Dear Remus and Elodie,
I have to tell you what our first Potions class is on. DRAUGHT OF PEACE.
I know you two joke around about that at home when one of you gets upset! I had a laugh at the table, and Professor Snape was not happy.
I am settled here at school again. First Quidditch practice is this Saturday! Fred and George are hoping Angelina is chosen for captain, because neither of them wants to listen to the other's orders.
I'll write again soon,
Harry
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The Order of the Phoenix had an emergency meeting on the sixth of September at #12 Grimmauld Place. The main order of business was the defense of Sturgis Podmore, who had been caught breaking into the Department of Mysteries on the last day of August. Podmore had been assigned to the DoM as a guard to protect the prophecy, and there was strong evidence that he had been affected by the Imperius Curse.
Elodie sat in disbelief as she watched Alastor and Albus argue that a short Azkaban sentence for a fellow Order member was preferable to any information in his defense being given. The problem was that Podmore was hiding near the entrance under an Invisibility Cloak (something Elodie had not remembered from the books at all) and his presence there was suspicious unless he told anyone he was there under the auspices of a group meant to defend the Department of Mysteries.
Sirius sat on the couch next to Elodie at the meeting, and she basically held his hand the entire time, squeezing it in frustration or outrage at various points in the debate.
The next order of business was about pressure the Ministry was putting on Albus as Headmaster. He suspected that there would be more Ministry meddling.
"Note my meaning: this isn't just the Ministry. This is the Ministry as affected by Tom's minions, if not by Tom himself. The danger of infiltration has been realized, thanks to Cornelius's weak desire to maintain his own grip on power. He will fail, and when he does, Death Eaters are poised to pick up the pieces," Albus told the assembled members. "Hogwarts seems to be just the beginning."
"So what are our options? I will resign before my position is used to further a Death Eater agenda, I'll say that now," Arthur declared. Several voices spoke up in agreement.
"The reach of whose positions are being used seems to be widespread. Not all the Death Eaters who survived his defeat the first time stayed in the country," Snape said. "Not all of them will seek to escape his reach, like Karkaroff."
"What do your coworkers think? The ones that know about Harry's claims? Do they think this is a UK issue or an everyone issue?" Elodie asked Remus, leaning over to whisper her questions in his ear, as he was sitting on the other side of her on the couch.
Remus thought about her question, scooting back to rest his left arm across the back of the couch instead of leaning forward as he had been. With how long his arm was versus the relative smallness of the couch, his fingers brushed against where Sirius was reclining at the other side. Sirius leaned his head onto Remus's hand and instead of moving away, Remus started gently scratching at Sirius's scalp.
Elodie felt something in her heart sliding into place. The fraught situation, so much on what felt like the knife edge of actual cheating, had left her lying awake at night feeling guilty and anxious. She hadn't placed herself in the situation on purpose, but that didn't make her feel absolved. The remaining Marauders' friendship meant more to her than almost anything else in this universe, and seeing evidence of it being preserved gave her leave to keep breathing, she felt.
"Everyone issue, definitely," Remus finally answered her. She looked up at him, and he nodded. "Albus?"
"Remus, yes?" The conversation that had been going on around them was cut through by Dumbledore.
"I work with people from various societies across Europe. Perhaps it's time to see this conflict as the international one it will turn into? If government takeover is on their agenda, I see no reason why we should leave our allies unwarned," Remus said.
Quite a few Order members nodded or vocalized their assent to this suggestion.
"Gently. Diplomatically. Slowly," Albus said, in response.
Remus smiled. "Of course," he said, and Elodie wasn't the only one who laughed a bit. Remus was the soul of diplomacy.
"Well, we must get back to the school," Minerva said briskly, standing up and holding her arm out as if gathering Albus and Snape to follow her.
"Mad-Eye!" Sirius called out. "A word?"
Alastor started to walk in their direction, but Sirius waved him off. "Small library?" Then, Sirius grabbed her hand and stood.
"Looks like I've got somewhere to be," Elodie said to Remus.
"My condolences," Remus said with an easygoing smile. She frowned at him in disapproval of his joke but was tugged to her feet when Sirius started for the door.
