Remus stared at his own freshly-scrubbed cheeks in the mirror over the bathroom sink, wondering why he didn't look as old as he felt. Suddenly, as if in response to his musing, there was a distinct "pop" on the front lawn. He dried his face and padded silently downstairs. He walked straight to the front door, opened it, and –

"Lily."

Lily stopped mid-stride on the stone pathway that led to the front steps. The light from the front hall illuminated her face; it was drawn and regarded him with concern. They gazed at each other in silence for a moment as crickets chirped solemnly in the woods behind the house. Remus noticed that she had brought an overnight bag with her.

He quietly shut the door behind him.

"I thought Dumbledore said no one was to leave …?"

"I asked him nicely," Lily said with a half-smile.

Upstairs, Remus had thought he had wrung out more grief than was possible, but he felt his chest tightening with emotion once more. He said nothing, because if he spoke he might sob, and once he started crying he might not stop. So he stood there at the bottom of the steps and thrust his hands into his pockets, watching the scuffed toes of his shoes.

"Thanks for coming," he muttered in the direction of his feet.

He saw the toes of Lily's shoes approach his. Sudden fear washed over him and he felt an overpowering need to run, to grab Lily's hand and run away with her and never stop, to get away from this place, from anywhere, from everywhere. There was no place that was safe anymore. No one was safe; it was utter stupidity to feel safe. His breath hitched and he tried to look away.

Lily's hand went to his cheek, touching his scars, and she entered his field of vision with her face upturned and unguarded, searching his eyes. Remus saw a brief vision of an owl landing on a windowsill in the Common Room, and he dispatched the image by looking at Lily's lips instead. At once her arms encircled him, and his throat tightened. He stood there stiffly, not wanting to feel, but wanting to feel her. He struggled for a moment until his arms decided the matter for him, snaking around her waist. She was so tiny compared with him, and yet he felt that she was keeping him from slipping away to somewhere nasty and incomprehensible. His face found the crook of her neck and hiccups of anguish shuddered his body against hers. She held him fast, quelling the shaking with the force of her embrace. Unexpected relief washed over him. He hadn't realized how badly he had wanted the contact of another human body, how desperately he needed reassurance that he wasn't alone. They stood that way for some time, and eventually his body stilled and his eyes began to flutter open once more. His lungs breathed in the scent of her hungrily. His lips found her neck and placed a soft, meditative kiss that lingered there, unmoving, for a full minute.

There was another "pop," and both their heads turned toward the street. There stood Peter with a small suitcase clutched to his breast, turning this way and that until he was oriented to where he had landed. Lily and Remus slowly stepped away from each other, and Remus wiped his eyes with the palms of both hands. With a furrowed brow, Peter approached Remus; he stopped a few paces away, shaking his head. No one spoke for several seconds.

"I'm so sorry, mate," he murmured at last.

Remus nodded. "Thanks," he managed, his voice catching on the word.

The three stood there and soberly watched the ground for a moment. Finally Remus turned toward the house and Lily and Peter followed him silently up the steps.

Around the kitchen table Remus told them what had happened to his grandparents, leaving out what he had discovered about why Fenrir had attacked him. Peter looked pale; and Lily's jaw was set, her lips pressed together in a straight line. Her hands shook as she lifted her teacup to her lips. Soon Remus's parents entered the kitchen and the three friends stood up.

"Peter!" Rowena exclaimed, crossing around the table to clasp his hands. "What a surprise!"

"Hello, Mrs. Lupin, Mr. Lupin." Peter nodded toward Owen standing in the doorway. "I'm very sorry for your loss."

"Thank you, dear. It's good of you to come," Rowena said quietly, her eyes shimmering. She turned toward Lily. "And you must be …?"

"Lily Evans," she said, shaking Rowena's hand and glancing at Owen. "I was so sorry to hear about what's happened."

"Thank you, Lily. It's a pleasure to meet you." Rowena looked at her husband and briefly raised her eyebrows at him. "I wish it could have been under other circumstances."

Owen brought a fist to his lips and cleared his throat once, softly. He finally shuffled into the room and shook Lily's hand. "A pleasure," he muttered, managing a polite smile.

"I've just made dinner – " Rowena began.

