Prologue to Chapter Sixteen

The tea was hot and bitter, and it really wasn't doing its job. Remus Lupin grimaced as a yawn split his face despite his attempts to keep it at bay. He'd been at this for far too long, though his replacement wasn't due for another hour: only four Order members to cover this operation that was so fundamental to the future of the Wizarding World. Remus put the cup back in its saucer, watching the slight tremor in his hand that made the china clink faintly. It couldn't be helped. Remus was tired—dog-tired. A thin smile creased his mouth, straining to accommodate the sudden memory of Sirius.

"I and my kind take great offense to the use of such an inspired term for such a mongrel, half-breed like you," the Marauder had said with his nose in the air, tossing that famous black hair off his shoulders aristocratically.

Remus let the image fade slowly, in no hurry to return to the real world—one where Padfoot could talk and move no more, Harry was hunted constantly by a megalomaniac and Hogwarts was being slowly ripped apart at the seams. Remus rubbed at his eyes wearily. He had to do what he could to help. A lot of Wizards were counting on him.

Before being called to the school by Dumbledore, Remus' desire to help and a sudden windfall of money had led him to begin a commune for werewolves, one of the few organizations to reach out to werewolf brethren. Sirius had left him money, not that he would have gotten it under normal circumstances. As it was several hundred thousand pounds, Wizarding Law had stepped in to complicate things. But Dumbledore had quietly gone to the Minister of Finance and somehow managed to work things in Remus' favor, then asked that he mention it to no one. Grateful, Remus complied.

He bought a small farm and went on a quest to find werewolves in need of help, preferably young ones that would also be impressionable. It was easier to find them than he had expected, pitifully easy—young wizards and witches homeless, penniless and starving because of their infirmity. He convinced five of them to come with him, live at his farm and work, using the tightly-locked down shed for transformation time with an endless supply of Wolfsbane Potion. Five young werewolves, learning to work a farm, enjoying life for the first time in years, only one of them with family that would still claim him. The companionship they had developed eventually felt to Remus more like home than anything he'd felt since the Marauder days.

Being at Hogwarts now meant that those five young people were back at the farm on their own. Remus hoped they were carrying on as he had taught them: working hard to have food to eat, pooling their limited finances and discussing their options intelligently. Until Remus had found them, each had been leaning toward joining Voldemort's ranks at one time or another. The drive of the werewolf to kill and destroy was strong, and the message of Voldemort to these downtrodden and persecuted beings was no more complicated than, "Take your revenge on the world that turned its back on you." Remus worried about them a great deal, almost as much as he worried about Harry. Harry. Remus sighed and the usual frown line creased itself between his graying blonde eyebrows.

It seemed as if, through a slow, ponderous shifting of the universe over the last five years, one boy, one very lonely and tormented boy, had become the focus of all things, good or bad. Every plot led to Harry's downfall and every defense was raised in his honor. How could one person handle this much importance? Might not the simple pressure of such an existence drive anyone to extremes? And yet Harry survived, continued to survive and do ever-more increasingly amazing things.

Of course, he was back in the Infirmary again. This term, Harry had yet to go to a single class because of all the attempts on his life. Remus closed his eyes and sighed. If Severus' information was correct, there might be several more. At first, Remus hadn't wanted to take the threat seriously; even Dumbledore had been reckoning against the Slytherins actually following through on their plots. But so far, two had nearly succeeded. Pansy had given Harry a Love Potion and nearly dragged him, quite willingly, off to Voldemort. Goyle had managed to get Charlie kidnapped, which led to Harry following in a suicidal rescue mission.

If Sirius were alive, Remus thought with sudden vehemence, he would have flayed Harry within an inch of his life for that little stunt. And so would James. But then again, Remus thought with that same wan smile, had they been here, one of them would most likely have gone with him. Had it been Padfoot guarding the Infirmary that day, he would never have let himself get knocked out by a hex from Harry, invisible or no. And so Harry would have pled his case; Sirius would have listened, grinned and said, "What are we waiting for?"

Shaking his head slightly, Remus picked up the tea cup and took a last bitter swallow of the liquid, disdaining to study the dregs in the bottom of his tea cup on principle. With care, he set the cup back in its saucer, the clinking of Hogwarts' fine china like music to his unaccustomed ears. He picked up the Marauders' Map for the tenth time this hour and searched through the school, keeping his eyes open for any name in an unusual spot. He was also keeping an eye open for Narcissa Malfoy, who surely hadn't given up on her plans yet. Somewhere beneath them, she was biding her time, ready to come back when Harry was most vulnerable. Or maybe Draco. She seemed equally likely damage to one as the other. Strange turn of events.

