Remus Lupin and Narcissa Black left school early that afternoon, walking to the edge of Hogwarts' grounds and apparating together to Upper Ferum. That was the village where Narcissa remembered her long lost eldest sister Andromeda had settled with her family. The problem was, she wasn't sure where exactly in town they lived.

"Someone said once that the house has a pond," she told Remus after they appeared in an alley. "That's all I know."

Finding the house was why Remus had come with her - the reason besides his being on edge about losing sight of her after Lucius Malfoy had attacked her with Legilimency, alone in the Slytherin common room the night before.

He nodded and sprung into action. "Right. We need a phone box." He was still holding her hand from their side-along apparation as he clipped toward a large red rectangle on the pavement outside a chemist's shop. "They come with thick, ratty books full of numbers and addresses for finding Muggles."

"My sister is not a Muggle," Narcissa said, keeping her hand very still in his, hoping he wouldn't realize he still held it.

"No, but all her in-laws are," he said, towing her along, her cloak flapping, "so they're probably listed."

She looked pointedly over her shoulder at him as he pushed open the door of the phone box and waited for her to step inside, forcing him to slow down. "Aren't you clever," she said as she passed in front of him.

"Not clever, just the son of a lovely Muggle woman," he said, closing the door and turning to grapple with the book dangling from a cord.

Narcissa hummed and linked her hands around his stomach, leaning on his back, her face between his shoulder blades as he flipped the pages.

His purposeful movements slowed and stopped. "Now you've gone and made me forget their name."

She laughed. "Tonks, T-O-N-K-S."

"Right," he muttered to himself. "Concentrate..."

"You say your Mum is lovely?" she said.

"Yes, of course she is."

She propped her chin against a fleshier part of his upper back. "Would she like me?"

He huffed. "If you could behave yourself, she might. She married a wizard and raised a werewolf, so she tends to be very accepting of everyone. Lovely, like I said."

She sighed against his spine. "I wonder if Andromeda will like me. I haven't seen her in six years, you know. Not since I was twelve, and my parents forbade it. I wonder if she'll even recognize me."

"She'll have seen you in that full page photo spread in the Daily Prophet about your engagement last fall," he said over the noisy flipping of pages.

Narcissa clucked her tongue and rose onto her tiptoes so her lips brushed the nape of his neck as she spoke. "Lupin, you remember my newspaper engagement photos? You never struck me as the type to be interested in the society page."

"I'm not interested in society, I'm interested in - oh, come stand in front of me and help me look instead of distracting me."

He brought her around himself, his arms on either side of her, his hands not touching her but holding the book in front of them, his head leaning over her shoulder to read it.

"There it is," she said, pointing at the tiny print. "E Tonks. That will be them."

Lupin pushed at the dirty glass and they stepped back into the street. Narcissa reached for his hand again but he wouldn't surrender it, jamming it in his pocket instead. "Best be safe. We might not be the only ones of our kind here, and you could be recognized."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course." She walked at his side along the pavement of the Upper Ferum high street, her hands behind her back, feeling happy, light, and normal, wonderfully normal. The two of them were out together in the world - a Muggle world, but at this moment, it hardly mattered to her. If she squinted, they looked almost like an ordinary couple of students who might be in love, who might have a future.

They found a map of the area taped to the window of a newsagent's shop. Andromeda's address was not far off. They found it at the end of a lane, where the town was turning back into countryside. The cottage couldn't have been big, mostly hidden as it was by vines, but the garden was the largest they'd seen in the village, complete with a pond.

"Should I," Remus began, "should I keep myself busy somewhere else, until you're through?"

She wouldn't hear of it, and he was standing behind her on the flagstone walk as she knocked on the door. It opened with a click, drifting back to reveal a little girl, maybe five years old, her lavender hair bobbed at her chin.

"Dora, we can't be opening the door when you don't know - Oh." Andromeda had come to stand behind the girl. She was much as Narcissa remembered her, looking more like Bellatrix than she did like her. Andromeda scooped the little girl into her arms, peering warily at their callers, her hand buried in her skirts, searching for her wand.

