The morning was over, lunch was beginning, and Narcissa Black and Remus Lupin were still alone in his dormitory. She was waiting for her trunk and had flung his cupboard door open, looking for something to wear. The project quickly spiraled into a reworking and repairing of Remus's dingy wardrobe. Her wand worked over his clothes, lengthening sleeves and trouser, reinforcing frayed patches, brightening faded colour. His father had never learned these spells, all of them considered witches' work in the old days. Without a witch for a mother to teach him how to do this for himself, Remus's clothes were worn out, outgrown, or shredded by werewolf claws extremely quickly.

"But there's no need for you to keep bearing it," Narcissa said as she smoothed the wrinkles from a bunch of fabric meant to be a shirt. "Let me mend your things for you. When there's more time, I can teach you the spells. It's nothing. Not for me, at any rate. Clothes are easy."

He hung his head and looked sorry anyway.

She ignored it, approaching him where he sat on the bed, bringing with her what had once been his favourite cardigan before the left cuff began to unravel. It was mended now and she slid the sleeves up his arms and shoulders. "I like this one," she said as he linked his arms around her waist. "The green is cool and suits your eyes. Now no sad faces, Lupin. You are mine to take care of, and a well-kept wardrobe is part of what that means to me. Don't worry. It doesn't need to be fancy."

He accepted with a sigh and a nod. "You've done a nice job fixing this," he said, sliding the cardigan from his shoulders and draping it around hers instead. "Let it keep you warm as my thanks."

It was true that she had been working away, standing in the middle of the room, still wearing just his white uniform shirt with a pair of short 1970s boys' gym shorts underneath for modesty in case the lads came back.

"Yes, that's lovely on you," he said, easing her hair out of the collar. "Much better. Green is cool, and I'm not cool - "

"That's not what 'cool colour' means - "

"I know that," he said, laughing quietly, gripping the lapels as he held them around her. "I guess what I mean is, green and every other colour I've ever seen looks better on you."

"Well my school obligation to wear Slytherin green seems to be over. And frankly, after six and a half years, I might be sick of it anyway," she said, tossing her head. "And you needn't worry about me trying to dress you up like some ridiculous dandy from the dungeon. That was Lucius, the man I've just rejected in grand style. I want no more of that."

Remus let go of the lapels, gathering her in his arms. "Really? You have the skills to transform my stodgy, scruffy librarian look into high fashion, but you'd rather not?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Stodgy? Is that the look you intend? Well, you haven't fooled me with it, Lupin. No, to me, your look is that of a barely contained werewolf." She said it in a low, purring voice, her wrists crossed at the nape of his neck. "Strong and lithe, ravenous, always on the verge of pouncing on me, even - no, perhaps especially - when you're done up for the library."

"Must be the scars," he said. "Or will you be asking to charm them away with your Complexion Perfection balm again?"

She clucked her tongue. "Honestly, Lupin, don't you recognize a girl's excuse to touch your face when you hear one?" she said, standing on her toes, whispering into his mouth. "No, I don't want those scars to go anywhere."

Remus's pulse was rising. He bent his head toward her, but before he could connect, James Potter came yelping into the room.

"Remus - stars! Sorry!" he said. "I watched the map all day for your dots to stop overlapping before we came back here but - "

"It's fine, Potter," Narcissa said, his name still sounding like a curse in her mouth, even when she was being friendly. She stepped away from Remus, hugging herself with the cardigan.

At the sight of her outfit, James was swearing, shading his eyes with his hand and looking at his feet. "Black, honestly, do you have to - "

She was laughing at him. "Lily, tell your very gentlemanly husband I've got gym shorts on and it's safe for him to look at me."

"My pure-hearted darling," Lily said, standing over James's old bed, flipping through the clothes spread on it. "It's alright, love. Open your eyes and help Remus hang up these clothes. And as for you, Narcissa, we've brought up your trunk from Slytherin."

"Oh, thank the stars," she said. "It wouldn't do to go to lunch like this."

"Quite. It's in my old room, on the girls' side," Lily went on, beckoning Narcissa to the door.

