Remus awoke to his bedroom door shutting. He wasn't fully aware of what was going on, and it took him a moment to lift his head up. "Tonks?" No response. The bed was completely empty as well. After their incident earlier that morning, they changed their clothes and the bedsheets and Tonks insisted on staying beside him. She was less physical that she was before, but she laid beside him to keep watch over him. Footsteps were making their way downstairs.

Remus slowly helped himself up, dug around his dresser for a pair of socks and something to pull over his shirt. Outside of the covers felt absurdly cold. He had memorized the pattern down the steps that made the least amount of noise. Mostly, it was just staying close to the wall where it squeaked less. The grandfather clock startled him, chiming to indicate that it was three o'clock in the afternoon, yet the house was so dark, it felt as if it was night time. Remus was trying to recall whether it was Saturday or Sunday, but he heard voice talking within the kitchen. He stopped, hidden behind the wall, and not quite all the way down the steps.

"How is he doing?" Sirius's voice asked.

"He's still asleep for now, so I left him alone." Tonks slid out a chair to sit in.

"He's usually out of it for a couple of days around this time of the month." Sirius remarked. "He doesn't sleep well before the moon so he needs time to catch up."

"Even with his potion? This is still normal?" Sirius didn't say anything. "And I'm guessing it's not going to be getting any better any time soon either." She let out a deep breath.

"Are you feeling well, Tonks?" A softer voice asked. Molly had finally come back. It was probably very concerning to find bloody sheets and clothes in the laundry. "You're not still dizzy, or-"

"Yeah! Yeah, no, I'm great. All good."

"You got really weird when you saw blood, I thought you were going to faint or something."

"I don't faint at blood, Sirius, I'm an auror."

"So what's the story with all of this?" Molly asked. "Remus is fine, correct? He just bled through the bandage? Nothing else happened."

"Pretty much, yeah." Tonks took a deep breath. "It was just a lot of blood."

"And you were with him." Arthur remarked.

Molly said something incomprehensible, and then something like the sound of newspaper hitting something or someone. "It's fine, Molly, I understand." Tonks quickly reassured.

"No, you don't understand." Molly interjected. "Arthur, leave her alone, will you? You know it wasn't her fault."

"That is not what I meant, what I said was-"

"It's fine, really." Tonks said over both of them. "We both got the message." Molly inhaled through her nose sharply. "Molly, Remus and I are just friends now and-"

Sirius let out a snort.

"Sirius-"

"What?" He said defensively. "God, it's even disgusting to be around them!"

"Sirius-"

"What I'm trying to say is that I see them together every day and the past, what, since you stopped talking to him... all he's been moping around the house, he's completely bummed out about you."

"Are you saying that Remus getting hurt was my fault?" Tonks demanded angrily. "That he tried to hurt himself over me?" Remus realized she sounded more like she was angry at herself over it.

"No!" Sirius was on the defensive. "He absolutely didn't get hurt over you! What I'm saying is you two are bloody idiots who don't know what to do, so you stop talking to each other for no damn reason and now you both look like shit! You've got... bags all around your eyes now. All you ever do is go to work and go to bed. You never move at all or do anything anymore, and you think that it's not obvious?"

"Sirius, please, just stop." Tonks pleaded. "You have no idea how stressed I am right now with work, and I don't expect your sympathy, but you could at least be the tiniest bit compassionate. This has nothing to do with Remus, we said it wasn't going to work out, and I'm just tired it all-"

"Maybe work wouldn't be so stressful if you stopped trying to push people out of your life!" Sirius nagged.

"I'm not pushing anyone! So why don't you go have this talk with him!" Tonks exclaimed. "This isn't my fault. Remus has got this wild idea going on with him, like he thinks he can't even look in my direction without putting me in physical harm or whatever. I get that. He's been through a lot and he wants us to take a break. That's all."

