Chapter Sixteen: Bound By Love and Duty

Elodie had set her alarm for five in the morning because she'd need to figure out what to wear for the ceremony. Discussing dress code hadn't been a priority for all the fraught conversations she'd had the day before. The truth was, she knew Remus didn't have very much in the way of fancy clothing, and she'd practically bought all of Sirius's wardrobe herself.

During her research of magical weddings in preparation to fake being a part of one, she'd found that it was tradition to avoid any kind of appearance-altering magic. It made sense; in a society where a person could use Polyjuice to impersonate another person, wear a Glamour disguise to mask your looks or identity, or use other charms and illusions that increased beauty and masked flaws, she could see how it might be important to ensure you were really marrying who you thought you were. She decided to see their rushed situation as a kind of silver lining; without a chance to buy something special, Elodie would instead be choosing to go as 'herself,' wearing something she wouldn't feel obligated to pack away into a closet, never to be worn again.

Once the ritual was complete, Elodie would 'wear' something more important anyway: the magical mark she'd begged Sirius for when he'd proposed in the first place.

This thought prompted her to lift her left arm up and run her right hand over the bare skin there. Her heart was already marked by her love for both men, but having a talisman there would be so much more meaningful! A whole-body shiver went through her, Elodie covered her face with both hands and just grinned for a few seconds. The only thing that marred her excitement was concern about Moony. Remus had been so severe about spending time together until after the full moon. His behavior the night before had been tightly controlled in a way that made her worry about what he was doing to achieve that.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw that the ceiling of Remus's room was covered in pages from Orion's Belt. She cast Lumos and lifted her wand to look at them more closely. The pages were scattered at odd, fun angles, obviously placed with eccentric care, leaving the impression of, of- Elodie let out a little laugh. It looked like the background to a newspaper's webpage, if she was honest. The overall effect was of a celebration of the printed page, really, and she wondered if Remus had done it so that when he laid down in bed, he never had something boring to lie on his back and look at.

Elodie suspected that there was a page from every printed edition of Orion's Belt since Remus started there.

After a quick shower, Elodie put the same clothes back on so she didn't have to Apparate into her bedroom naked. That was not the kind of message she wanted to send (especially because they couldn't be late, not today)! Her plan was to teleport into the bedroom so she could sort through her closet for something to wear. The crack sound would wake Sirius up, but would spare her from the frustration of persuading him to unlock the door, which she was absolutely certain he'd done.

She lifted her wand and tried to cast the spell- but nothing happened. It was such a strange experience that she tried again. Instead of a surge of magical power, she felt an odd empty feeling, as though her magic was trying to protect her from trying to Apparate into outer space or something. Elodie went into the living room to see if Remus was awake, finding him sitting at his chair with some tea. He was wearing a bathrobe and flannel pajama bottoms, which she found painfully endearing.

"I saw you standing in the hallway looking annoyed. Can't get back in your room?" he asked, setting down his teacup.

"Yeah, I can't Apparate for some reason, and I'll be damned if I mess with the door and give Sirius the satisfaction of knowing I want in! Okay, now that I say that out loud, it's really stupid." Elodie blinked.

"Yet somehow completely understandable," Remus said.

"Will you try? It's really hard to describe, this feeling."

Remus folded up the newspaper (she wondered if he'd picked which page he'd plaster onto the ceiling yet) and pulled his wand from the pocket of his robe. He traced out the wand movement for Apparition, and then frowned.

"That is odd," he said. "It feels the same way as trying to Apparate into Hogwarts."

"Like a prohibition against the spell entirely? Isn't that a seriously high level of magic?"

"It is," Remus agreed, looking troubled. He walked purposefully into the hallway and grabbed the doorknob as though he intended to burst into the room without warning- but it didn't open. Given that he had full access to his wolf speed and strength without the Wolfsbane to temper it, she was surprised. "It's warded, but there are also physical locks, I can feel them," Remus told her, shaking the knob with his hand. He pounded on the door with the flat of his other hand. "Wake up, Sirius, this is not a day to be a layabout!"