The girls left, and as they did, James didn't reach for the coat hangers but threw a playful punch at Remus's stomach.

Remus shoved him away. "What?"

"You know what. You have a nice morning, mate?"

Remus shrugged. "Yes, actually."

"Looks it. Your T-shirt's on inside out."

"Aw, hang it," Remus said, reversing it over his head.

James took up a clothes hanger. "So she's already fussing over every little detail for you? Aside from whether your shirt is inside out or not, that is."

Remus sniffed. "I suppose she is."

James's face cracked with a smile. "Wifely sensibilities. They're the best, aren't they?"

Remus couldn't answer except to laugh. "What makes you think we're getting married?"

James punched at him again. "You haven't answered 'no.'"

Remus was grinning again. "No, I have not."

After the first appearance of Mr. and Mrs. James and Lily Potter at breakfast, the second act was lunch and the unveiling of another school couple to the student population. Snape and Regulus were missing from the Slytherin benches in the Great Hall and would be missing it. But there was enough whispering up and down the long dining table that anyone could guess that word had spread that Narcissa Black had not only scrapped her engagement to Lucius Malfoy, but she had offended the rising Dark Lord, Tom Riddle.

This ought to have meant she would be shunned, but everyone seemed to be struggling not to stare as she walked in with Remus Lupin, of all people. She kept her face turned away from the glares and grimaces, clinging to Remus's hand and speaking sweetly into his ear as he led her to the Gryffindor table.

"Well, look at you, Remus," Peter greeted him. "You're all spiffed up."

"Quiet, Pete," James chided. "Don't show him up."

Marlene McKinnon was leaning over Sirius, grinning a little smugly at Narcissa sitting on his other side. "So you're one of us now, are you Black?"

"More than that," Lily said from across the table. "Narcissa is taking my place as your roommate."

Marlene made a sound between a laugh and a scoff. It was loud enough that everyone in the hall would have turned to look if they hadn't already been gawking at the table where Narcissa Black was now nuzzling beneath Remus Lupin's ear as he filled her water glass.

"No worries, McKinnon," Narcissa said, turning her face away from Remus. "I won't disturb you. I don't reckon I'll be spending much time in the room at all."

"You don't?" Marlene said, faking an air of being scandalized.

"No," Narcissa said. "I'd much rather spend my nights in - "

"Cardiff," Remus finished. "At least for tonight. We'll be leaving for Cardiff right after afternoon classes. Got to make a visit to my parents. Need to explain the newspaper photos and rumors. Make some introductions - "

"Tell them all about the constellations and their lovely names," Narcissa finished for him.

Sirius coughed on his tea. "Constellations? Already?"

"Why not?" Narcissa bawled at him, pounding on his back as he coughed.

"Why would anyone who doesn't have to write the astronomy NEWT this spring give a care about constellations?" Peter said.

Sirius was recovering himself, shaking his head, "No, Pete, she means - "

"Have I told you, Sirius," Narcissa interrupted, "how heartwarming it is to have you, my long lost cousin, back in my life? All the wasted years, and now here we are."

Sirius held her upturned face between his hands, squashing her cheeks. "Don't act sweet with me, Cissie. You may have beguiled Remus into going to Cardiff to ask permission to get - to - well…"

"I knew it," James said.

"Knew what?" Peter nearly wailed, more and more lost with every word his mates and their girls said.

Remus pulled Narcissa back, her face popping out from between Sirius's hands. "There's no permission about it," Remus said. "We're adults and we've already decided for ourselves."

Lily chirped. "You have? Well, you may as well go on and do it. Isn't that right, James?"

"Yes," Remus said, answering himself, folding Narcissa's hand into the crook of his arm. "And we're going to arrange the formalities very soon. For safety, for sanity, and just because we want to so badly."

James had taken Peter by the arm and whispered an explanation into his ear. Peter sat back, gaping, too stunned for discretion. "What, another wedding? Already?"

James slapped him on the back. "By the stars, shut it, Pete. That mouth of yours is going to be the death of someone."