Remus crossed his arms in frustration. Was she really going to sit in front of everyone and make them take sides with her and her immaturity? He wanted to step out then to defend himself from her over-simplification of the entire situation. How complicated was it for her to grasp that all he wanted was to protect her? That quite frankly, all it took was one slip up to ruin her life just as quickly as his own had been ruined?

Molly cut in. "Dear, he's really not been himself since the accident, and I'm sure he's got a lot on his mind-"

"I know that, I understand-"

"Let me finish," Molly said sternly. "Arthur, you know that you shouldn't have gotten yourself involved with this to begin with. Secondly, Tonks, I know that you have patience, and I know that it can be hard to use it, but Remus needs support from all of us right now and escalating this was not what we were meant to do."

The room fell silent. "All I meant was to keep the both of you focused, that's all," Arthur finally spoke up. "I apologize if I was the one to create all of this conflict, Tonks."

"I wish people would stop talking behind my back is all." She grumbled. Remus felt he quite agreed with that statement.

"Good," Molly said in a more positive voice. "Then perhaps we can settle this right now and drop it all together, shall we? I don't want to hear any more about this. This was never meant to be public business to begin with."

They all sat quietly, but Remus stood very still.

"Tonks..." Sirius said with a bit of a struggle. "I know that I can't speak for Remus himself, and I can't tell you it myself, but you do know that he's..." he trailed off into something else incomprehensible.

"Don't-" Tonks started.

"I'm his best friend and I've never seen him act like this before-" Sirius said quietly.

"Sirius, we're minding our own business, aren't we?" Molly said in a motherly voice.

"Yes, Molly," Sirius scoffed. He said something else very quietly to Tonks.

Remus had the urge to keep listening in on them until his foot slipped and he stumbled down, missing the last step. He made such a noise he knew he couldn't have not been detected, so he opted to feigning exhaustion.

"You alright?" Sirius's asked casually, looking out into the hallway where Remus was. Tonks scoffed.

"Hmm?" Remus pretended to yawn. "I'm good."

"Are you hungry? Tonks brought food, and there's some leftover from lunch." Molly insisted.

Remus shook his head. He was starving, but he had no interest in eating all by himself, surrounded by people watching him. "Is everyone gone off to work?" He asked, pretending to not know what day it was.

"Arthur and Tonks are here, love." Molly said. "Are you sure you're not hungry?"

"I'm feeling a bit sick right now, but thank you." Remus awkwardly maneuvered, looking for an empty chair, his hand brushing against the back of Tonks's head on accident.

"Oh, I got the blood out of your things as well." She said. "Soaked them for a couple of hours and it came right out."

"Thank you. So it wasn't so bad then, was it?"

"I would eat something before you become any more ill. You likely lost enough that you're feeling lightheaded." Molly chided.

"I'll eat something then. I promise." Remus tried to smile convincingly. His stomach was still somersaulting after his bout of eavesdropping.

"Good." She replied, satisfied.

Tonks's hand rubbed his shoulder. "Did you at least get some decent sleep?" She mumbled.

"Yes, I'm feeling much better now, actually." He replied awkwardly. He was trying his best not to think about the things he wasn't meant to hear.

"I can get you something for the pain if you need it." She offered. Again, Remus tried his hardest not to read too much into her voice, to think that she was flirting, but it worried him that she was. However, part of her did sound genuinely concerned about him.

"No, I'm okay, really," Remus said quickly. "Did I scare you?"

"You? What? No, no, what are you talking about?"

"I... well I'm sure I looked pretty bad and you sounded frightened when you saw blood."

"Remus, I'm not afraid of blood. I'm not afraid of things like that." She said defensively.

"Are you okay now then?"

"Of course I am." Her voice said proudly. "Now, do I need to feed you your breakfast, or do you think you can manage it on your own?" Tonks said in playfully stern voice.

Remus took a deep breath and let out the biggest sigh he could. "I'll... I suppose I'll get up and fix it myself." Tonks let out a giggle. Remus slowly helped himself.