The door flew open, and Sirius sauntered out. He was wearing tight-fitting black trousers and a black silk dress shirt with the first few buttons undone, and his black hair was clean and shiny. He looked at the two of them with the kind of disdain one would expect from an A-list celebrity being greeted by shabby fans, and pulled the ornate door shut behind him with a bang.

"What's all the commotion?"

"I'm going to shower and get dressed," Remus told her. She nodded, and he made a sympathetic expression with his back to Sirius.

"The commotion is, we're getting married and I have just over a half hour to figure out what to wear!" Elodie said. She was frustrated, but it was still hard to ignore the flutter in her stomach on seeing how handsome Sirius looked. There wasn't a chance she had something that would look that elegant in her wardrobe.

Sirius looked back at the bedroom door with a strange look on his face. "Let me take a look and see what I can bring you," he said, turning on his heel and disappearing into the bedroom without enough time for her to object. Elodie set her hand on the knob and immediately yelped, snatching her hand back. It had stung her!

"What the hell did you do to our bedroom, Sirius?" she shouted, rubbing her thumb against the red mark on her palm.

With a crack sound, Sirius appeared behind her with an armful of clothes. "Might've panicked, a little," he said, hefting the clothes like he was about to dump them at her feet.

Elodie took in a deep breath and let it out before she asked, "Are you referring to whatever you did to the bedroom last night in a fit of pique or the pile of clothes you're holding?"

"Both."

"Use my room to pick something, we're short on time," Remus said, sticking his head out of the bathroom door. She could hear the water running behind him.

"I- Okay," Elodie said, immensely confused. She opened the door and gestured for Sirius to dump the clothes onto Remus's bed. Sirius seemed to be in a hurry, and Elodie had to rush to catch his arm. "What on Earth-" she started, but he stopped her with a brisk kiss.

"I ah, couldn't sleep. Spent some time fucking about with spells, shit I've never been brave enough to try. Wanted a baseline, for later."

It was a Sirius-y thing to do, and Remus was right, they were short on time. "Just, can you make sure I can get in there by the end of the day? Remus shouldn't have to sleep on the couch because you're impulsive."

"Wouldn't be the first time, but, yeah, I promise," he grinned at her.

After Elodie shooed him away, she took stock of what he'd brought. It seemed like he'd just Accio'd every dress-like thing she owned. Most of them were skirts, but having lived through the 90's once already, Elodie couldn't shake the feeling that they weren't formal enough. That left a few dresses, one of which was the cocktail dress she'd worn to dinner with Remus.

There was no way in hell Sirius Black would marry her in a green dress, so that was out.

Elodie picked up one dress she'd never worn and tried not to be critical. It was a dark yellow brown, and the style was very Southern Grandmother, with deep red, green, and yellow bouquets of flowers. It's the sort of dress she'd buy if she was trying for malicious compliance, and she suspected that Mellie had worn it to annoy Jerk Francis. Her eyes lit on the white lacy one she'd worn the second time she'd seen Remus on the stairs at Hollyfield. She'd worn it when meeting the Weasleys, too. In a way, she'd already worn it for an event she thought was important, and this would just add to that, wouldn't it?

She was just pulling her shirt up to change into the white lace dress when the door opened and Remus walked in wearing his bathrobe.

"Oh, I thought you'd be-" he started to say, turning his back on her as though she were indecent. His hair was still wet, and his feet were bare.

"It took me a while to dig through everything. I think he grabbed everything with a skirt," she apologized. "I've got something now, so I can just pop into the bathroom and-"

"Stay, it seems absurd for us to dance around each other's state of undress," Remus interrupted, taking out his wand. "Here." He cast a spell that bisected the room with an opaque mist, then walked over behind it. Elodie heard the sound of a drawer opening. His solution wasn't all that functionally different than separate rooms, but being able to talk and hear each other while getting dressed struck down a significant boundary between them, relationship-wise.

"Thank you," she said, a little shaken by his sanguine attitude, after so much repression on both sides. It was in direct contrast to Moony's reaction to her hickey, or the way his wolf hadn't wanted to let go of her hand without holding it hard enough to bruise. Remus's behavior the night before had been more open than usual, but he'd shown no sign of Moony's influence, even when he'd picked her up- but would he have done so without Moony's influence?