Hope and Lyall Lupin were not subscribers to the Daily Prophet. They certainly weren't avid readers of the Page 4 society news. If no one had left a copy of the Sunday paper open to Page 4 and lying pointedly across Lyall's desk, they might not have known their son had any connection to the scandal of the runaway bride of the House of Black.

Lyall arrived home for tea with the paper pinched under his arm, humming and fretting. "Looks like our pup's doomed love affair has found some legs."

Hope frowned. "What? Has he been into the office to see you today?"

"No, actually. He didn't need to report it to us himself. Not when the bloody newspaper's on it," Lyall said, dropping the paper on the kitchen table.

She bent over it, the pictures frozen in place to her view. "This is our Remus at the Potters' funeral with Sirius's cousin?"

Lyall hummed. "Cousin? Malfoy's escaped fiancée is more like it."

Hope's frown deepened. "Who in blazes is Malfoy?"

Lyall told her what he knew, which was just to reread Rita Skeeter's article aloud. As he raised the paper in front of himself, Hope skimmed the headlines on the front page. "Death Eaters?" she read. "Your people are having trouble with something called Death Eaters? That has a rather ghastly ring to it."

Lyall bent the paper to see what she'd read. "Ghastly, yes. Death Eaters - that would be Malfoy, toadying up to their leader, a wretch named Riddle."

"I thought you said the latest wizarding political trouble was a flash in the pan, going nowhere. But now it's got a name and a leader worth toadying to?" she said. Her voice wouldn't usually rise when speaking about the overblown intrigues of Lyall's odd society. But this was no ordinary news report, not when it came with her son's face in it. "What's any of this business got to do with Remus?"

Lyall's hum was lower. "Hard to say. The Death Eaters do have an interest in werewolves. A dark and vicious one."

Hope hushed him, glancing over her shoulders. "We'll say no more of it until we send word to the school. We need to make sure Remus is safe. We need to find out more about this girl."

"I thought you already spoke with Remus about the girl - "

"I did. But it was just enough to know her family is wicked and backward."

"I could have told you that," Lyall said. "I was at school with her parents. Nastiness all around. But if Remus likes her, maybe the girl is different? Like Sirius?" Lyall ventured. "This isn't just any star-crossed scandal. This is our Remus. We need to trust that it makes sense in some way, that it's not all wolfish gratification."

Hope laughed at herself, somewhat bitterly. "Haven't I always encouraged him to find peace with the werewolf? Is this what that peace looks like? Like falling for a very dangerous girl?"

She took hold of the crinkling yellow newspaper again. In the photo, Remus looked taller and finer than usual. He was dressed in clothes she didn't recognize. They must have been borrowed from the Potters. There was something different about his posture, the tilt of his chin. He looked as if he'd grown up, like he knew who he was and felt no shame in it.

The girl standing close to him was harder to see, as if she had deliberately disguised herself in a heavy black stole and in sunglasses worn in spite of the clouds. If she'd been able to see the photo move, Hope would have seen Narcissa tuck her chin into Remus's shoulder. The girl didn't look much like Sirius, which surprised Hope after all the time she'd spent trying to imagine her.

"The poor darling," she said, bending over Remus's photo. "His first love and it's gossip page news in the small, parochial subculture that's already done you both so much violence."

Lyall stood to rifle through a kitchen drawer for some parchment to write a note to Minerva McGonagall. "Ours is a small world. And anything even slightly connected to Riddle is considered newsworthy these days. His involvement makes our boy's situation far more dangerous than scandalous."

"The Death Eaters, what exactly do they want with werewolves? Tell me, Lyall. Remus has fought so hard to master it. They aren't going to take all that away from him, are they? They're not looking to make a monster out of him. Tell me they're not." Hope was rummaging through her writing desk, searching for the ridiculous plume Lyall used for writing wizard correspondence.

He let out a great sigh, just as Remus would have if she'd asked him herself. "Werewolves are lesser members among the Death Eater ranks. They won't be treated as equals. I can only imagine they'll use them to terrorize their opponents. You know, Dumbledore and the rest."

Hope stood at the window as Lyall whistled for an owl to carry the message to Hogwarts. "Honestly, it is 1979. In a thousand years, you'd think they could have come around to putting a phone in that castle."