"Oh, thank you, but we already ate, " said Lily, darting her eyes meaningfully at Peter.

Remus quickly interrupted. "Mum, Dad, why don't I take my friends to Barney McPhee's for a while? The Ministry's coming by any minute now and you'll be busy. It'll be better without us underfoot."

"Yes, that would probably be best," Owen agreed.

"Are you sure?" Rowena argued.

"They'll be fine."

"Owen, it might not be safe," his wife said quietly.

"It's a Muggle pub in a nowhere village, Mum," Remus pointed out. "Nothing's going to happen there that wouldn't happen here first."

Rowena stared hard at Remus. He blanched and quickly looked down at the table.

"I – I only meant –" he began.

"He's right, Rowena," said Owen in a weary voice. "Let them go. You'll spend the night here, of course?"

Rowena spoke briskly before Peter and Lily could reply. "Remus, show Lily the spare room. We'll conjure an extra bed for Peter in your room."

Peter brought three mixed drinks from the bar, one in each hand and the third tucked between his arm and chest. He skirted around the juke box and slid into the booth next to Lily.

"I didn't know what to order," he explained. "You know, Muggle pubs have so many different drinks. So the barman picked these out for us. Based on our faces, he said. Bloody wanker."

He handed a vodka martini to Remus, a Cosmopolitan to Lily, and kept the white Russian for himself.

"So are James and Sirius coming?" Remus asked, raising the martini glass to his lips.

"Er …" Peter screwed up his face and shifted in his seat. "James is a bit tied up."

Remus stopped stock still in the middle of his first sip. He swallowed hard.

Lily's harsh voice cut across the smoky din. "What do you mean, he's a bit tied up?"

"Well, I mean literally," Peter replied apologetically. "The Slytherins didn't take too kindly to losing at Quidditch yesterday. So dinner this evening was – well, long story short, someone zapped him boneless and then zapped him into a pretzel."

Remus set his drink down and stared at it. "Oh," he said flatly.

"What happened?" Lily asked with a furrowed brow. "I ate in the Common Room tonight. I missed it."

"Sirius jumped into the fray, of course. Well, by that point everyone was throwing spells, right there in the Great Hall; it all happened really suddenly. It was pandemonium. Slytherins were hexing Gryffindors left and right, and the Gryffindors were getting downright violent. Even the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were in the thick of it. It was weird. I've never seen anything like it."

"Sirius, " Remus prompted.

"Oh, yeah. He faced off with Angus Adderton and got his … well, I don't know if I should say this in mixed company."

Lily glared at Peter, and he cleared his throat.

"Let's just say that unless Madam Pomfrey fixes things, he won't be using the toilet for a while."

Remus let out a long sigh between his teeth and twirled his martini glass around and around on the dark table between his fingers. Lily watched his face.

"This is no good," she said simply, turning back to face Peter. "They should be here."

"I know, I know," he inflected.

"What the hell were they thinking?"

"Let's not talk about it," Remus said brusquely. "They're in the infirmary and that's that."

Guitar chords rang out as a new song began on the juke box, and soon the nasal tones of Bob Dylan's voice wafted through the air with the cigarette smoke, cutting through the noise of conversation and laughter. The three friends remained quiet as they watched their fingers clutching their drinks, and Remus was grateful for their silence. He had heard the song before, but he found the lyrics strangely moving now:

'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood

When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud

I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.

"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

He raised his eyes to find Lily watching him.

"I got an Owl today," she said at last, her tone flat.

Peter shifted in the booth to face her.

"Mum and Dad told me – told me – " Her voice caught and she couldn't speak, although her face remained impasssive.

"Is everyone all right?" Remus asked at once.

"Yes, yes, my family's fine," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "It was Petunia's piano recital – oh, she's my sister," Lily explained quickly to Peter before facing Remus again. "You remember the concert she asked me not to come to?"

Remus nodded.

"It was last weekend, and I didn't go, just like she wanted. But – " Her voice caught again and she stared at the table again until she was able to go on. "Mum and Dad kept this from me; they didn't want to worry me because they weren't hurt – "

"What happened?" asked Peter.