Was he just better able to hide the overlay of personalities, or was something else going on? It would matter for the ceremony, even if she just gained a better understanding of what was going on in his bifurcated mind.

Elodie's dress didn't have any fastenings, and Remus didn't have any mirrors in his room, so there was nothing to delay the uncomfortable question.

"Since I'm between you and the door and you're not fully dressed, I'll just ask you: what are your plans regarding Moony, this morning?" Elodie was rather proud of her phrasing.

"That's rather loaded, don't you think?"

"You're the one who evicted us for our own safety, Remus!"

He sighed. "I am not accustomed to being close enough to someone who can suss out my private dealings with my alter-ego."

"That's a trap! I can hardly point out that knowing you well teaches me to figure out those choices without implying you ought to conceal them more thoroughly," she complained. "Also, you're deflecting."

Remus came out from around his magical barrier. He was tying his tie without a mirror, his hand gestures confident and precise. Elodie thought most wizards would tie them magically, and she was captivated by the very Muggle-ness of the action.

"You were asleep when Moody came with the news about the inspection-"

"Oh, I remember," she said darkly. The thunderclap the Auror had used to fully wake her ranked as one of the worst spells she'd experienced, right up there with Crucio.

"I didn't wake you right away. I went to speak with Albus, instead. He was in the middle of meeting with Horace Slughorn-"

"Oh no," she blurted out.

Remus looked down with a fleeting smile. "He was pleased to meet me, yes. I couldn't be candid with Albus, but Slughorn offered to let me try a concoction he's been developing-"

Elodie couldn't help interrupting again. "Oh no!"

"There's solid theory behind it, and I do understand that the man leans heavily on the experimental." He walked over to a drawer on her side and pulled out a pair of dress socks, then sat on the bed to put them on. The sheer domesticity of the action calmed and attracted her, and Elodie suspected that might have been his object. "He told me the side effects are… more harsh, but a person could conceivably obtain it a day or two before the full moon, as I have done. Looks to be less expensive ingredient-wise, as well." He fell silent as he finished with the socks.

"I'm fond of Horace, Remus, but that's a hell of a risk!"

"I'm surprised you can say that, considering the risks you took to accelerate that first cauldron of Wolfsbane." He stood, his expression serious. "You barely knew me. A few days of feeling ill is nothing in comparison."

She couldn't believe he'd brought that up- except she could, because Remus always used deflection instead of direct attacks, during arguments. "How many trials did he do prior to this?" Elodie asked, crossing her arms.

"I'll be the third," Remus said, rather smugly. He retrieved his suit jacket and shrugged it on. The suit was a soft gray, well-tailored but not flashy. It wasn't the same one he'd worn to Karavas Majicka, but it was of similar quality. She suspected he'd bought it the day before, and knew there was no way in hell he'd allow either she or Sirius to offer up some money in compensation.

"Well, I wish you hadn't done it."

"I gathered," he said. The affectionate amusement in his tone set off sparks in her gut that were furthered when he came over and leaned over to look at the back of her dress in an exaggerated way. "No hanging brushes, this time," he reported.

"You remember that?" Elodie's cheeks heated.

"You made quite an impression that morning, Elodie. Most witches don't allow themselves to look anything less than polished-" He sped to the door to prevent her escape when she scrunched up her nose and made for it, fully embarrassed. "Hear me: you had the most confidence of any beautiful witch I'd ever met. There you were, clearly in a hurry, and whatever it was you were doing was more important than the assumptions someone would make. I was very impressed by that."

"That's quite a perspective," Elodie said, touched; "-but, haven't you guessed?"

"Guessed?"

"I was rushing to stir the Wolfsbane, Remus."

His surprise loosened his grip on the doorknob, and she was able to dislodge him and leave to finish getting ready.

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The three of them Flooed to Hogwarts at 6:10 and were greeted by Albus and Minerva, both dressed in ceremonial robes.

"Moody had to step over to his office to collect one of the potions needed," Minerva told them.

"Does he need help?" Remus asked. "I know where it is."

"Oh, not that office," McGonagall said. "No, Albus offered Alastor an office in the dungeons this year. It keeps him from causing conflict elsewhere, and is as far from Professor Umbridge's current lair as we could manage."

"Oh, drat. I'd successfully forgotten about her for the past few days," Elodie sighed.