Lyall's whistling grew more harried, less clear, less chance than ever of hailing a free range owl. He was just about to give up and resign himself to heading to a post office in the morning when a crack sounded in the kitchen.

The Lupins spun away from the window to find their son had apparated into the kitchen of their small, modest flat.

"Remus, thank the stars," Hope said, her hand on her heart.

She might have stepped forward to hug him if an elegant, silvery girl hadn't been standing between them, blinking her large, grey eyes, almost as if she was the owl Lyall had called, arriving in human form. Hope prided herself on always knowing the right thing to say. But at the sight of her lonely, monkish son with this girl, all she could manage to blurt out was, "Sirius's cousin?"

Remus answered with a light, jittering laugh, reaching for the Daily Prophet on the tabletop and flipping it over, hiding their photo. "Yes," he said. "Mum and Dad, this is Narcissa Black. Cissa, is what she's called among close friends and family."

Hope lowered her hand from her heart. "Cissa? Close friends and family? And that's…"

"That's us, yes," Remus said, his cheeks flushing. "Cissa is one of us now."

It was too heavy of an introduction. Narcissa's high society instincts told her to lighten it by making it more formal. "Mr. and Mrs. Lupin, it's delightful to meet you. Please excuse my eccentric old family name. I do hope it will get easier for you in time." Her voice was moving with a honeyed drawling, her manners smooth in spite of the strangeness.

It did nothing to improve the situation. Hope nodded, forcing a smile, fighting to orient herself. "An old family, yes, so Remus has told me. Very traditional."

"Yes, to a fault," Narcissa agreed.

"Complete with arranged marriages and all," Hope went on.

Behind Narcissa, Remus gagged. But all Narcissa said through her smile was, "For some, yes. But not for me."

Lyall raised his eyebrows, remembering the newspaper again. "They're saying in the paper that you're one of Cygnus Black's girls. And you've thrown over Abraxas Malfoy's boy and run off."

Remus's voice was choking into action. "Don't take the Prophet's word for anything, Dad. They get the story wrong even when the details are right. Yes, Cissa has broken her engagement, upsetting a lot of people in the process - "

"Very dangerous people," Lyall added.

"Yes, exactly," Remus said. "But you needn't worry about it. We have Dumbledore's protection. And Cissa has a grown sister who will defend us too. And then there's the fact that," he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, "that the lads and I have joined the Order of the Phoenix."

"Oh, no you haven't," Lyall said, finally at his breaking point.

"We have, Dad. We don't need to take the Death Eaters' nonsense and violence lying down."

"Remus, you're a good boy. A brave boy," Lyall said. "But you're not like the others. Let them stick their necks out. People will tolerate that from them. But a boy like you - "

"I'm not a child, Dad. I've been of age for over a year - "

"Have it your way," Lyall said, his voice rising now. "But listen to me when I tell you that you need to keep a low profile." Lyall waved the Daily Prophet in front of himself. "Miss Black here - does she even know what you're truly like?"

"She does," Remus said, his voice even and calm. "She knows better than anyone. Better than the both of you."

"We're getting ahead of ourselves," Hope said. "Death Eaters, werewolves, arranged wizard marriages. While I certainly don't claim to understand all the problems and prejudices of your world, I do know that making life-changing decisions based on feelings we have when we're eighteen…" She raised her face to look pleadingly at Remus. "Eighteen years old, darling. It is so very young, even without a political crisis to make everything urgent and frenzied."

Remus sighed and flipped the cuff of his cardigan, holding his wrist in the light, the silver crescent glinting in his skin. "You see it, Dad?"

Lyall echoed the sigh back at him. "I do."

"What? What is it?" Hope asked, unable to see anything out of the ordinary, looking from Remus's face to Lyall's and back.

Lyall spoke to Remus. "So Miss Black is as good as your wife now."

Remus kept still as his mother examined his wrist. His eyes held his father's as he answered. "Yes, she is. Magically and permanently, Cissa and I are together."

