Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or anything else for that matter, because JK Rowling does. However, now I come to think of it I may, perhaps own a certain seven tattered, dog-eared and generally falling apart copies of her books…

OK, to all those who are waiting for the next chapter of Odderer and Odderer. Sorry. What can I say? It has been FOREVER. It's getting there, but do you think it's a bad sign if I get stuck in the third chapter?

To everyone wanting to get on with it, and who read the first part… Thanks for sticking with. It means the world.

ALSO! Nearly forgot thanks a whole bunch and a half to Fan O' Fanfic, who actually gave this a title. "Parilitas" Is Latin for equality. All will become clear in the next chapter, I promise.

Chapter 2

"Mrs Weasley..?" Chrissie spoke quietly, with little enthusiasm.

"What is it dear?" Mrs Weasley asked, preoccupied.

Chrissie bit her lip. "Erm…"

Mrs Weasley didn't turn away from the washing-up.

"Never mind." Chrissie hurried from the room, causing Mrs Weasley to look up in consternation. She brushed it off as nothing.

*……*

"So that went well." Chrissie mumbled in a sort of trance. "Fan-bloody-tastic."

Harry listened to this with scepticism and interest. Chrissie turned pink as she rounded the top corner of the stairs and came face-to-face with Harry.

"Hi." It sounded more like a question, coming from her.

"Hi." There was silence. "So… you're Remus' niece?"

"Yep."

"Cool." Harry searched for something else to say. What could he say to this girl he only knew by sight, and even then only as 'that dark-haired kid who hangs around with those giggly first-year girls who are in trouble pretty much all of the time'.

Chrissie pointed up the next flight of stairs. "I'm going to…"

Harry followed her gaze. "Oh, yeah. Um. See you."

"Bye." She continued up the stairs. Harry could have sworn he heard her mutter 'Awkward' under her breath as she climbed the stairs.

Ron re-appeared from his and Harry's room. "What was that about?"

Harry shrugged. "Just one hell of an awkward conversation."

"She's a little shy." Hermione's voice made Ron jump.

"Bloody hell!" Hermione rolled her eyes pointedly at him.

"Anyway, about SPEW-" Ron and Harry groaned in chorus.

*……..*

Chrissie walked all the way to the top of the house, where she found Sirius digging through a pile of papers. She smiled shyly at him, looking around for something obviously not there.

"Remus left then?"

Chrissie nodded. "About five minutes ago, he's back for dinner tomorrow."

"Told anyone yet?"

Chrissie gaped at him. "Are you one of them mind-readers?"

Sirius laughed. "You mean one of those legillimens?"

Chrissie shrugged. "If that's what I said."

"I was never any good at that. However, Professor Snape is."

"Spooky." Chrissie bit her lip, and fidgeted from one foot to the other. Sirius appeared to take the hint.

"I'm going downstairs for a cup of tea. Would you like one?"

Chrissie shook her head and muttered her thanks.

Once Sirius was gone, Chrissie picked up an unobtrusive box from the pile and began to rifle around inside it. She pulled out what appeared to be a slim, solid object, which looked heavy enough to be made entirely of metal, and yet it made a ringing, reverberating sound like a bell when she tapped her fingernails against it.

Chrissie grinned, and pulled, from the pocket of her jeans a small box, and from there, a stick of chalk. She drew a near-perfect circle on the wooden floorboards. It briefly glowed gold, before fading rapidly.

Chrissie sat down in the circle, and hugged her knees to her chest.

*……..*

"Why is she here anyway?" Ron asked, "I mean, it's not as if Lupin hasn't got a home."

"He's a werewolf." Hermione said, who'd been dragged into the conversation very easily, for someone who only moments before had been protesting that they should leave Chrissie her privacy. "It might not be safe for her to be around him."

"The full moon isn't for another two weeks." Harry reminded her.

"Oh, right." There was a pause. "So what could it be?" This was clearly one of those things that Hermione would beaver away at until she found the answer.

"Maybe she's a werewolf too." Ron suggested.

"Don't be silly, Ron. If she was a werewolf, she'd stay with him, wouldn't she? They aren't really dangerous to each other."

"She's only little…"

"Werewolves have a very strong sense of family, if they have one. They don't kill each other unless there is a huge betrayal, a misunderstanding or one has killed another's mate. On purpose. They live in packs, but Lupin said he didn't have one when I asked, said it was too dangerous for a lot of werewolves to be in the same place in case someone wandered too close, but it can have its advantages. One more level-headed werewolf may stop another biting or hurting someone, but large groups of werewolves are hardly democracies, there is an alpha male, and although Remus wouldn't want that position, he could be seen as muscling in on another's territory, and then he felt it would be difficult to come back to the wizarding world proper, as they are very reclusive, living deep in forests, and things, places people don't normally go, and all Remus' friends are wizards, so it would be hard to correspond, because even owls get lost in very thick woods and places like that, so not only would he have had to leave society and find a pack in the first place, he would need to stay isolated from any friends or relations indefinitely. They're very social, werewolves."

Ron and Harry had been lost at family.

"Hermione, have you ever actually swallowed a textbook?" Harry asked after a minute's silence. Hermione eyed him frostily.

"No. I looked it up for that essay Professor Snape gave us in our third year." She sighed long-sufferingly. "If you two actually did your homework properly, you'd know that too."

"Hermione, there's doing homework properly, and then there's being obsessive!"

"Just because you slap any old thing down on paper in huge handwriting and call it an essay, Ron, doesn't mean we all do."

Harry ignored their bickering. To him, she'd seemed normal, just a little shy.

"Why does there have to be something wrong?" He interrupted.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Because if everything was fine, she'd stay where she was to begin with wouldn't she?" Harry just shrugged.

"Well, I'm out of ideas." Ron stretched hugely. "Want to play wizard chess, Harry?"

"Yeah. At least I stand a fighting chance playing with him," Harry explained, to Hermione's slightly grumpy look of being left out. "You always win, Hermione."

Hermione sighed a little less irritably than before and opened the book she was holding.