"Would that we could," Minerva sniffed.

The sound of stomping echoed from the staircase, and soon Moody appeared, huffing and puffing as he carried a cauldron in one hand and his wand in the other. "Good. You're here. Come on, then," he said, stumping off toward the bookcases. Elodie saw that there was now a tall, tapered archway bound around with vines, purple heliotrope clusters, and sweet-smelling white honeysuckle. Behind the archway was a podium, and beside that was a table with a shocking number of vials, candles, rope, and now the cauldron.

"Are you okay?" Remus asked her, having turned to see that she'd stopped walking with the group.

"This is crazy, I'm nowhere near important enough for all this," she whispered. Sirius was laughing and talking with Minerva, both of them standing right beside the table as if its contents weren't intimidating at all.

"You're important to me," Remus said lightly. "Tell yourself it's just for Harry's safety, if you have to," he said, clearing his throat and holding out his arm. "Shall we?"

It was obvious to Elodie that there was some repair work between them that needed to be done, and no time to do it. "Remus, I-"

"Later, I promise," he whispered. "Vows first."

"The vows you promised yourself you'd never take," she whispered back as they slow-walked to the magical altar. Sirius was joking broadly with McGonagall, and Albus was helping Moody cast wards around the archway. "What kind of a person does that to someone they care about?"

She could have said 'love,' Elodie realized, but even seconds before the Triad ceremony, she was still guarding her words. To her surprise, Remus stopped and stepped in front of her, drawing her attention with the intensity in his expression.

"No one truly loves a person if they only seek to give them what they want, and not what they need. I was wrong."

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Elodie was glad for the existence of Pensieves as the ceremony progressed, because looking at a memory would be the only way she would be able to relax and take it all in. She'd expected something more like a Muggle ceremony, something performed on a couple, rather than by the couple- but she performed so much magic that she almost wished she'd tied a fancy ribbon around the star of the show: her wand. Since so much of it was in Latin, she did regret her lack of research about the ceremony itself, but Remus was right. This was as much to protect Harry as anything else, and she'd been operating in uncharted territory when it came to him for quite a while, now.

The three of them spoke multiple vows, shared a goblet of sweet-tasting potion, and had a golden-threaded rope tied around their left wrists while chanting an incantation which seemed to transfer the rope to another plane of existence without removing its binding.

The placement of the mark on her wrist- wrist, even though tradition stated the left forearm, because Albus expressed concern that it could be confused with the marks seen at the Quidditch World Cup -had actually hurt, though she welcomed it. What Elodie hadn't expected was for Sirius to step up and demand to be similarly marked.

"Don't be daft, mutt. What call do you have to be under ownership?" Moody objected.

Sirius nudged his shoulder against Remus's. "He's the pack leader, always has been. I've got scars aplenty marking me up from those days, this would just be nicer looking."

Remus was taking off his suit jacket and unbuttoning his sleeve. "All three, then," he said.

"Mutiny?" Alastor swore under his breath.

"I think it's lovely," Minerva said. She was holding one of Albus's handkerchiefs, and her voice was a little hoarse.

Elodie hadn't expected this at all, and she was fresh out of Phoenix-embroidered handkerchiefs. She hung back, heart full as she watched Sirius go through the ritual to embed the binding mark that matched hers. She'd found it in one of the old books and altered the design with a bit of a Muggle flair.

The design was mildly Celtic, with black intertwining lines that featured two hearts, one right side up, one upside down, with the dip in each overlaid heart perfectly aligned with the bottom point, making a diamond shape at the top and bottom. Spread across the center of the two hearts was an infinity symbol, stretched so its curves bulged wide on either side. Finally, laid atop the place the infinity symbol crossed was a solid black heart. On her wrist the whole thing took up a space larger than the size of an American quarter, but not by much.

Sirius came over to stand beside her, reaching down to grasp her hand with his as they witnessed Remus go through the ritual.

"You didn't have to," she whispered, still feeling the possessive sting of the spell at her wrist.

"That's the beauty of it, love. I don't have to do anything. I get to choose."

He said it right as Remus looked down with pride at the glistening lines of his own new mark. Elodie didn't think it was possible to be happier, in any universe.