"Andromeda," Narcissa said, "it's me."

Her eyes widened and she let the wriggling five-year-old slide to the floor. "Cissie? What's happened? Is everyone alright? Is it mother?"

"No, everyone's fine."

"Thank the stars!" Andromeda cried, her arms around Narcissa, pulling her inside. "Oh my darling girl," she said, rocking her, tears in her voice as she raced through the six years lost between them. "You smell like home. Look at you. Even prettier in person. And practically a married woman now. Oh, I missed all of your teenaged years. Did you know you're an aunt? Come meet our Dora…"

Remus was not sure what to do, left standing in the garden as Narcissa was swept inside and engulfed. Then the little girl - Dora - who had slipped past her mother's legs, reappeared in the open doorway, waving him inside, her lavender hair lightening to pink.

Once he was taking up space inside the house, Remus couldn't be ignored any longer. "Andromeda, this is my - Remus Lupin," Narcissa said. "He knows Muggle culture and helped me find you."

Andromeda stopped wiping her still teary eyes to look him over from his feet to the hair on his head. She let go of Narcissa's hand, the one with Lucius Malfoy's engagement ring still on it. "Excuse me for asking, Mr. Lupin, but are you Muggle born?"

"Half-blood," he said. "On my mother's side."

Andromeda hummed. "Dora, darling," she called. "Show Mr. Lupin how to play checkers while Mum has a word with Auntie. There's a girl."

Andromeda crossed her arms as Dora led Remus away, to the front parlor. "So this is what it takes to break your silence and come to me, is it? A tall, brooding half-blood who is glaringly not your much photographed fiance?"

"He's not brooding, he's lovely and - " Narcissa caught herself, stopped, and hung her head. "I was going to come to you once I graduated, before the wedding. I thought you should be there with us, after all this time - "

Andromeda huffed. "Right. So Bella can throw a strop."

"Yes, well I'm tired of her temper ruling the family. We need to stand up to her. She's not the only one of us with principles and ambitions," Narcissa said. "Believe me, Andromeda. No matter what they said, I was coming back for you. In my dream wedding, you and Bella would both be standing up with me, carrying flowers, smiling in pictures. Only now, the wedding," she didn't mean to glance into the parlor where Dora was setting up her checkers, but she did. "I don't see how I can go through with the wedding anymore."

Andromeda sighed and let her head fall into her hands. "Are you sure, Cissie? You're not just panicking? Not just throwing in another man, any man to save you from a marriage you don't want at age eighteen?"

"I'm sure," Narcissa said. "You must understand. These ridiculous political marriages are shams. Bella believes in them but it doesn't change the fact that she hates Rodolphus. Not even she deserves to live like that. Come now, the family must have had someone completely unsuitable picked out for you before you found someone you liked better."

Andromeda shuddered. "His name was Nott. He was old even then. Vile. But your Lucius, he seems from a distance like he was custom made to be your partner."

Narcissa shook her head. "He chose me like he'd choose a rug to redecorate a room. When I tried to relate to him as a human being, telling him my secrets and trying to get close to him, he laughed at me - treated me like a child. And then, last night, he forced Legilimency on me."

The blood ran out of Andromeda's face. She pulled Narcissa to sit down at the dining table with her, whispering, "I'm so sorry darling. But at least that's a breach of his pledge. You've got your way out. Just tell father and - "

"No, I'm not sure I can," Narcissa whispered back. "Lucius was searching my mind for…"

"For signs of your half-blood Lupin."

Narcissa nodded. "Father's taught us Occlumency and I kept him out, but Lucius and I can never go back to playing the happy couple again and he knows it. I don't know what he's going to do next. He may be settling in to punish me for the rest of my life. And if I tell father about the Legilimency attack, Lucius will deny it - "

"Then use a Pensieve. Show the memory. Make it incontestable."