Once the three of them were in the small library, Sirius started casting silencing spells and wards to prevent anyone else from entering. He went on for long enough that Elodie exchanged raised eyebrows with Alastor.
"Merlin, son, what are you planning?" Moody said, standing back up from the armchair he'd settled into, his wand in his hand.
"A wedding," Sirius told him without preamble.
"What, right now?" Alastor asked, leaning with both hands on his cane, tipped slightly toward Sirius.
"I need more notice than that!" Elodie said, pointing one finger from each hand at the wizards in the room with her.
Sirius spun around from where he'd been facing the door. "You have to admit, though, that's not romantic at all!"
"That's pushing it," she said, crossing her arms.
"This isn't a jealousy thing, is it? I know you love Harry; staking your claim on her isn't going to work for keeping him safe," Alastor said, laughing a bit. He pointed at Sirius. "You're scrappy, but I'd bet on the werewolf in a fight."
Elodie thought about the scene in the third book, where Padfoot attacked Remus as he transformed without the benefit of Wolfsbane. She shut down any thought of the men fighting in human form, much less over her. It was more unrealistic to her than her presence in their universe in the first place.
"No, this is about Harry. I need to make sure he's protected, both if I end up back in Azkaban or if I am killed," Sirius said, his grey eyes full of concern and sincerity. "If I had my way, I wouldn't have said anything until I got my name cleared."
"You know I don't care about that," Elodie said.
"I do." Sirius's voice was firm.
"So, legal marriage." Alastor nodded. "I assume you want to cover some of the typical spells, but not all of them?"
Sirius tossed his black hair out of his eyes. "None against infidelity."
Elodie tried not to react to this, but there was a lot to process. It wasn't so strange to imagine that traditional magical marriage ceremonies included charms against infidelity, but to hear Sirius clearly reject them was something on another level. It tore at her heart, the whole situation, and the matter-of-fact way that Sirius accepted it made her feel terrible. She walked over to where he stood confidently, legs apart, almost at battle stance. All that was missing from the image of a man at war was his wand.
"There have got to be legal documents we can sign instead. You deserve to have the kind of wedding where the whole range of spells can be cast," she said, standing at his side, hoping he'd turn to look at her. To her surprise, it wasn't Sirius who refuted her.
"You don't know what you're saying, girl," Alastor guffawed. "Those spells run the gamut, and some of them can only be cast if the bridegroom is as pureblooded as he is." He gestured to Sirius with his cane.
Sirius turned his head to face her, but not his body. His hair fell forward again as he looked down at her, giving him a rakish look. "I'm sure my father wished he'd gotten my mother to agree to the one that forces the woman to be silent unless spoken to."
"Oh, she'd have found ways," Elodie told him. "I see what you're implying, though. I stand by my statement as originally meant: if a spell against infidelity is something that often is cast at a magical wedding, then we should wait until it's appropriate to cast it."
Moody snorted and stumped over to the desk, pulling out a parchment and inkpot. He sat down and started noisily whittling a quill he'd pulled from his robes down to whatever appropriate angle he wanted it to have.
"Would that be when Harry comes of age, or never?" Sirius whispered to her.
Elodie looked up at him, stricken. "What kind of a person do you think I-"
Swiftly, Sirius leaned down to kiss her. "I'm trying to be realistic. Whatever you and Remus have, it's not nothing. I'm grateful that we can draw on that to keep Harry safe at a time when he'd be nothing but, if I had nowhere to live."
"There are ways around this," Alastor said, gesturing in a wide circle that seemed to include another part of the house. "Pretty powerful benefits, too, if you can keep from killing each other."
To Elodie's surprise, Sirius moved to stand between her and Moody, so that she couldn't even see the other man. When she tried to sidestep, confused about what Alastor could be talking about, Sirius moved to block her again.
"Sirius Orion Black, what-"
"There's no way Remus's wolf would consent to that, Mad-Eye," Sirius said gruffly.
"From what I hear he's been alone for two decades! Who knows what he'll agree to, at that point?" Alastor shot back, his voice every bit as rough sounding as Sirius's had been.
"Will one of you-"
Sirius turned around to face her in a swift move, grabbing her upper arms, his eyes wild. "This isn't why I asked him to speak to us, you must believe that."