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"Well, I'm sorry I can't do more than offer you three a small toast to your happiness before I leave to supervise breakfast!" Minerva said as she poured a crystal-red liquid from a carafe into five miniature wine glasses. Elodie picked up hers with her right hand; her left still felt too symbolic and precious.

"Sorry to be so last-minute, but Grimmauld was right out," she said after they'd clinked their drinks together.

"I can only apologize that my own last-minute, meddling decision to exploit your closeness to protect Harry has made you and Remus targets," Albus said.

"I'm pleased that you trusted us both enough to make that decision," Remus said, walking over to stand in front of him and lifting the remnants of the sweet wine in his glass in a toast. "You've always believed in me, and it means the world to this old wolf."

"I'm pleased to see you've grown up to be the best of men. Not all of the students I believe in have done as much, and none of them were werewolves." Albus reached out his hand to shake Remus's, pulling him in for a hug halfway through.

"I should probably scold you for implying that you don't believe in all of our students," Minerva said primly, "-but I suppose it's just as well that some of them can surprise them with their decency, later in life!"

"The blasted Auror on our tail is neither," Sirius said, finishing off his second glass and pouring himself a bit more. Elodie frowned at him, but he just grinned.

Moody made a dismissive noise. "You just tell Parker that heart in the middle of that mark o' yours stands for Harry, an' watch him splutter like one of the mutt's Muggle Motorcycles!" he guffawed.

"'One of?'" Elodie quoted back, looking over at Sirius.

"Just an expression," Sirius muttered. He spotted McGonagall on her way toward the exit, and dashed over to block the stairs, his arms held wide. "Minnie, I'm lost to you forever, will you ever forgive me?" he said expansively.

"Elodie, Remus, I will look forward to seeing you at the Weasleys' reception for you this weekend," Minerva said, her expression full of mischief. With a flourish, she shifted into her Animagus form and trotted over to a bookcase, slipping into a hidden cat door and out of sight.

"I'm wounded!" Sirius said delightedly. He looked over at Moody, and the two of them shared a mysterious look that ended with a nod by both men.

"One last thing, and we'll be out of yer beard, Albus!" Moody said, pulling something out of his bulging vest pocket. Elodie was certain that if he hadn't been the officiant, he'd have worn his trenchcoat. She appreciated his semblance of decorum, at least.

He levitated a few things off of a small square table and hovered it over directly beneath the archway they'd said their vows under.

"Alastor, I'm not sure I recognize-" Albus started, but Moody waved him off.

"Old ritual, I'll explain after," he boomed, gesturing to Elodie and Remus to join Sirius over by the table. "Come, come!"

Remus's brows were furrowed, but he dipped his head for Elodie to precede him and followed her to stand next to the table. The object in question looked for all the world like an old Muggle Fabergé egg, but the way Alastor was treating it made her doubt herself- he wasn't even touching it with his bare hand, instead using an embroidered handkerchief that might once have been white but which had suffered through regular use for decades.

There were many silly things that Elodie had forced herself to take seriously in this new universe of hers, but she drew the line at a ceremonial Fabergé egg on a carved wooden table in a gray-haired, purple-robed wizard's office.

"Is this symbolic? Because I'm pretty sure that's a-"

"Don't be a spoilsport, Ellie," Sirius said, stretching out a hand in preparation for whatever Moody was about to do with the egg.

"Symbolic, that's it!" Moody coughed, setting the object down and fussing with the handkerchief to position it in the very center of the table. "All three are to rest the first two fingers of yer left hand on it, all at once."

"Just humor him, I guess," Remus murmured in her ear as he leaned over toward the damned thing.

"I- okay," she said.

"Count of three, then?" Sirius said, a manic sparkle in his eyes.

"That doesn't sound very traditional!" she objected, starting to pull her hand back, but Sirius was already counting and reaching toward it. Behind her, Moody seemed to stumble, bumping her hard enough to cause her whole body to fall toward the egg at the same time Remus was touching it.

