the door after several minutes, and blinked in confusion. "Good afternoon, young sir. How may I be of assistance?"

"Good afternoon. My name is Remus Lupin, and ..." Remus did not get any further.

"I know that name. You're one of those werewolves aren't you? No denying it; I can see it in your face." The old man drew himself up. "Please leave, or I shall be forced to summon the Aurors."

Remus swallowed and wrapped his hands together behind his back. "Please, sir. I'm here to talk to you about your son, Marcus."

The old man interrupted again, harshly. "I have no son." He moved to shut the door, but Remus dashed forward, slapping his hand on the wood to stop it from shutting.

"Mr. Channings, I am afraid that I have to tell you that your son is dead."

The old man snarled at him. "My son died a long time ago. Now, good day to you." And with that, he slammed the door in Remus' face.

Remus stayed in front of the door for a long moment, and then walked away, staring at the ground. His hands were trembling.

The Dantans were rather more welcoming. Edmund Dantan invited Remus in immediately, and even offered him a small glass of sherry, which Remus declined. Perched on the sofa, Remus said, "I am afraid that I am the bearer of bad news. I am extremely sorry to have to tell you that Dorothy is dead."

Edmund closed his eyes, and reached out to hold his wife's hand. After several seconds he looked up and Remus saw tears in his eyes. "We suspected as much when she didn't get in touch after her name appeared in the paper. Thank you for coming to tell us." He paused and looked away, overcome with grief.

Remus waited in uncomfortable silence, and then Mrs. Dantan said, "Did you know Dorothy at all, Mr. Lupin?"

"I'm afraid to say that I never had the pleasure."

"Oh. I thought you all had to go to Sorrel's Institution." Mrs. Dantan waved her hand vaguely, evidently avoiding the word 'werewolf'.

"Indeed, Mrs. Dantan. However, it is a large place, and I never saw her there."

"She mentioned your name a couple of times, you know. She thought you were very brave to keep pushing against the Ministry." That was Mr. Dantan.

Remus looked away. "I have accomplished very little, Mr. Dantan."

Mrs. Dantan said, "But you used to teach at Hogwarts, if I remember correctly, didn't you?"

Remus nodded, and then Mr. Dantan said, "Old Albus Dumbledore always had a fine word to say about you."

Remus looked up at that, the question obvious in his eyes. Before he could voice it, Mr. Dantan said, "Please, Mr. Lupin, tell us what you know of our daughter's death."

Remus nodded shakily. "I decided to check up on all of the names on that list, and to try to find out all that I could. Dorothy was not at her house, and it had clearly been ransacked by some of the locals. I asked around, and it became clear that she was dead, although whether by accident or wilful intent I do not know. After I had confirmed this from several people I did not stay to look for the body. Please forgive me."

Mr. Dantan smiled a rictus grin. "Don't talk nonsense, young man. I imagine that you did not want to stay there any longer than necessary." He glanced over at his wife and nodded. "We shall make the necessary arrangements, and I will push for a full investigation. I may no longer be on the Wizengamot, but I still have some pull at the Ministry."

Mrs. Dantan looked at Remus. "Thank you so much for coming to tell us this. It cannot have been easy for you. Our daughter was very important to us, and when she was afflicted during the war it was a terrible moment for us. However, she soon recovered, and seemed to be enjoying her life." She wiped away tears from her eyes.

Remus shuffled, feeling like a small boy, and said, "If you need any further information, please do not hesitate to get in touch. I did not know Dorothy personally, but I know many other visitors to Sorrel's, who might have known her."

"Thank you, Mr. Lupin," said Mr. Dantan gravely. "It may prove useful to have other information on others with your condition who were attacked at some point." He stood up, and Remus quickly matched him. "Well, I imagine that you have many other demands on your time, Mr. Lupin. I will be in touch."

He escorted Remus to the door, and closed it firmly. As Remus Apparated away he thought he heard a wail of grief from behind the door.

Tonks arrived home just as Calvin was serving dinner. Cal observed solemnly, "In the nick of time, I see."

She grinned, shrugged off her coat and pulled up a chair. Remus sat down opposite her, feeling a little stiff. She picked up her fork and twirled it round her fingers. Remus watched the sharp object carefully. "Friday night; always a good night. So, Cal, are you still off out tomorrow then?"

He nodded, but said no more. Tonks suddenly plunged her fork into the meat and potato pie on the plate rather exuberantly. Remus and Cal both flinched, and then glanced at each other sheepishly, before grinning slightly. Well, more of a smirk on Calvin's die, Remus decided. Remus then elected to take on the conversation. "Good day at work, honey?" He raised his eyebrow, letting humour bleed into the final word.

Tonks batted her eyelashes at him like a Muggle film star. "Why dearest, I didn't know you cared."

Remus flushed slightly, and then Tonks laughed. "I'm sorry Remus, I couldn't resist."

Remus shot a look at Calvin and was most put out to see the boy smirking even more.

Tonks tried to talk over the awkward moment. "I did, actually. Well, I was put to work on some smuggling cases, with Cassandra Jones. Apparently there's quite the lively trade in magical ingredients at the moment. That was so so. At lunch, I headed round to see some of my colleagues from the werewolf investigation, whilst Cicero wasn't looking, of course!