"No reason to make a choice if you could have them both, eh?" Alastor laughed crudely.
Unbidden, the memory of the kinds of stories that fit that description came to mind, stories that featured Harry, Ron, and Hermione in a relationship together, or even Hermione with Remus and Sirius. She stared at a fixed spot on the wall beside Sirius's head, trying to reconcile her current reality with the imaginary one she'd seen on fanfiction sites. Elodie shut her eyes. She could see herself standing in a mist, one hand on either man's chest, and she wanted to reach for that image so badly, but she knew it was a false one.
Sirius was right. There was no way Remus would agree.
Elodie heard voices in the room again but couldn't make them out. She opened her eyes again to find that Alastor was angry, his face red as he stared at Sirius. Sirius was equally upset, and he said something derisive about Moody meddling in things that weren't his business.
"I don't know what I was thinking, bringing it up to the least rational one of the lot of you!" Alastor shouted, stomping off toward the door to the library.
Elodie stepped forward, about to call after him to try to diffuse the situation, but Sirius stopped her with a hand on her arm.
"Don't. He likes the idea of a Triad because of what it might mean for the Order. The actual witch and wizards involved aren't as important," he said in a voice full of indignation. "'Least rational!' After what he suggested to Remus, after locking the two of you in!"
"Sirius," Elodie said, worried. "Is it me, or did his language imply that he should have brought it up with Remus instead?"
"No, that's exactly what he said." Sirius stomped over to a small chair, turned it around, and threw his leg around it to sit, each action full of angry petulance. Almost as soon as he sat, though, Sirius stood back up, a look of alarm on his face. "You think he's going to Remus? Now?"
Elodie nodded and bit her lip. "We need to stop him."
"Do we? I think Remus could put Mad-Eye nicely in his place, honestly."
"Sirius!" Elodie glared at him.
He was unrepentant. "Think about it, Elodie! How angry were you that Mad-Eye suggested something he should have known you'd never do? Come to think of it, we should go watch, I'll bet Moony hexes the bastard."
"You are hopeless," Elodie said fondly, still irritated with him. "I'd rather stop Remus from the whole mortifying situation entirely, though?"
"Come with me, then," Sirius said, taking her hand and rushing over to the door. Before he walked through it, he turned and grinned at her. "I know the whole house, top to bottom. I had to. And I think I know just where Mad-Eye is going to take Remus." He leaned down and kissed her before turning to drag her behind him.
Sirius took her into the kitchen and over to a narrow stretch of wall with an ancient calendar of pagan holidays on it. He reached up farther than she could ever hope to, touching a spot of grime that prompted the whole panel to slide sideways, revealing a staircase full of cobwebs.
"I'm starting to lose my sense of enthusiasm," Elodie warned him, wrinkling her nose.
"Illusions," he told her, and started up the stairs. Just as he'd implied, nothing clung to him, but she took a few seconds to follow, wondering if perhaps they didn't stick simply because of his birthright.
Elodie couldn't think of a full-body spell that would prevent cobwebs, so she just stepped into the space, and the door closed behind her so swiftly she realized she'd probably almost missed her chance. The staircase curved around as it went up, turning to follow the outer wall of the house. It was dimly lit by a single hexagonal window covered with cobwebs. Sirius was waiting for her at the top.
"I think you should go in, there's only room for one, if it's where I am thinking. Albus was using it to talk to Kingsley, which reminds me I've got a lot to tell you about from the last week or two," Sirius said, again smiling at her with zero indications of remorse.
"Eavesdropping is not a good look for an escaped convict, you know," she scolded him.
"What! It's my house, I get to know what happens in it!" He waved dismissively. "So, through here," he indicated a narrow hallway only wide enough for one person, "and the second doorway to the right. Should lead down two stairs into a converted closet, but don't worry, the latch is hidden behind a shield so you can't bump it by accident. It's quite small, even though Reg and I used to both fit in there."
Elodie led the way only to turn to see him standing in the same spot once she'd reached the aforementioned doorway. Carefully, she started back toward him, and he walked over to meet her halfway.
"There's only room for one, and I'll wager Moody'll talk you up if he's so determined to persuade him. You should hear it. I already know how lovely you are."