Elodie's entire body seemed to collapse in on itself, robbing her of breath (and most of the space between atoms in her body, it felt like). Her eyes were working, but what they were seeing made no sense; it was just a swirl of colors and shapes that seemed more of a paint-can stirring tableau than real life. In the space between her last breath and the next, things started to coalesce into rationality again, and Elodie popped back into existence just above the giant bed in her bedroom at Phoenix House, landing with a soft bounce.

Remus landed beside her, close enough that she worried about where Sirius would end up- but after a few Sirius-less seconds, Remus rolled off of the bed and swore under his breath.

"Why the heck would Moody trick us into using a Portkey to get back home?" she said, struggling to detangle her legs from her white lace skirt.

"Because no one bests him," Remus said darkly, hauling on the door to no avail.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Launching herself off the bed, Elodie stomped over to the door. "Tell me this is just stuck and you're negatively affected by the Slughorn Special you're on? Please?"

"It's warded," he reported after a few obvious diagnostic spells.

"That's it! That is it," she growled. "This is no longer my bedroom! My clothes live here, not me. I'll sleep in your room or the couch or maybe I'll steal the bed you've got in the cage and sleep in the brewing room!" She wanted to throw something, so she ripped off both shoes and threw them with all her strength at Sirius's closet doors.

They bounced off a good inch from the surface, and she whirled around, brandishing her wand at Remus, who was putting his wand away.

"The closet didn't do anything to you, Elodie."

"It's symbolic!" she said, throwing her hands in the air. "There have to be spells for this, right? Shit you put on, I don't know, college dorm rooms or bar bathrooms so people don't get stuck when people are being childish assholes?"

Remus leaned against the wall, his ears bright red. "Sirius has really set you off! I'm starting to understand some of the allusions he's made in the past to make-up sex."

"Oh, that man will not be inside me until this room is stripped of all ability to trap me inside it!"

"Great Merlin, Elodie," Remus choked.

She hadn't actually realized how crude her language was until she saw his reaction. "Shit, I'm sorry. It's just…" she gestured at the whole room. As she did so, she noticed that something seemed strange about the window. "Do you see that?"

Elodie walked over, reaching out her hand toward the window sill. Instead of the stone structure that should be there, her fingers brushed against something soft and flat.

"This took some skill," Remus said, reaching up and planting a hand in the very center of the 'window.' He tightened it into a fist, and the active illusion fractured, shuddering in an attempt to maintain itself as he twisted the blanket free of the enchantment holding it in place. The wall behind it was smooth; the window was gone. "Moody and Sirius clearly worked together on this."

"He told me he was 'fucking around with some spells' last night, and that's why I couldn't go in and pick my own clothes for today!" she fumed. "I'm serious, Remus. I'm not sleeping in here until we fix this. I'm even too mad to start counting to calm down!"

"You use empty lists as a calming technique?" he asked, sounding intrigued.

"I never thought of it that way- wait. That was an attempt to distract!" Elodie accused. He put his hands up in surrender, and she sighed. "You're fine. More than fine, actually. This isn't your room, and here I am ranting about how I'm going to steal your actual room! Somehow you're always stuck doing things you don't want to do." She threw herself onto the bed backwards and pulled one of her pillows onto her head. "I was thinking about that, you know."

"Forgive me, Elodie, but: which, out of what you mentioned, are you referring to?"

"Good point," she said from underneath the pillow. Ideally she'd remove it, but the thing she was about to say was easier this way. "The 'getting to choose' thing. You never get to do that. Last night while I was sleeping in the bed you gave up for me, I realized that you really have been dragged into almost every single life event, and maybe this one is where we draw the line."

Suddenly, laying on her back on a bed seemed like a bad place to be when explaining herself, so Elodie snatched the pillow off and stood up, hugging it to her chest. Remus had conjured a chair that he'd placed near her closet, the one with all the books on it.

"What do you think about telling Parker and his jerk squad that we deliberately erased our memories of anything more than kisses? That we'd deduced they would be curious about sexual relations between a werewolf and- what did he call me? An American mutt?"

Remus tipped his head to the side, a keenly interested expression on his face. "That's an interesting approach, albeit inflammatory."

"It's none of their business! If their diagnostic spells or whatever bullshit they make up don't work, it could maybe be because we messed with our memories for privacy's sake." She hugged the pillow tighter. "Unless there's some way to know how many memories are missing?"