The moment was tense enough that even Narcissa's well-trained façade was strained. She stood at Remus's shoulder, wringing her hands.

Hope began to sputter, "What is all this? Are you saying you've gone and followed James Potter off to get married or some such thing?"

Lyall had taken Hope by her forearms and was walking her backward to the kitchen door. He was tender and kind, like Remus, while Hope was the source of her son's good sense and his gift of saying the right thing. So in his kindness, Lyall was steering Hope away from her son until she could arrive at the right thing to say.

"We'll be back in a bit," Lyall called to Remus as they left. "Your mother and I need a moment and a walk round the block."

The door closed with a solid but not a noisy click.

"I've driven them off," Narcissa said, slumping into a kitchen chair, her head in her hands.

"No, they're just taking a moment," Remus said, his hand on her shoulder. "We tipped them off balance, left them scrambling to know the best way to react to this. So they're taking a moment to find their footing. Dad will explain to Mum about the bond and she'll come back ready to love you like family."

Narcissa huffed, unconvinced. She lifted her head. "This is what reasonable families do when they're having a crisis? They don't start screaming and hexing? They take a moment?"

He gave her a weak smile, taking her hand and raising her to stand. These were the kinds of family dynamics he might be explaining to Bellatrix Lestrange's sister for a long time. "Yes, I suppose it is what reasonable families do."

She laced her fingers through his. "And what are we supposed to do during their moment? Just wait?"

He nodded, guiding her into the lounge to sit on the settee. "Right. Waiting nicely is exactly what we do." He crashed onto the cushions beside her, the springs creaking with his weight. His face was in hers, his cheeks pink again even though he wasn't arguing with his parents anymore. "We could go upstairs and I could show you my bedroom."

She cupped his jaw, stroking his cheekbone with her thumb. "My darling, it will only make things more difficult if they come back to find I've tackled you into your childhood bed and loved you up."

"We wouldn't have to carry on like that just because we're alone in my bedroom," he said.

"No, but we probably would anyway," she said, rubbing her nose against his.

She was right. He turned to speak into her hand. "Yeah, okay. We'll do something else then."

She pecked a single kiss on his face before nodding sharply in return. "Of course. There should be lots to do down here, in this fascinating Muggle-fied habitat. Something to distract me from the fact that I've disturbed your once peaceful home. Like…"

"Chess?" Remus offered. "We have regular and Muggle chess sets. Whatever you like."

"No, I hate all of it," she shuddered. "Exhausting game. Pointless. I've only played one time since I went to school, and that was a ploy to get close to a boy I was beginning to fancy."

Remus laughed and bumped a kiss against her temple. "Fine. Reading then? You could close your eyes and rest while I read you something. Mum's selection of Muggle novels is extensive. There's a story about wizards and a cursed ring. Though it's quite long and there's no kissing in it. You might be bored."

She scoffed, swatting at him. "Thank you for your patronizing offer. But my mind is too scattered for any reading." She combed her fingers through his hair as he settled even closer on the settee. "Oh, I know what I've always wanted to do in a Muggle environment. Is that a tel-veen there?"

Remus raised his head, squinting. "Tel-veen?"

"Yes, that box with the grey glass front and the little wheels in the corner."

"Oh, the television," he said. "Yes, how did you know?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm a witch, Lupin, not a space alien."

He fought his way out of the cushions and crossed the floor, tugging a knob on the television. There was a heavy click and the screen flashed and fizzed to life. "You want to watch anything in particular? There's nothing much on Saturday afternoons, unless you like football."

She frowned, peering at the screen full of tiny jogging men in matching shorts. "Football. That's a kind of grass-quidditch, isn't it? Only even more boring?"

Remus considered her description, shrugging sheepishly. "That's a fair estimation, yes." He turned the wheel once, and then again. The picture on the screen changed to other men jogging over other grass, these ones wearing different coloured shorts. He clicked the TV off. "We can try it again later, maybe."

She had come to stand beside him, dragging her hand over the warm, grey glass of the television, laughing in surprise as a field of static crackled between the screen and her hand. "Some of the electricity's getting away. Brilliant. I think I like machines," she said.

