It was late in the evening after the lads' first meeting with the Order of the Phoenix. Everyone had gone home, even Auntie Bathilda. The lads sat as they had for years, in James's room, in front of the fire. They were exhausted but unable to rest.

Remus was absent, disappeared into a room further along the corridor with Narcissa Black. They had little hope of seeing him again that night, but Sirius still sat with the taut impatience of someone waiting.

James had fallen into a rhythm of brushing Lily's hair from her forehead with his fingers as she lay in his lap. She gave a noisy sigh. "Why don't I feel any different?"

James tutted. "Give it time, love."

Peter flopped over in his chair. "Maybe you already felt the way anyone allowed to take a phoenix tear in the eye would feel. Who's to say?"

"Yeah, Dumbledore promised you help, not that you'd be transfigured into a nonstop wireless prophecy machine," James said, gathering her up, lifting his knees to raise her face closer to his. "And thank the stars for that. I like you the way you are."

"Listen to you, James, standing up for Dumbledore," Peter said. "You sound like Remus."

There was a snarl as Sirius launched himself onto his feet and began to pace on the rug. Remus had met privately with Dumbledore, just as he had promised Sirius he would. And even after that, he'd rushed off to Narcissa as soon as the meeting was over. It was past midnight now and they were still together.

All at once, Sirius lunged for the door.

"Rus, leave them alone," James called after him.

"I am," he said through gritted teeth. "I'm going out to run on my own for a while. There's plenty of moonlight out there, and no bloody soulbonds."

The door slammed after him. Peter jumped, his eyes darting in James's direction. "Should I go with him?"

James shook his head. "No, you heard him. He needs to clear his mind on his own."

Peter looked off into the fire. "A part of me wants to say it's too bad Marlene didn't stay the night to care for him, maybe to finally start a proper relationship with him after all this time. I imagine he'd be game. But another part of me doesn't want everyone to go pairing off without me. This group of us - I'm not sure who I'd be outside of it, alone."

"You wouldn't be alone. There's someone for you" James said, smoothing Lily's forehead with his knuckle as she closed her eyes, sleepy, giving up trying to have visions for the night. "It might not happen for years, Pete. And it might never happen with the person who'd be your first choice right now, but it will happen."

"Cold comfort, Prongs," Peter said, letting his face fall into his hands. "Longbottom - did you hear him in the meeting tonight? So bloody perfect and noble. It's not fair to myself to compare him to a useless rat-boy like me - "

"Pete, stop that," James said. "If anyone knows you're worthy of love it's us, the lads and me. Your partner for life will come. And when she does, she'll mean even more to you than any of us ever did."

"You love Lily more than us," Peter said.

James gave a half-smile, apologetic. "Yeah, 'fraid so."

"And what about Remus and Narcissa Black? You reckon she's more important than anyone to him now?"

James sighed. "I can't say I understand them. The creature bond thing - their entire creature identities aren't like ours. It's different. And since their ties double back over Sirius's family troubles it's - well it's painful watching Sirius trying to deal with it. Imagine. He's sworn off his family as depraved and dangerous just to have one of them come 'round trying to draw his best mate away. But if it turns out Remus has to decide between us and Narcissa, and he chooses her, I wouldn't blame him." She dropped a gentle kiss on Lily's forehead as she slept. "How could I?"

Peter sat blinking in the firelight. "You wouldn't blame him? For choosing a woman over us?"

The question was charged, like a dare, risky. James wasn't sure how to give his answer. But Peter wasn't after a reply. He was pressing on with more questions.

"Do you trust that Mrs. Longbottom?" Peter said. "Frank's mum. She wants to keep him and Alice safe so badly, what if she were to plant something for the Death Eaters to make it look like there was definitely no other soulmate pairing but the two of you? And then Riddle would find and kill you both, just like that?"

James frowned. "Find? I'm hardly hiding right now, Pete. Sitting here in a house with my family name on it. And killing? No, if Riddle was going to solve his problems with a lot of killing, he'd just finish off all four of us straight away, wouldn't he? My parents couldn't produce any more magical offspring so they must have had no qualms about their deaths. But as for the rest of us, we can still be useful in Riddle's whole sick 'preserving our way of life' project. We just need to be turned around, as far as he's concerned. And if we're not, Malfoy's evil spawn will fight with ours in their generation and on and on."