They had finally come up with a good strategy to make the Marauder's Map more helpful. With Bill's help, Remus had discovered a charm for the map that would render invisible any student enrolled at Hogwarts. The only problem was, it had to be done for each individual student and required a complex spell. So far, they had managed to get an eighth of the student body entered—taking care not to apply it to Slytherins or any student reported to be acting mysteriously. As many students had been. Remus smiled. Harry's speech at the beginning of term had really galvanized the younger students into almost constant tattle-telling and it took someone with the wisdom of Solomon to figure out which tips were real and which were only the vibrant spinnings of an overexcited, impressionable mind.

The dots on the map had blurred before his eyes and Remus sharpened his gaze. "Preadly, Gartopholus" and "Barton, Belinda" were strolling together outside on the grounds, hopefully heading for some innocuous place and not for a secret "Annhiliate Potter" meeting. Not that any of those had been successfully reported. It was just bits and pieces that kept coming in: Millicent Bulstrode harassing Ginny, Blaise Zabini threatening that first-year Gryffindor that Harry had befriended—what was his name? Timothy? Or—

Then Remus jerked and leaned farther over the map, his breathing arrested.

"Malfoy, Narcissa."

There she was.

In the hallway.

Heading for the Great Hall. Or past it . . . to the Infirmary.

Bloody—

Remus jumped to his feet, grabbed his wand from the table and knocked it into the small, innocuous-looking lump of white wax on the desk.

"Tonks!" Remus's voice strained to be quiet at yet commanding.

"WHAT?" shrieked Tonks, and a muffled thumping and various crashes could be heard over her voice.

"It's Remus, Tonks. Narcissa Malfoy is—"

"Remus, is that you?"

"Yes! Narcissa—"

"Damn suit of armor. I swear those things move—"

"Tonks—quiet!"

"What is it?" She suddenly sounded business-like.

"Narcissa Malfoy is on her way. You should be able to see her soon—unless she's got that—"

"Wait! Where did you say? I don't see anything! Just a bunch of 'Claws heading out the Great Hall."

Remus watched with horror as "Malfoy, Narcissa" turned the corner and headed into the foyer where "Tonks, Nymphdora" was stationed. "She's right there, Tonks! She'll be in snake form or under an Invisibility Cloak. Five steps behind 'Patil, Padma!'"

"Okay. I'll get her. I'm dodging Padma. Sorry, luv! I—ahh!"

Screams came over after Tonks' voice faded.

"Dammit! Bloody—" Remus tapped the blue patch of wax on the desk. "Mad-eye!"

"Lupin," the man barked back immediately.

Remus jerked up the map.

"Tonks is down. Narcissa Malfoy is on her way up the Southern stairwell. Watch out—she'll be under her—"

"Invisibility Cloak if she managed to take out Tonks."

"Right," Remus agreed, sweat starting to bead on his upper lip as he scanned the map feverishly. If she got past Mad-Eye there was no one to head her off until she reached the Infirmary where "Weasley, Fred" was standing guard. She was moving incredibly fast . . .

Remus stabbed the orange patch of wax and barked out, "Fred, get ready. Narcissa is on her way."

"What? Now!"

"She's down on the southern stairwell, facing off with Mad-Eye right now."

"Oh, well—good. So, Mad-Eye will take care of her. He can see through Invisibility Cloaks you know."

"Yes, I know that, but you must be on your guard—"

"Lupin, she's got one o' the kids 'round the neck. I can't get an angle on her. Smug little—Protego! Ugh!" Crashing noises and thuds were all Remus could hear.

"Mad-Eye! What's happened?"

After a moment, the man's voice came back on, much more quietly this time. "She cast a Bludgeoning Curse, hit my shield, and knocked me down two flights of steps. Warn Weasley. And Potter."

Two minutes later, after frantic communications with Fred and the Headmaster, Remus sprang for the door, moving so fast that the Marauder's Map slipped off the desk and to the floor with a gentle scrape. As if the heat of Remus' horrified gaze had made the lone dots in the Infirmary stand out even more against the faded parchment, the words "Potter, Harry" and "Malfoy, Narcissa" radiated side-by-side, with all the intensity of a solar flare.

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A/N: Thanks to you guys for being so patient while I got this chapter written and betaed. While HBP was being published and read by millions, I decided to take a hiatus. This wasa short prologue to set up the very, very long chapter that follows. Hang with me. That chapter should be up tomorrow. My lovely beta, Musings, is putting the final touches on it for me today. Chapter 16: Fall-out is the longest I've written yet. Lots of catching up to do. Hopefully soon, we'll actually see Harry in a gasp class! Won't that be a change of pace? he he he