Remus raised his eyebrows. "Really? Then come have a look at this one." He beckoned her over, lifting a plastic dome with one hand. Beneath it was a circle with a metal stick rising out of it. "This one," he said, "makes music."

"A recording platter?"

"Record player, yeah," he said. "Look, the label in the middle of the disc tells you the title and the artist."

"Blue Hawaii," she read. "Oh, like a port key? This goes to Hawaii? How lovely."

"No, we stay here," he laughed. "The Hawaii bit is just the name of an old movie, from before we were born. The record plays music from the movie." He pushed a switch and the disc was spinning. He took her hand and closed her fingers over a delicate metal arm on the side of the machine. "Lift this up, and then, very gently, drop this tiny point on the record as it turns."

"Use it like a wand?"

"Something like it, yes. Just don't wave it about or it will break off and be ruined."

She held her breath as she set the needle on the record. There was a faint crackle again, different from the television's, before piano arpeggios and lightly brushed drums sounded from the brown boxes on either side of the turntable. It was a simple, pleasant tune, and then a rich male voice took over with a slow, swooping melody.

"Wise men say, only fools rush in, but I can't help falling in love with you…"

Narcissa broke into a smile. "Who is the singer? He's marvelous. Just listen to him."

Still standing behind her, watching the record turn from over her shoulder, Remus closed his arms around Narcissa's waist. "This is Elvis Presley, an old American singer. One of Mum's favourites from when she was a teenager and still knew nothing about our world."

Narcissa faked her pout. "He's old-fashioned, and you're laughing at me."

"I'm not," he said, leading her to sit on the sofa, lowering her into his lap. "He is widely regarded as a genius. His early work is timeless. But these days - let's just say Elvis is past his prime now. He looks unwell. It's sad, really. But this song is from the peak of his career, when he was a movie star, good enough for even my mum to love his music."

Narcissa hummed, and they fell silent, listening to the pleading honesty of the song. "Your mum feels like this about your dad," she said. "When she fell for him, she felt all of this, as if it was meant to be in spite of their differences. Do you know how lovely that is, Lupin? I think my mother loves my father now. I mean, I hope she does. Their match was arranged and it didn't come naturally at first."

He smoothed her hair with his hand, as if he was sorry.

"All of that might serve us well now," she said, leaning into his touch. "We could play on my mother's old romantic dreams she had to give up, coax her into peeking at a path she left unexplored. It might help convince her to come to the wedding, or at least to pretend not to notice when Andromeda takes me to the bank to collect my dowry."

Remus pressed his lips to the top of her head. "Hang your dowry."

"Not if letting me have it is the last loving gesture my parents can make for me," she said. "But let's not mention money while the Elvis is singing."

He smiled against her crown. "Poor Mum. It can't be easy for her," he said, "living between two worlds all these years. And what happened to me certainly didn't make it any easier."

"You mean, what keeps happening to you," she said. "Mishaps like some brat from the house of Black getting you chased by Death Eaters and photographed in that rag of a paper."

He hummed as if it was not a disaster but a sweet memory.

Narcissa nestled her face against the base of his throat. "Your parents are lucky to have a son like you, and even though they'll never stop being scared for you, I think they know it."

Remus sighed. "Don't sit here fretting about my parents' feelings just yet. Let them have their moment. It can wait."

They fell quiet again, the voice from the record player rising through the small lounge. Narcissa rocked in Remus's arms, slowly, two long beats drawn out over every bar of the 4:4 time. "You know," she said. "I feel like I already know this song, like I could almost sing along."

"Maybe you've heard it before. It's been popular among Muggles our entire lives. They play it over loudspeakers in chain stores sometimes."

"No, I don't mean I know this song exactly, but one like it," she said. "There's an old French song my grandmère used to sing that has a similar melody. It's called 'Plaisir d'amour.'"

Remus held her tighter. "My French isn't great, but I reckon I can guess what it's about."

"It's a sad song, actually. About a faithless girl," Narcissa said.

Remus brushed a light kiss along her cheek. "I'd like to hear you sing it anyway," he said, his voice low, something like seductive. "You've been formally trained in singing, haven't you?"