Peter sighed at the bleakness of this tiresome conflict lasting all of their lives, into their children's.

He would have said something about it, but James was getting up, laying Lily on the sofa. His movements were slow, as if he was gliding rather than walking across the room. He came to a stop at the window, and spoke as if addressing the sky. "Tom Riddle is quiet tonight. Preparing. He is changing, growing. The game changes. The rules of life and death…"

His voice trailed off, lost. But behind him, Lily was rising to sit upright on the sofa. "Life and death," she resumed, "they will unlock, shift. And when they are moved, he shall move. We shall move."

Peter sat back in his seat, dumbfounded. James turned from the window, his eyes slightly glazed but searching for Lily through the firelight. She looked back at him and lifted one hand from her lap. In it she held something in the tips of her fingers: a glass ball, smokey with white mist, their second orb of prophecy.

Narcissa Black's mind was full of thoughts of Remus Lupin even before she opened her eyes. It wasn't the first time she'd awakened beside him, but unlike their last morning together, today she knew exactly where she was and what had happened between them in the night. She could sense sunlight through her eyelids and the warmth of his living, breathing body beneath her cheek. With a smile, she breathed in their scent.

As before, he lay on his stomach, his arm hanging over the edge of the bed, his hand trailing on the floor, his back exposed. This must be his sleeping habit, something learned in all those years in the too-narrow beds at Hogwarts. But as they'd slept, she had crowded him, covered him, and now she lay with her face on his back.

She opened her eyes to find her own wrist in front of her face. The mark on it had faded to a thin, silver crescent very like a moon - the perfect sign of her bond with this werewolf, now complete. At that moment, he looked like nothing but a man. He was her man, and she turned her head to brush her mouth along his smooth skin, sighing, and stretching her arm to hold him around the waist.

His skin was pale and un-freckled. Yes, their Draco would be fair - if they could ever make the kind of life they could bring him into. This hiding away in James Potter's house - this wasn't it. Running from her family and the Death Eaters was not it. She closed her eyes against those realities. In a matter of hours, they would be unignorable. But for now, she inched along Remus's side, pulling the blankets with her, draping them over him and settling her head onto his pillow. The back of his head was facing her, all that tousled brown hair, the hair she had tugged at as...

She shivered against him, remembering, nestling close again. All her repositioning had disturbed him enough for him to draw in a deep breath and pull his arm back into bed. He turned from his stomach onto his side, still not facing her.

"Such a heavy sleeper," she muttered, tracing the edge of his ear. A better partner might have let him get all the rest he wanted, contenting themself to watch adoringly as he slept. But Narcissa was a spoiled youngest daughter, one who was never made to wait on Christmas mornings, but allowed to wake the rest of the house while it was still dark to tear into their gifts together. She grazed Remus's shoulder with her teeth.

Underneath the blankets, he hooked his foot over her ankle, waking up with a sound of satisfaction almost like a chuckle. "Daylight," he said.

"Yes, the moon is gone and the sun is coming up just so I can see you better," she said, speaking softly into his ear.

He hummed. "It's lucky you're looking at my good side then."

She scoffed. "As I keep telling you, I like all sides of you."

He reached for her hand where it hung limply across his waist, pulling it up to kiss it. Then he remembered the mark, their bond, and examined her wrist carefully, blinking through bleary eyes. "It's hardly there anymore," he said. "Were we too late?"

"Let your eyes clear. It's there," she argued as he found and traced the faint silver moon on her skin with the gentle sweep of his thumb. "Only it's subtle. Almost secret. You're half made of secrets. It suits you."

"It looks like I've defaced you," he said, the frown audible in his voice.

But she laughed. "My darling, you've done far more to me than that."

His answering laugh was more of a growl as he turned over to look at her. The daylight did change the dynamic from the night before, as they filled each other's visual senses as well as all the others. There he was, his fine nose and brow marked with scars, his eyes thoughtful even when sleepy and sensuous in bed with her.

"Done more to you than that? At your continued insistence, yes I did," he said, curling an arm around her, watching as she inspected the matching mark on his own wrist.

"My insistence?" she said. "Who was it that woke me up in the middle of the night to claim me?"