"If I do that, then Lucius won't be the only one looking for Lupin. Father and the rest of the family will be too. It puts him at risk when Lupin never asked to be part of our nightmare of an ancient and abhorrent house," she said.

"Never asked to be part of it? Well he doesn't look like he's here with you against his will either, sat in my parlor minding your niece," Andromeda said.

"Perhaps not, but it was me who went to him first." Narcissa dropped her voice even lower. "It's still always me. Our feelings aren't equal. I fancy him far more than he does me."

Andromeda sat back, skeptical, staring at Remus screened by an arrangement of dry winter grasses set on the sideboard between the cottage's dining room and parlor. "Are you quite sure, darling?"

"Yes," Narcissa said. "Yes, in leaving Lucius, I'm not trying to make a marriage with Lupin. It's true for many reasons, not least among them the fact that he wouldn't have me if I begged him. I just want to run away from Malfoy. What happens after that - "

"Will probably include the person who has been with you since the start of this change of heart," Andromeda said, gesturing toward Lupin with her chin. "It may not be obvious to you yet, but - look at him."

Narcissa did look out at him as he pretended to be devastated while Dora double-jumped his pieces. Every time she caught a glance of him, Narcissa liked him more. It was ridiculous and made her heart ache. "No," she said all the same. "It's difficult with us. There's more to consider, more to complicate it. It's even more of a mess than it was for you and your husband."

Andromeda nodded, as if not surprised to hear there was more to it. She leaned into Narcissa. "Tell me, Cissie. Where did Mr. Lupin's scars come from? The ones on his face? They look like - "

"Childhood accident," Narcissa said, interrupting. "He doesn't talk about it."

Just then the door opened and Ted Tonks was home. Dora's hair flashed blue and she jumped up squealing from the checkers game she had been winning to welcome him, hopping into his arms. Remus caught his notice first, Ted's eyes lingering on the marks on his face as Dora chattered about how terrible he was at checkers.

"Here's Ted," Andromeda was saying, getting up and leading Narcissa toward him. "Do you remember this little girl, darling? This is our Cissie…"

She kissed her brother-in-law's cheek, the first affection he'd ever been shown by his in-laws.

Dora was hungry and it was time to get her tea on. Narcissa trailed behind her sister, all about the kitchen, wanting to help with the cooking. Andromeda gave her little tasks to do, not telling her that they were the kinds of things she usually let Dora handle. Ted helped as well but Andromeda made Remus stay out of the small, cramped kitchen. He was assigned to set the dining room table under Dora's supervision.

"How ever did you learn to cook?" Narcissa asked as she watched her sister bending her wand over a pot of Bearnaise sauce.

She laughed. "Cookery books, and trial and error. Ted was no help. His parents cook the Muggle way, like your Lupin's mother would."

Whatever growing pains Andromeda had in the kitchen were behind her now and the meal was more than fine. When it was eaten, the four of them stayed at the table to have a most vulgar discussion: one about money.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Father had changed things at the bank because of me," Andromeda warned. "They never saw it coming so it was easy. All I did was withdraw my entire dowry and walk out. It's how we paid for this cottage and lived independently until the furor blew over and we could look for work. That took longer for me than for Ted. For ages, Father had Snatchers out looking to drag me back and I had to hole up here."

"Wasn't just hiding. She fought them off more than a few times," Ted said. "I'd get back from work and find the whole garden blasted with hexes. Yes, this sleepy little cottage was once a fortress."

"So what I mean to say," Andromeda went on, "is that the money was indispensable. You might want to make your plans based on whether or not you can get it. We would have had nowhere to go without it - might have ended up living with Ted's family, as Muggles for stars know how long."

Narcissa watched Remus as he stared at the table cloth. Was he imagining her at his parents' house in Cardiff, imagining teaching her to do the washing up? But no, they weren't like Ted and Andromeda. This wasn't about planning another scandalous elopement. All it was about was herself getting out of the arrangement with the Malfoys.