She smirked. "Yes, it was one of the accomplishments expected of me. Vocal training, as a soprano, though I prefer something slightly lower. All aimed to please my future husband."

"Ah, then I'm in luck," Remus said. "Sing me your song in your grandmère's French, so the words won't make us sad."

She scoffed. "Here in your parents' drawing room? With no accompaniment?"

He laughed against her skin. "Drawing room - yes, why not? Elvis has finished his song. There's no one here but us. Plus, it will stop me from snogging you and getting caught at it when my parents come back. Please. I danced with you in Potter manor with no accompaniment when you asked me to."

"You did," she said. "Alright then. But you can't gawk at me while I do it. Just sit here with me, lay your head back and close your eyes. Don't say a word until I've finished."

"Not a word," he promised, his eyes already closed, his head tipped back over the top of the settee.

She began, low in the soprano range, rising and falling, rolling the Rs with a light but delicate sophistication. Remus's heart began to pound. How could it be that every moment he was with her, she became lovelier? Her singing voice was strong and sweet. He had expected it but to hear it was surprising nonetheless. He didn't interrupt, but he did raise his head to ease his forehead against the back of her skull, Feeling the vibrations of the song in her head through his own, as close as he could come to singing along.

This was how Hope and Lyall Lupin found their son and his girl when they returned from their moment. They heard Narcissa's voice from outside the door and entered the house as silently as they could. The house was small enough that they could see Remus's head over the back of the settee, his eyes closed, but his face expressive. He loved this girl, this marvelous creature singing French love songs while he held her in his lap.

He had spent his childhood alone and friendless. He had spent his school years stoically coming to terms with the prospect of watching his friends start families of their own while he went on alone. His mother had presided over all of that pain, heartbroken. And now here he sat, worshipped by this mad, lovely girl.

Hope's breath caught in her chest. It didn't much matter who this girl was. They must do what they could to get her to stay.

Narcissa finished and Lyall finally pushed the door closed loudly enough to announce their arrival. On the settee, they sprang apart, wide-eyed as the Lupins came to meet them.

Hope closed her eyes and squared her shoulders. "Alright then, Remus. You'll need a ring for your bride. I have something of your grandmother's I'd like to offer."

Remus sprung to his feet. "Thank you, Mum. Yes."

"You haven't even seen it yet," she said, letting him hug her.

"We accept it anyway," Narcissa said, standing next to them. "With all gratitude and with our - " she paused, her formal tone warming with sincerity, "with our love."

Tea was pleasant, if still very polite. The evening of introducing Cissa to TV and Tolkien was lazy and relaxed, jovial at times. At the end of it, Hope merely nodded and said, "Remus, I trust you can find Cissa somewhere comfortable to sleep. There's an extra pillow in the hall cupboard." With that, she and Lyall went upstairs to bed themselves.

Remus's fingertips slipped beneath the lower edge of Narcissa's jumper, finding her skin the moment they were alone. "Now can I show you my bedroom? We seem to have permission."

She chirped. "You told the lads we didn't want any permission."

"But secretly, I always do," he growled against her throat.

She held back a squeal. "Maybe we should stay here," she said, sinking onto her back on the settee, her arms around his neck to bring him to lie down with her. "I don't want to use a silencing spell. I like to hear you. Every little sound..."

His pulse was pounding, his skin warming. "What if we just cast Silencio on the door and walls, not our voices? Is that how people do this?"

She laughed. "How should I know? I thought you would have interrogated Potter and sorted out all of the details and tricks."

"It's not like you couldn't have asked Andromeda," he said.

She made a small cry of distaste. "No, not yet. I'm still a baby to her. She's not ready."

"Well, let's go up and try it out," Remus said. "I want you in the bed where I used to lay awake feeling the scars on my face, trying to reconcile my dreams for the future with the belief that I was too wicked and wild to ever be intimately loved."

She pulled his head lower, gently, slowly kissing the scars on his nose and brow. "So I'll come to you in your bed, like your sweetest boyish fantasy?"

"Yes," he said. "You always do."