"So I listen a bit and then burst in on him and tell him off? Won't that reveal your hiding place and ruin your spying?" she asked him, incredulous.
Sirius looked evasive as he said, "You might not even need to burst in. Hurry up, though, or you'll miss it. I can hear the sound of footsteps approaching, and Moony's a day into his full moon week."
Elodie stared at Sirius for a long minute, but he didn't change his expression to look more or less guilty.
"I think you're up to something, but I would really love to hear what Remus says to Moody, and I know he'll never tell me, not about this, so it'll be my only chance," she said, hearing the doubtfulness in her own tone of voice.
"Go on, then," Sirius said.
"I'll find out what you're up to, I always do, you know," she told him.
"Narrow your eyes at me, I love when you do that," he whispered.
Instead, she turned her back on him and went through the doorway he'd indicated. As soon as she'd set foot on the first step down into the closet hiding space, she could hear voices she recognized.
For the first time since she'd arrived in Harry Potter's book universe, Elodie Merriman felt like she was trespassing in a place she absolutely didn't belong. She stood transfixed as she heard Alastor tell Remus to wait in the room while he used the loo and thought about what she'd done since she'd woken up at Hollyfield House. Should she have confessed to Albus that she was a fraud with no training in potions? Probably, but then Remus would have had no one to make Wolfsbane for him, and he'd have had to suffer through the months afterwards in ways she knew would have been truly awful for him. Should she have told Albus who was masquerading as a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and where Moody truly was? Or worse, should she have kept completely silent?
Elodie shook her head. She could imagine all manner of ways that could have gone wrong, ways that would have trashed the books to hell and made it impossible for her to help with any of the knowledge she had. Without being sure she could have saved Cedric, her greatest regret, Elodie didn't think she could have done things much differently, not with the way she'd been thinking at the time. She settled into the stool that took up all of the floor space in the miniscule 'closet' hiding space and saw to her surprise that she was able to see the room on the other side of the hidden door. The peephole was covered with a mesh that she assumed was there to break up the visual of the observer's eye from the sight of the room's occupants.
She tried to imagine herself throwing the door open and objecting to anything Moody might say about her close relationship to both of the men she cared so much for. It was impossible to picture, and Elodie shook her head.
"Hindsight," Elodie whispered to herself. Remus lifted his head from where he'd been looking at a book while standing and waiting for Moody. He looked around, and Elodie realized with a thankfully inaudible gasp that he must have heard her whispered word.
She pulled back, still able to see a blurry outline of him through the peephole, which was around the diameter of a US quarter coin. As quietly as she could, she reached down and started to pull her wand from her trouser pocket, but the angle required that she turn her body on the stool, and the stool made a wooden noise of protest. Her heart leaped in fear of being discovered, but while Remus had taken a step toward the sound, the door to the room seemed to be located on the same wall. Alastor burst in with his booming voice and distracted Remus with apologies for keeping him waiting.
Elodie shook her head and suppressed a sigh of frustration. The hidden closet was higher than the level of the floor, which made it more of a built-in cupboard, she supposed, but that made it even less likely that she'd want to burst out of it! Presumably she would end up falling flat on her face after falling a few feet. Sirius had to have known this, so what had he possibly been thinking? And what was she supposed to do now?
"-wanted to apologize to you for the way I treated you and Elodie. You clearly know her better than I do," Alastor was saying.
Even without looking through the peephole, Elodie could hear everything said in the room as clearly as if she were standing there beside Remus.
"Thank you." Remus sounded uncomfortable, and she risked looking through to see that he had a wry smile on his face. By sheer chance, both men were standing practically facing her cupboard, but it was more likely that they were facing the door through which Moody had just walked.
"I've had my life fucked with to get to Harry Potter, so I know what that's like," Alastor said. Elodie almost jumped to hear him using profanity, something that he hadn't done much even when teaching her how to duel. She wondered if he was among that certain generation of men who only swore around other men. Remus said something in response, but Elodie was busy being amused at the idea that Alastor Moody was as good at swearing as the actor Tommy Lee Jones was.