"Not that would be applicable here. Those are chronological, and I don't think even Parker would demand a diaric list of sex acts."

"If he does, we can just claim there were several a day and offer a verbal accounting of how they went," she grinned.

"They'd be foolish not to put us in separate rooms to see if the stories match." He looked a little wild around the eyes.

"I'll just say you'd told me not to speak about them, and I'm being obedient," she shrugged. Elodie was looking directly at him as she said this, and the little tremor that went through his whole body was… interesting. "Anyway," she said, wheeling around to pace so he wouldn't maybe notice her reaction. "If you'd like to do that, I'm game. You didn't have a choice about pretending to be married to me, and you didn't get a choice about actually marrying me. You should get to decide when and where to-" Elodie faltered and fell silent. Her restless pacing had brought her over to the warded door, and she scowled at it rather than looking over to see Remus's expression.

"That is incredibly thoughtful of you," he said quietly.

That got her back up, and she stalked over to the bed to set down the pillow angrily. "It's the bare minimum of decency to let people decide whether they want to be intimate, Remus! That's why I can't believe Sirius would be complicit in-" She broke off. A crazy thought had come to her, one that might get the door to open, but which would yet again force Remus to do something he wasn't necessarily ready for. "How long did it take Moody to curse the room, back at Grimmauld?"

"I'm- Let me catch up," he said.

"I wasn't gone for more than a half hour last night, and if you're saying Sirius needed help with all this," Elodie said, thrusting a hand out toward the missing window, "I just wonder how long it took? Because…" She trailed off, a flush rising up as she became more convinced about her theory.

"The, ah, actual room-cursing was fifteen, twenty minutes, I'll say." He sounded every bit as reticent to talk about the specifics as he had been on the day, and she didn't blame him. "Tell me what you're thinking?"

Elodie closed her eyes. "Okay, Sirius and Moody would expect us to be upset, yes?"

"Yes."

"But they still expect to stay friendly with us after today, so what if they went for plausible deniability? What if they just wanted us to think Moody had chosen to curse the room with the same list of things?" She looked over at him and lifted her chin. "And here is where I should tell you Sirius and I figured out what you cursed the door to open for, last Christmas."

Remus was standing now, his suit jacket hung on the back of the chair, and Elodie watched as his expression shifted from deep thought to realization. At some point that Christmas night, Sirius had told Elodie he loved her, which had unlocked the door as Remus had intended. She'd just been asleep at the time.

"You think the two of them chose my stipulation, instead." Remus spoke it as a statement, rather than a question.

"I do, and before you feel obligated to say anything, I know it would be fun to confuse them by having the door open within a half hour of being stuck in here, but I think that would just make more trouble for us. They might try again." She hugged her arms around herself and leaned against the remaining post at the foot of the bed. "I don't want anyone demanding an accounting of what we do together, friends or enemies."

"Just so I'm clear on what you're saying, you think if I say-"

"Don't!"

"Give me some credit," he scolded. "If I profess my sincere and lasting affection, the door will open?" Elodie nodded, watching a mischievous smile grow on his face. "So the longer we spend in here, the more curious Sirius and Moody will be about our goings-on?"

Somehow, Elodie had yet again forgotten Remus had been a Marauder. "They'll be expecting to bear the brunt of our frustration as soon as we get out of here, I'll bet. And I wouldn't put it past Moody to make the door an either/or, come to think of it!"

"True. There's also Parker to think of, once it turns afternoon," Remus pointed out, his demeanor sobering slightly.

She sighed. "I just wish you didn't have to be forced into all of your major life events!"

"Well, to that end…"

Remus walked over slowly, his right thumb pressing idly on the new mark on his left wrist in a way that made her breath catch. When he got to her, he reached up with that left hand and gently tucked her hair behind her ear.

"Many months ago, you asked me on a date. I think I'm finally ready to say yes," he said.

There was a gentle grace to his words that spoke of a hidden apology for having waited so long, and Elodie was reminded of Sirius's explanation that Remus hadn't allowed himself to learn what was 'normal' in relationships. Here, 'normal' was impossible- but was it? Could they start over after everything that had happened?

"Well, I can't offer you any coffee, but we could have a book chat?"

"I'd like that very much."