He was smirking, bringing his nose to hers. "I was only letting you know what I wanted. I told you it could wait."

"But it couldn't wait," she said, dipping her chin to kiss him high on his neck, below his jaw. She had worried their attraction might slacken once the tension driving them to complete the bond had been eased. This was not the case. Remus tilted his head back at the touch of her mouth, his hands reaching for her in ways he wouldn't have dared yesterday morning. All of her was his now, body and soul, woman and creature. She knew it, gloried in it, leaning into his touch, reaching for him in return.

But still he let out his breath in a sigh, speaking as it left him. "Can we be happy, Cissa? In this light, in your warmth, I feel there's a chance we might be happy."

She broke her mouth away from his skin with a gentle click. "I am already happy. Don't tell me you aren't happy too," she said, rising to look him in the face, nudging his hair out of his eyes and kissing each of his eyelids. "You're happy too. I see it when I look at you. It's all around and between us, like the best spell ever."

He combed his fingers into the hair at her temple, curving behind her ear and down her throat. "Of course I'm overjoyed to be together like this right now, but I can't help worrying that - "

She stopped his mouth with a kiss, pressing him onto his back, hovering over him. "You were traumatized as a child, Lupin. A horrible wound that flares up to re-injure you every lunar cycle. That trauma has taken the colour out of your sense of hope, just as it takes the colour out of your vision when you transform for one night every month. But the world is still full of colour, whether it's as easy for you to see as it is for other people or not. Believe me, love. Be happy with me."

He held her close, his fingers still in her hair. The fact was, she sounded something like his mother. But he didn't dare mention it. "I am happy with you," he said. "And if I lose you - "

She hushed him. They were young and still famished for each other, their responses quick, taking over their conversation. She slowed only long enough to tell him, "None of that. Just stay with me. Right now. Stay. And love me now."

Padfoot came trotting out of the woods that separated Potter manor from the lane running alongside its grounds. The sun had fully risen, and the light had moved out of the dimness where he had an advantage over human eyes and into the coloured light of day. It meant he could smell more than see the newcomers. They smelled like home, like rooms in the manors of the House of Black, and in the most dreadful way.

Standing in the lane, arguing quietly amongst themselves stood Lucius Malfoy, Regulus, and an older man Sirius didn't know. "This is a bad scene. Yaxley acted too soon and too rashly," Malfoy was saying. "The old Potters are no longer available as hostages. We'll have to deal with young Potter directly. Him and his wife and whatever other rabble they've got in there with our Narcissa."

"Come, Malfoy. Yaxley performed as intended," the stranger said. "The Potters shouldn't have died so soon. They must have let it happen on purpose as some kind of advantageous magic. It couldn't have been foreseen."

"Whatever the reason, Carrow," Malfoy said, "Without hostages we've no leverage to get Narcissa to come home. We'll have to ferret her out with a show of force."

"But the Mudblood might be hiding her parents here," the man named Carrow argued. "What better hostages are there than those?"

"We cannot count on finding them," Malfoy said.

The Carrow man huffed. "Even when your fiancée needs rescue, your caution is cowardice, Malfoy. What do you plan to do if the boy she's run away with is prone to heroics?"

Malfoy waved his hands. "He's no one of consequence. A trifle. A show of force will spook them and they will apparate to the school gates. Bella should be there waiting to collect them by now."

As the men argued, Regulus's attention drifted. He was looking into the trees along the lane, looking at Padfoot. Their eyes locked, both of them frozen, motionless.

"What about the numbers?" Malfoy was saying. "There are more of them in the house than us, isn't that what you said, Regulus? There were more students than just Potter himself missing from breakfast at school this morning, weren't there?"

"Yes," Regulus answered, still staring straight ahead. He paused. In his silence, Padfoot lifted his front paw, as if to spring away. "There was Potter, and his Mudblood, and a few more..."

"Well, how many, boy?" Carrow bawled at him. "Speak up."

There was one more pause. "Oh, at least four. Maybe more. Let me see…" As he looked away, Regulus gave Padfoot a nod, signalling him to disappear into the woods. Without alerting his companions that the dog had come and gone, Regulus turned to them, humming and fussing, as if trying hard to remember who was missing from school that weekend.

As he did, Padfoot sped to the manor to sound the alarm. He ran at full tilt, feet barely touching the ground, bounding through the undergrowth, leaping out of his dog form as he reached the door of the manor.