Maybe she could do this, Elodie told herself. Maybe she could let herself be distracted, and if she was distracted enough, she wouldn't hear what they were saying, and then-
She heard her name, and all thoughts of distracting herself faded away, despite her best efforts. Self-consciously, Elodie looked through peephole to see that Remus looked calm but resolute as he spoke.
"-Elodie was very angry with you, and rightly so."
"Well, you know your girl better than I-"
Remus made a pained face and interrupted quickly. "I wish you would stop using language like that. You know full well it's not true, and it's starting to feel like you're trying to goad me for some reason!"
"Merlin's Beard, Lupin! There's no shame in loving the woman!" Moody shouted at him, taking a challenging step forward with one finger up as if scolding Remus.
Remus turned and walked in a tight circle away from Alastor, wild-eyed and agitated. Elodie desperately wished she could pull her wand free to stop the terrible invasion of his privacy that she was perpetuating, but she knew he was impulsive when he was emotional, and she wouldn't put it past him to cast some sort of revelatory spell on the unknown source of noise if she made any.
He whirled around to face Moody after taking a deep breath, and Elodie expected to hear him shout an angry response. Instead, his voice was quiet and rigidly controlled.
"There is shame. Shame in admitting it, shame in accepting it, and shame in wanting to do something about it!" With a slightly shaking hand, Remus pushed his hair back. "Now that you've got what you wanted, will you please stop? I am trying my very hardest to keep my household together, and as you might imagine, it is very difficult at present."
He hadn't denied it.
He hadn't denied it.
Elodie could scarcely breathe, but of course what she was watching was real life, not a play, so there was no pause for the audience reaction.
"What if it didn't have to be? What if instead the lot of you could be more powerful and happier on top of that?" Moody pressed, a self-satisfied smile on his face.
Remus literally facepalmed at this, and Elodie, reeling as she was from what his words had implied, had to valiantly suppress the bubble of laughter that threatened to give her away. He was so quintessentially Remus in that moment.
"Alastor, this conversation has reached the end of its usefulness," Remus said, straightening to his full height.
"You don't even know what I'm going to say!" Moody protested, crossing his arms, his chest thrust out in defiance.
"I'm rather afraid that I do," Remus said with a sigh. He started for the door, passing directly in front of where Elodie's peephole was. She froze in fear of being discovered, but whatever painting or tapestry was displayed on the other side of her door must have been quite good at camouflaging her. Even though Alastor's next words stopped Remus dead in his tracks, he didn't see her. She did, however, worry about him sensing her emotions, so she did her best to mentally cram them down out of 'sight' of his full moon week abilities. It was the beginning of that week, so she still had a chance of evading his notice, even if they were literally only a few feet away from each other.
"Wouldn't a Triad be better than lying to yourself?"
Remus's gaze was fixed on a point close to where she thought the room door was. His voice sounded wooden and weary, as if he'd done the same as she had and stuffed his emotions away out of reach. "There's no lying to the wolf, Alastor, and he's already to the point where he doesn't want to share."
With those words, Remus simply walked out of the room, leaving Alastor Moody to stare after him in surprise.
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Elodie had to sit and wait nearly five minutes for Moody to leave the room. He sat and grouchily unfurled two different scrolls to read through them before he finally quit the room. During that time, she sat and thought about what she'd just witnessed and why.
The why was the real conundrum. What made Sirius so convinced she needed to observe the conversation! It had been clear when Alastor had brought the subject of a Triad up to the two of them that in order for it to work, they all needed to have genuine feelings for each other! What possible good could come of finding that out for herself?
It wasn't until the stumping footsteps of Alastor Moody had completely faded from earshot that she thought of a possibility.
Elodie slid down from the stool as quietly as she could, just to see how loud it would have been. The answer was: quite loud. She slowly made her way out of the space and back down the hallway, not seeing Sirius until she neared the stairs. He was seated on them, waiting, and he didn't look excited when he heard her approach. He got up and held out his arms for her.
She didn't step into his warmth, as much as she wanted to. Instead, in a voice made small because of what she knew about (what had to be) his failed plan, she asked him a question.
"Why did you want me to hear him say that he doesn't love me? What possible use could that serve?"
In her head, Elodie silently pleaded with Sirius to refute her assumption.
He did not.