"Anyway, a couple of them weren't so happy that I'd been turfed off the case, which made me feel a bit better about it all. So, I tried to point them in the right direction, and got a promise from one of them to check up on all the names on that list a bit more carefully. I also mentioned to another chap, Sam Argyle, that I'd had a possible tip off about Quadrille Beaufort that I hadn't put down in the notes, and he said he'd check it out. Sam's a good lad, so I know he won't jump to any assumptions and put your friend in any undue danger.

"And then," Tonks paused briefly to eat a mouthful of pie. "And then, I flicked through the dossier on Quadrille that I managed to get hold of, but I didn't really pick anything up there. So, I nipped over to the Department of Magical Creatures at tea break time, and with a judicious bit of morphing, managed to duplicate a copy of the official list! I've got it right here – we can have a look after dinner. How's that for a day's work?"

Remus just looked at her. Finally, he said, "Wasn't that a bit dangerous? What if you'd been caught?"

Tonks shrugged disarmingly. "I wasn't. Nobody will ever know." She swallowed another mouthful of pie. "And how was your day, Remus?"

Remus sighed. "Not as good as yours, that's for sure. Tom Stannard apparently doesn't exist, and Marcus Channings' family are apparently quite glad that he doesn't any more. The Dantans were verysorry to hear about Dorothy, though. I think that they might try to open an investigation. Edmund Dantan used to be a member of the Wizengamot, apparently."

Tonks peered at him, and then said, "I'm sorry you had to do that, Remus."

"No worries. Somebody had to." He paused and chewed slowly, staring at his plate, before remembering a brighter moment. "Oh, and I bumped into Hermione Granger in the library!" If he had been looking up, he would have seen Tonks throw a quick glance at Calvin. "I'd gone to the Wizard Library to check something out, and there she was. So we had a cup of tea and chatted for a little while. I have to say, it was good to see her again. She was as full of energy as she ever was."

"That certainly sounds like Hermione," said Tonks. "What's she working on at the moment?"

"She said that she was doing some research on the Point Me charm, if I remember correctly. Actually, she didn't really say all that much about it," replied Remus.

Calvin said, "Well, I imagine that it's a bit of a let down after cracking the Comatose Curse."

Neither Remus nor Tonks were quite sure what to say to that, and there was a brief pause before Remus said, "She told me that she and Ron had split up. That was a bit of surprise for me! I thought they were a perfect match."

Tonks stared at Remus for a moment in total surprise. "Remus! That was ages ago. Where on Earth have you been, man? Or do you just ignore the newspapers or something? That was, like, two, three years ago."

Remus held his hands in front of him. "Hey, calm down. Sometimes I just miss out on the news for a couple of weeks."

"Couple of weeks, couple of months, couple of years. You're always disappearing, Remus! Why don't you try letting someone help you for a change?" Tonks was not shouting, but it seemed like it to Remus.

Remus looked away and waited a few moments. When he looked back, Tonks was also looking away. Calvin was looking distinctly uncomfortable. Tonks turned back to face Remus and said, "Sorry, mate. It's just that you do the stupidest things sometimes." She tried to grin, but it did not really work.

Remus cleared his throat, and said, rather lamely, "So, what happened between Ron and Hermione?"

Tonks took the olive branch. "Well, you know that they were engaged, right? Well, Hermione was working on finding a counter-charm for the Comatose Curse that the Hogwarts teachers had been hit with, in the last battle. It took her, what, four years?"

Calvin nodded, and said in a voice like granite, "Four years."

"Right, four years. So, they're all awake, and Ron proposes to her the day after or something like that. It was front page news at the time."

Remus nodded, "Yes, I remember all of that." He was remembering something else as well: holding Tonks after the last battle and saying repeatedly that it would all be alright now.

"Good, I'm glad that you were paying attention at some point." Tonks' voice interrupted his reverie. "So, as Calvin said, what do you do as an encore? Somehow, I can't quite see Point Me charms as the next big thing, but, hey, I'm just a beat-plodding Auror."

"You never know what the future will hold," murmured Remus.

"Quite," said Tonks rather snippily. "Right, Ron was working as an Auror then, and doing a pretty fine job if I may say so. He'd already been promoted to Detective Diviner. Then, what happened next? Let me see, there was the retrial, and then Severus Snape fell ill. That's got to be unlucky. You get released from the Comatose Curse, only to get some serious wasting sickness. He's still alive somewhere, you know, trapped in St. Mungo's."

Remus said, "There's plenty of people who would say that it was better than he deserved. After all, he did kill Albus."

Tonks looked over at Calvin. "Well, I'm not one of them. And Moody spoke up for Snape at his trial. If in the most scathing terms. That's got to count for something."

"Yes, well," said Remus, coldly. "This is a bit off topic, don't you think?"

Tonks seemed puzzled for a moment, and then recalled their discussion. "Right, Ron, and Hermione. So, about a month after Snape fell ill, Britain won their World Cup qualifying match. And two weeks after that, Ron and Hermione split up. The word on the street was that Ron wanted Hermione to give up her research, and settle down. Have kids. You know the kind of things couples do. But she wasn't ready to do that just then, and Ron didn't want to wait any longer. So he left her. But, who really knows what happens inside a couple? Not me, that's for sure."

"That doesn't really sound like the Ron or Hermione that I remember," said Remus thoughtfully. Tonks rolled her eyes with exasperation. "Well, Hermione maybe, wanting to continue with her research. Still, funnier things have happened, I suppose."

Tonks looked at him with her eyes slitted, and Calvin stood up suddenly. "Well, time for tea. You two head into the living room and I'll put the kettle on and clean up in here." Remus stayed seated at the table for a moment longer, remembering.