"Remus!" he shouted as he crashed through the door.

James came racing out of the kitchen, towing him to a stop. "What is it? What's happened?"

Sirius doubled over to catch his breath. "It's Malfoy. He's here with another Death Eater, come to get Narcissa and bring her home. They've got Regulus with them too, but he let me get away. I don't know why. And I don't know how they know to look for her here, but she has to go before they come, any minute now."

Lily came skidding out of the kitchen, the newspaper in her hands. "Lads, look here, the funeral," she said. "There must have been a reporter lurking at the funeral. Look at the picture they took."

There on the thin, yellow newspaper parchment was a picture of Narcissa, almost completely obscured by her stole and sunglasses, her arm linked through Remus's and her chin on his shoulder. The caption beneath the picture identified her as the runaway bride from the house of Black.

Sirius swore and bolted up the stairs. "Hide the Evanses," he called over his shoulder. "They may want them as hostages."

He stumbled over his own feet on the rug in the upstairs corridor, falling into and then through the door of Remus's bedroom. Remus was standing in the centre of the floor, a towel around his waist, drying his hair.

"You're up. Thank the stars," Sirius said, throwing clothes and shoes at him. "You've got to leave. And not back to the school. The very worst of them is waiting for you there."

Remus shook his head. "Who is?"

"The Death Eaters - Malfoy, cousin Bellatrix. They want their chosen one breeder back, the one you took," Sirius said. Remus still hadn't started to dress so Sirius took a freshly Scourgified T-Shirt and pulled it over Remus's head himself.

Remus shook his head again. "They've come for her already?"

"Yes, get a move on," Sirius said. "You can't be here. And you can't be with her. You go one way, Narcissa goes another."

"Rus, will you wait up," Remus said, snatching his trousers out of Sirius's hands.

"No, I will not. You have to run. This is what you chose when you chose her. You knew that," he said. "Now go. Regulus is trying to give you a head start. Don't waste it."

Remus growled to himself as he finished dressing. "Wait!" he called helplessly as Sirius left him struggling into his shoes, darting across the hall to Narcissa's room.

"She's already downstairs," Lily called after him, leading her parents out of their room, down the stairs and into the ballroom, where they could leave the house through the back terrace. "Peter and I are going to get Mum and Dad safely away."

Mitch was squinting through the ballroom. "It's not brooms again, is it? I'm still dead sore from the last time."

"Sorry, Dad," she said. "We've got to get to Bathilda's cottage. It's not far. James will stay here to answer to Malfoy."

She hated it more as she said it aloud, and she turned back, looking speechless at James.

"It's alright, love," he said. "I'll see you by dinner time. You know I will."

Something in her mind's eye seemed to flash, giving her confidence. She made a sharp nod and followed Peter outside.

"There," Sirius said, rounding on Remus. "Even James and Lily are splitting up for this. Send Narcissa away, make yourself scarce, and I'll stay with James."

But Remus was pivoting past him. "Cissa!" he called, crossing the entrance hall to take her arm.

"I'm sorry, Lupin," she said, taking his hands. "It's all my fault. I wasn't careful enough at the funeral - "

"Right, so be careful now," Sirius said. "Go. Go to Andromeda's family."

"No!" James was as startled as anyone to hear himself shouting Sirius down, his voice loud and deep in the high, echoing space. He looked around the room, as if trying to find whoever had spoken in his voice.

It had been enough to get Remus to look away from Narcissa's face. "You alright, James?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "No, actually. And I don't know why I'm saying this, but don't go to Andromeda, especially not together."

And then it came - a pounding at the front doors, and a voice muffled but audible. It was Malfoy. "Open up, Potter," he said. "I know you're in there. You have something of mine and I will have it back. Now."

At the sound of his voice, at the words that he spoke, Narcissa's entire demeanor changed. She was no longer apologetic. Her posture straightened, her eyes narrowed, and her mouth became a stern line. "Wands out, lads. And open the door."

"Absolutely not," Sirius said. "Now go."

"No, Sirius. I will not spend the rest of my life running from that ridiculous fop outside. He was first to breach our engagement pledge with that Legilimency attack. And he'll either let me go gracefully or I'll let everyone know what he did. He hasn't been able to overpower me before, and he won't do it now." She shook her hair out of her face. "Now get the door, Potter."