"I wasn't certain that he'd- I did think, though, if I'd overheard it and told you, you might not believe me, might assume I had other motives… All right, that was the wrong thing to say," Sirius said the last bit after stepping closer to her to see her expression, which was outraged and incredulous.
"You expect me to think you're lying to me?" Elodie asked, completely and utterly stunned for the second time in twenty minutes. Now she walked over and hugged him, but he didn't fold his arms around her like she expected. An icy chill of worry flooded over her, and Elodie stepped back, hugging her arms around herself. For his part, Sirius looked uncomfortable, but not guilty. She'd seen him look guilty before, and this wasn't it.
"Not lying as much as… unreliable. Opportunistic." He looked down at the floor and traced a crack in the hardwood with the toe of his boot. When he looked up, he used one large hand to pull his hair back away from his face, and Elodie felt the pull of attraction to him as strong as ever. She wished there was an uncomplicated way to tell him how he made her feel, but sensed that this was not that moment.
"All right, I'll grant you that," she agreed to his assessment. "I would never guess that you'd ever feel… what? Threatened?" Her tone was almost derisive.
"That reaction is encouragement in itself," Sirius said, stepping past her to rest a hand against the wall. The resulting lean looked nonchalant, but there was a vulnerability in his eyes that tugged at her heart. "How could I not feel threatened?" he said in a quieter, more subdued voice. "The two of you are like peas in a pod." He looked up and away from her, and his tone turned rougher. "Peas in a pod versus one sweet pea and a glass of whiskey? No competition."
"That's just taking the metaphor too far, at that point," Elodie said, careful to keep her tone light. "So Remus and I have similar interests. So what? We both like to read books, we-"
Sirius reached out and hooked his arm around her middle, spinning her around and pulling her against him in a move so quick there was a whoosh of air that made the cobwebs dance.
"I may have made similar lists in my head on occasion, I don't need to hear them in your voice," he whispered in her ear.
"The list wasn't going to be very long-"
"Long enough, thanks."
Elodie slid her fingers in between his where he was still holding onto her waist, and then using their joined hands as leverage, she spun around in place so that she was facing him. His eyes were guarded, but she let her whole host of complicated feelings about him both as the man she'd read about and the man she knew shine from her eyes.
"You, Sirius Black, are hard… fucking… work. Of the most rewarding kind. Nothing I heard today changes that," she told him, meaning it. "I wouldn't have agreed to marry you if I didn't love you and want to be with you. I could easily have slapped your face when you kissed me in front of the cottage and told you to go to hell. I could have changed my mind at any moment and thrown myself at our housemate if I'd wanted to. I don't want to."
"You don't have to throw yourself," Sirius said quietly. "Even without throwing, if I object, I lose Harry. I'm not objecting," he rushed to say, his hands coming up to frame her upper arms gently but insistently. "I'm not. I just can't help but feel like an obstacle, sometimes. The ingredient that ruined the perfect potion."
"How much set up has to happen for the soul link tattoo?" Elodie asked, blood rushing to her face as she made an impulsive, heady, exciting decision. "Could we do it today? Could Moody do the spells?"
Sirius looked at her for a few seconds in confusion and then the color rose on his face as her implication became clear. He traced his gaze over her face, his eyes lighting up with a sort of manic joy that was quite gratifying to her after hearing him voice his fears.
"You mean getting married today? Now?" he whispered.
She nodded.
With one hand cupping her face, Sirius told her, "Bear with me? I mean, you can smack me or challenge me to a duel or something but I need to ask you this: You're not overcompensating, are you? You've lost your chance with Remus and you're doubling down on your second choice?"
Elodie almost told him the truth of what she'd overheard. Instead, she shook her head decisively and arched up on her toes to kiss his cheek.
"Mark me as yours?" she whispered in his ear.
"Gladly," Sirius said. He pulled her against his chest and hugged her so tightly she nearly protested that oxygen was kind of a necessary bridal accessory. He let go and strode over to the stairway, tossing a direct look at her that practically smouldered. "I'll find you, after I ask Moody. We'll either be casting the spells by dinnertime or you'll make it up to me… somehow."
Without giving her a chance to respond, he jogged down the stairs out of sight.