"I was joking, but seriously, can you get it yourself?"

"Oh stop hovering, Tonks!" Remus said, making his way in the general direction towards the oven. He went for the cupboard first for an empty plate.

"Are you sure...?" She asked

Someone had stacked bowls on top of them in an unusual fashion and Remus managed to catch an armful of them as they came clattering from above along with the plate he was looking for. "I've got it!"

"No you don't." Sirius said plainly. "No, no, Tonks- leave him alone. If he wants to flounder around like an idiot, you've got to let him."

"Hey!" Remus began saying something, but could only continue to try and readjust the bowls back to their initial place. "I'm not- I'm not an idiot."

Another set of hands came and took the dish ware away from him. "I don't need you coming undone again." Molly said sternly.

"I'm not going to-" Remus nodded. "Thank you, Molly." Molly hurriedly insisted on fixing him a plate of food despite his efforts to stop her.

"You look like you haven't eaten in days." Sirius teased.

"I'm not allowed to be hungry?" Remus shot back. "Sorry, being a werewolf happens to burn a lot of calories."

"That explains why you're so thin." Tonks amusingly jabbed him in the ribs with her finger. She sort of nudged him, leaning up against his good side.

"Speaking of being a werewolf," Arthur added in. "I have letters from some that need decoding."

"Letters from werewolves?" Remus abandoned his fork full of scrambled eggs. "What werewolves? Who are you in contact with?"

"They're not apart of Greyback's pack," Arthur reassured. "They're out there like you. The man you met up with was the one who collected their names."

"Why? Why do we need to contact them?" Sirius asked.

"If they aren't on our side, there's every possibility that with the Ministry's new regulations on werewolves, they decide to become militant."

"I thought we were militant." Tonks said dryly. "And why... exactly are we assuming that's any and every werewolf out there is trying to join Greyback's pack?"

"He has a point, Tonks." Remus brought up. "People become desperate and they... they can do desperate things to cope with it. Besides, we know from when I was spying before that Greyback is already recruiting. We need to counter him."

Tonks let out a barely noticeable sigh. Arthur was shuffling around with some pieces of parchment. "He poked little holes in the paper that you can read. I'll write down the names he's given us."

Remus was immediately overwhelmed. He ran his hand down the page in shock. "How many names are here?" He asked.

"I was hoping you could tell me." Arthur sat at his other side.

"And what do we do with these names?" Sirius wondered. "Call them all up like, 'hello, my name is Sirius Black, mass murderer here, do you have a moment to chat so that we can ensure you don't decide to become feral? Thanks!'"

"We're not running for political office, Sirius." Remus said. "Tonks, could you go grab my copy of the book so I can translate?" Her chair slid out and she went stumbling up the stairs to the drawing room. "We're going to watch them, aren't we?"

"They're all Ministry workers, yes." Arthur agreed.

"So we keep an eye on them and try to talk them down when they start acting rash. Or if we see them fighting against Greyback, we take that chance to bring them over to our side." Remus explained. "Have you got a quill?"

"I'm ready when you are." Arthur announced.

Remus was a bit embarrassed when he almost couldn't read the first name. "T... I... L... F-wait, no, hang on... D... A. Last name, F-R... N...C...I-S. Tilda Francis ring any bells?"

"I believe I know her sister." Molly chimed in. "Yes, that sound about right. Her sister and I went to school together.

Remus read out loud all of the names, and there were twenty-two on the list. Of the twenty-two, several were familiar, like James Avon who worked in the auror's mailroom, so Tonks was familiar with his name. Ronald B. Maloney and Walter Cramer were both janitors. Remus thought he knew one to be an assistant at Flourish and Blott's, and another who he had seen when he worked for the Prophet. Then, at the bottom, there was an address.

"Does anyone recognize that?" Remus asked.

"I'll have to look it up." Arthur said. "But I'm wondering if it's a safe house. I didn't know anything about an address. Or worse, a hideout for Greyback."