"And Mother and Father are going to be more heartbroken when you tell them you're quitting Malfoy than they were when I left with Ted," Andromeda added. "Especially if you - wind up with someone they don't like in the end, they'll see it as their second failure as parents."

"They need to realize it's none of their business," Narcissa snapped.

"Well they won't," Andromeda insisted. "Certainly not when it's you, Cissie, their precious baby girl."

Narcissa gave her head a sharp shake. "Not precious enough to hold back from dealings with the Malfoys. No, I think they'll be fine - angry, definitely; heartbroken, no."

It was dark, an almost-full moon lighting the lane as Narcissa and Remus took their leave. Andromeda and Ted stood watching them go, little Dora in Ted's arms where he'd kept her even since the sun set and Remus had begun casting twitching, furtive glances out the window, monitoring the progress of the rising moon.

Andromeda began with a mighty sigh. "Do you reckon he'd be registered?"

"He said his father works for the Ministry, so I would assume so. But don't go jumping to any conclusions until we know for sure," he said.

"I'm sorry, but can't let her do this, Ted. I'm not like my parents. I'm an open-hearted woman, but this? What would their children be like? What if there was an accident and he - "

Ted set Dora down and took Andromeda in his arms. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is about the Malfoy problem, not the - the Lupin."

She sniffled into his shoulder, her emotions piqued again. "It's not fair. I just got my baby sister back in my life, Ted. I can't lose her to some gruesome romantic schoolgirl antics."

"We won't let that happen," he promised. "But sit tight for now. We'll start tomorrow with a check of the registry."

It wasn't at all like he'd always imagined it. James was leading Lily into his childhood bedroom as his wife for the first time, and it wasn't a giddy fantasy come true. It was a slow trudge, Lily leading him by the hand, closing the door behind him, shutting out the scene of his father's quiet death unfolding in the rest of the manor.

The room's lamps and fireplace came to life as the door closed. James scanned the room, as if he didn't know it, as if it looked different to him now.

"Go ahead and get some sleep," he told her. "I'll go back and sit up with Dad."

"He's sleeping, James," she said. "Your mother is sleeping at his side in that enormous bed of his. They're both so peaceful, and they may want this time alone together. I know if it was you, I would."

James dropped his head into his hands. "She's sick too. They told us she might be, and it's true. I saw the marks on her hand when she let me take it."

Lily stepped forward, slid his glasses off his face, and cradled his head in the crook of her shoulder. "I'm so sorry, love. I'm sorry. Come on," she said. "Lie down with me. You can check on them again in an hour or so. But you need some relief."

He sighed and rolled his jumper up his torso, Lily helping him ease it over his head. When they were both dressed in one set of pajamas - Lily wearing the top and James the bottoms - he slumped toward his bed.

"Which side do you like to sleep on when you're here?" she said.

He threw the covers back, exposing the sheets. "I've taken the middle, my whole life. Little spoiled brat who never had to share anything, sleeping in the middle of this bed."

Lily turned to face him, kissing his neck as he started to cry.

"If they die," he said, his cheek pressed to her hair. "If they both die, I don't have any family left. Just - "

"Just me," she said. "Me forever, and our son."

His arms clamped around her, pulling her onto bed, sitting her in his lap as he sobbed into her collar.

"Sweet darling, I can't replace them," she said, leaning into him, moving him to lie on his back, then pulling the plush downy blankets over them. "I'm so sorry. But I'll love you in my way. And baby Harry will love you in his."

"Harry?"

"Yes," she said, propped on one elbow at his side, combing his hair with her fingers, kissing his forehead. "You remember our battlecry, when you were first meeting my family and they made it so difficult? From Shakespeare, Henry the Fifth: 'For Harry, England, and Saint George.'"

He wiped his eyes on the pillow. "Harry," he said. "Our Harry."

She lowered herself to the mattress, moving against him, her hands on his waist smoothing his skin, her mouth high on his chest, laying a track of slow, wet kisses. For the moment, the tension of grief was leaving him, transmuted into a different energy.