"Wait, love," Remus was saying. "It's not just Malfoy out there."

"Right," Sirius argued. "There are three of them."

She nodded. "That's one fewer than there are of us, and one of theirs is Regulus. It's a perfect time to take a stand and let them know I won't be driven around like some scared, witless breeding mare."

Sirius spun in place, pulling at his hair. "You're willing to risk Remus along with yourself then? Just like that?"

Remus was starting to argue when James interrupted again. "What if we were to hide Remus? It will still look like three against three. And I agree, we can't start letting them spook us and chase us all over the country. We're Order of the Phoenix now. We're supposed to resist."

Remus was nodding. "Good. Yes, I'll be here but out of sight. Cloak, James. Give me the cloak."

James swept his Invisibility Cloak over Remus as Narcissa strode toward the door, her wand in her fist. Malfoy gasped and fell back at the sight of her standing defiant in front of him, Sirius and James visible behind her, their wands drawn.

"Go home, Lucius," she said. "You violated our engagement pledge. You violated me. There is no longer a bond between us and you have no claim on me."

He was recovering himself, sneering at her. "Violated? Spare me your sick fantasies."

"Yes, of course you'd deny it. And you've got the cheek to do it right in front of Regulus, who found me roaming the castle hysterical after you forced Legilimency on me in my own common room," she said.

Regulus jumped in recognition, his face white, grimacing.

"If you dispute it," she went on, "I'll distill the memory into a Pensieve, and make it known everywhere."

Malfoy didn't flinch, but stepped closer to her, crossing the threshold, coming into the house. "Ah, but if it were true, and if you made it known, what would you give as a motive for my alleged Legilimency? What could you accuse me of that would not reveal your lover, the one who made you romantically active?"

She scoffed. "Everyone who takes the Sunday paper believes they already know my private affairs. There's no more scandal for you to threaten me with."

Malfoy smirked. "Your affairs are common knowledge, are they? You've nothing to lose? Then tell me his name. Hm? Must be a boy from school. Gryffindor house, I'd assume, if you've followed him here. Look at Regulus's shocked little face there. He knows already, doesn't he?"

"All of this means nothing to you," she snarled. "You have no relationship with me anymore. Scuttle back to your master and leave me alone."

"Enough," said the man at Malfoy's elbow. "These petty personal matters are beside the point. Miss Black will come with us now regardless of what you might have done to spoil your engagement, Malfoy. She has the honour of having an obligation to the Dark Lord which cannot be ignored."

"I have no such obligation," Narcissa interrupted. "Whatever agreements have been made on my behalf, without my consent, or even my knowledge, I reject them. All of them. If it's such an honour to be obligated to your master, it should be easy for you to find someone else." She took a huge breath. "Goodbye, Lucius. Take this poor boy and whoever this man is and leave me to the rest of my life."

A new voice was ringing through the hall, Regulus. "Narcissa Juno Black, you are a daughter of an ancient and noble house devoted through the centuries to protecting the purity of wizarding lineages. Your blood and your body are not your own. You are bound by duty to do as the family bids - "

"Oh, shut up, Regulus," Sirius spat.

"Please, Cissa," he tried again, ignoring Sirius, coming into the house to stand next to Lucius. "Don't do this. It's better for everyone if you come with us. Everyone."

Her wand still raised, Narcissa fell quiet for a moment, looking into her cousin's face, trying to read his intentions, his allegiances which were much more complicated than she had once thought. Regulus knew she was in love with Remus. And Regulus still cared for him enough to want to save Remus from the twisted violence of Tom Riddle and the Death Eaters. He was right to fear for him. But what could she do now?

And as they stood staring at each other, all but ignoring everything else in the house, Lucius moved. He snatched Narcissa around the waist, stepped backward, moving out of the house. Outside its walls, he turned on the spot, and disapparated. They were gone.

What Lucius didn't know when he began the maneuvre was that Remus Lupin, hidden in an Invisibility Cloak, had his little finger linked with Narcissa's. As Lucius pulled her out of the house, Lupin fought to grip her tightly enough to keep her inside. The cloak fell away, and as Lucius and Narcissa vanished, Remus went with them.