"You are so loved, James. So loved. I love you. Our Harry loves you. Be strong."

He answered with a shift, pulling her underneath himself, finding her, all of her. His desire for her felt like strength and he didn't question it, just embraced it. It was slow and shaking again, the meeting of soulmates, not eighteen-year-olds new to marriage, but partners forever.

It was enough to soothe him to sleep, an arm and a leg draped over Lily's body as she lay awake, eyes open in the dark, thinking of the name she'd read on the tax assessment in Monty's room. Who was Corban Yaxley of the Ministry of Magic? And why was he hand-delivering routine mail to the manor? Death Eater - he must be a Death Eater, coming here to lash out at James and Lily's loved ones now that they were a bonded pair of soulmates, too powerful to be trifled with themselves.

There was no way to tell who Yaxley was from his signature on the letter, and there was too little time to find out by careful sleuthing. But there was someone she could go to and ask immediately, tonight, the Death Eater she knew best of all. There was Severus.

She kissed James's hair as he slept, before she slid away from him, over cold sheets, out of bed.

Without discussing it, as Remus and Narcissa stepped through the gate of Andromeda's garden, into the dark, empty street, he took her hand in his and shoved them both into the outer pocket of his robes. "It's chilly," he said, as if it needed explanation.

She smiled, bringing her free hand across her body to hold his arm. Inside his pocket, he gave her hand a squeeze, and tipped his head sideways to touch hers.

That was it.

"Before we go back to where everyone is watching and reacting to us, I want to tell you something," she said.

"Go on then."

She cleared her throat and stopped walking, waiting for him to turn toward her, to look down at her upturned face, at her grey eyes lit with moonlight. "I like you," she said.

There was a pause before Remus breathed a laugh. "I suppose that's hardly shocking, since I - "

"No, I actually, truly like you," she insisted, shaking her hand inside his robes. "You're not just a gorgeously angst-ridden, lust-driven snog. Though - though you are that. But - what I mean to say is - I like who you are. You're kind and brilliant and we can laugh and you make me feel precious, for the right reasons, perhaps for the first time in my life. So I really like you, Lupin."

He reached for her other hand, holding both of them now, and stooping to bring their faces level. "You should know that, especially this close to a full moon, my hearing is uncommonly good. And I cannot believe you told your sister that you like me more than I like you."

She cocked her head to one side. "But it's true."

"It is not," he said, still holding her hand as he curved his arm around her, bringing her own fist into the small of her back. "Whatever made you say such a ridiculous thing?"

"You did," she said as he raised her onto her toes, pressing their fronts together, her heart rate climbing, no doubt thundering in his ears. "You never make a first move with us. It's always me. Well, except for that time you were drunk and that time you were a werewolf."

He scoffed. "What about today, when I ran to you at the Floos?"

"You ran at me with an Invisibility Cloak. It voids the whole transaction."

He sighed a laugh into her face. "Can't you see that this is me caring about you too much to not be cautious?"

"Fine, but I care about you too much to BE cautious," she said, as if it bested him.

He bent lower, brushing his nose on either side of hers. She opened her mouth to kiss him but he held back, close, but only speaking against her lips. "You are very sweet, Cissa."

"You called me Cissa - "

"Yes," he said, dragging his full lower lip upward over her top lip, "and you somehow seem to have no idea how charmed, and smitten, and utterly mad I am for you."

She pulled back just as he was closing in to kiss her. "But do you like me?" she said. "If I'd never thrown myself at you, if we never wanted to touch each other, if I smelled of filthy socks, or something, would you like me?"

He laughed and held her tight, turning in a circle. "You mean, if you were your cousin Sirius?"

She swatted at his shoulder. "I am trying to be serious," she said. "And you love touching him. Don't think I haven't noticed."

He stopped turning, standing still on the pavement, holding her, speaking softly and close to her ear. "Of course I like you. There's no one I'd rather spend a tense evening meal in the home of an estranged relative with than you."

Her arms were bent between them, her left hand closed in a fist. "Do you like me enough to take Lucius Malfoy's ring off my finger?"

She had said it lightly, like a joke, but the smile faded from Remus's face, the sheen of the opal flashing between them in the light of the moon. "I like you enough to think you should keep wearing it, for the protection it affords you, until you are well and truly free of him. He's dangerous, but he's also too proud to damage what he thinks is his. And once you've finished with him, you should take the ring off yourself."

She groaned and rolled her eyes. "Cautious and noble too."

"Because I care," he finished, lifting a hand to smooth her hair as it shone in silver white light.

"If we're going to kiss properly before we go back to the school, you're going to have to make the move yourself," she said, her lip pushed slightly forward, pouty, enough that Remus couldn't resist bending to tug it into his mouth, swaying on the pavement as he kissed her. It was cold enough now that her mouth was like a flame, a point of heat spreading through him the longer they went on.

In the part of her mind that always told the truth, Narcissa knew that liking him, in combination with everything else she felt for him, was a feeling with a name. She wouldn't say it to him tonight. But she was now sure that, future or not, at this moment in Upper Ferum, she was in love.

With a crack, Lily Potter, dressed in a heavy cloak, arrived in Cokeworth on the pavement in front of the row of houses where Severus Snape was spending his school suspension for nearly murdering her husband. With a burst of energy from her wand, she rattled the pane of his upper window, as they used to do in the old days when they needed to summon each other.

No light appeared behind the grimy glass. She waited, gathering her cloak against the cold, about to raise her wand a second time when he stepped out of the shadows at the end of the row.

He craned his head from side to side. "You're alone?"

"Yes," she said.

He was speaking quickly, pacing. "I don't understand. The countercurse should have worked. Potter should be fine."

"He is," she said, snagging his arm to stop the pacing. "It did work. He's well again, but his parents - they're deathly ill."

There was a twitch in one side of Severus's face.

She nodded. "You already know. That's what I thought."

"I have no idea what you mean - "

"Save it," she said. "Just tell me if you know someone called Corban Yaxley. He works for the Ministry. Is he one of your people?"

"Yaxley," Snape repeated, as if trying to remember. "Norman Yaxley?"

"Corban Yaxley. Do you know him?"

"So many names to keep straight among our ranks now, the movement is growing daily, dozens of new members every week. How could I possibly - "

"Listen to me, Sev," she said, holding him by his sleeves. "I have reason to believe Corban Yaxley administered a bio-magical weapon to Fleamont and Euphemia Potter. In the morning, I'm going to take an item which may have traces of the weapon on it to Professor Slughorn for analysis. But since both of the Potters are fading fast, I came to you first. I need to know. Is Yaxley a Death Eater? And why attack the reclusive old Potters?"

"Leave it, Lily," Snape said, turning as if to go back into the house.

Her grip on his sleeves tightened. "I can't. They're my family now. They need my protection."

Snape turned in a circle on the pavement, dislodging her hands, his cloak swirling around him. "Desist. You cannot shelter them from the Dark Lord. You cannot shelter anyone, nor even defend yourself. His powers are matchless - "

She stomped her foot. "That's what he wants you to think, but I don't believe it. James and I are stronger now we're together. We will beat him. I can feel it, like a prophecy - "

"Stop your nonsense!" Snape roared, careless of the sleepers in the windows above their heads. "It is futile. The Potters are lost. And they're not the most helpless people in your family, are they? Not by a long way. At least the Potters are wizards. If you need a cause to sacrifice yourself for, think for a moment of your own parents."

His words hit her like a curse, a wave of cold dread she could feel in her stomach. "My parents," she said. "Stars, Severus - my parents. If they've already targeted the Potters, then my parents - they're next, aren't they?"

"Lily, don't go."

He was reaching for her, his fingers nearly grazing her whirling cloak as she turned on the spot and apparated across town to see to her family.