"Well, Petunia gets very nervous before she performs, and this time she was especially nervous – I think because this new bloke Vernon was in the audience – and she asked Dad to stay backstage with her until she went on. So it was nearly her time to go, and then – and then – "

Remus reached across the table and grasped her hand firmly. Lily took a deep, steadying breath and continued.

"Death Eaters entered the theatre from the lobby and locked all the doors. And they took – they – they took the audience." Lily was pale and her chin quivered as she tried to keep from crying. "They took them all."

"Bloody hell," said Peter in a hoarse voice.

Remus squeezed her hand tighter. "How many?"

"About seventy-five, maybe a hundred."

The boys were silent. Dylan's voice drifted into Remus's consciousness again:

Well, the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount

But nothing really matters much, it's doom alone that counts

And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn.

"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

Lily cleared her throat and went on. "Mum knew immediately what was happening, of course, because I'd warned them to run if they ever saw anyone in dark robes and hoods – " Lily had to collect herself again. She took several sips of her pink drink and set it down again delicately. Her thumb rubbed across the top of Remus's knuckles automatically, over and over. "She grabbed Vernon and ran behind the curtain immediately to get Petunia and Dad. And they escaped, along with the other kids who were waiting to perform backstage. The Death Eaters hadn't thought about the back doors. Or maybe they just didn't care if a few got away."

"To tell the tale," remarked Remus. Peter, looking pale, nodded.

I've heard newborn babies wailin' like a mournin' dove

And old men with broken teeth stranded without love.

Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn?

"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

"The families?" Peter asked.

Lily was silent for a long moment as her throat worked. "No one's seen any of the people in the audience since that night."

"How many survivors?" asked Remus.

"There were nine kids waiting to perform." Her face was blank as she spoke, though her voice cracked. "Petunia's best friend lost her parents and her brother that night. She's living with her grandparents now in Manchester. They all think it was terrorists or something."

Finally Lily's eyes welled up with tears and she spoke in a rush, quietly and desperately. "What's happening? There's nowhere safe. Why did they go there, of all places?" Her eyes darted around the pub as if she were a cornered animal, and her breathing became shallow. "I feel like time is running out. There's not enough time for – for – all the things we haven't done. Things we'll never do. It's too big, we can't fight this – not when there are Death Eaters in every town. If only I'd been there, I could have – "

"Lily, you're an amazing witch, but you couldn't have taken them on alone," Remus said with a calmness that surprised even him. "Your family is safe. That's enough for now."

"But they might not have been," she said tersely. "They might not have been. And you know it." She stared at Remus in anguish, and he, with a dully thudding heart, couldn't disagree.

Peter's face was pale and drawn, and his eyes blinked rapidly. "There's no way to know who's next. Or how to protect ourselves. They're too powerful. Being pureblood is no protection, either, unless you join them."

All three were silent. Remus gently let go of Lily's hand and sipped his drink thoughtfully.

"But we have to fight," he said evenly.

Lily looked up, searching his eyes. Peter kept staring at the table miserably.

"It's our duty to fight. To have hope. We must." Remus finished his drink and set it down on the table with a thunk. "If we don't take this on, who will?"

Peter frowned and bit his lip, his eyes focused far away. Lily nodded as a teardrop slowly rolled down her cheek and splattered silently onto her finger, glistening there like a ring.

Perhaps it was because Peter was in an unfamiliar bed, or the pillow wasn't the right firmness, but his snoring was remarkably loud tonight. Remus stared at the airplanes on his ceiling and wished he could fly away in one of them, if only to get away from the incessant buzzing of the lump in the bed that had been conjured next to his. But he doubted he would have gotten any sleep anyhow. His grandparents were in practically every thought that whizzed through his brain as he lay in bed, waiting for sleep to come.

He thought about all the times he, as a young boy, tried to teach his grandmother how to do magic. She was a Muggle, and he knew it; but he was convinced that if he tried hard enough, showed her well enough, she would learn how to levitate objects and make stuffed animals breathe fire, just like he could do. And Margaret humored him, trying each and every one of his spells, using her husband's wand while Jonathan Lupin sat, feet up, in his easy chair pretending not to watch from behind a newspaper. Remus understood now, of course, the futility of his efforts. But he couldn't help wondering: if she had been a witch, could she and his grandfather have fought off the Death Eaters together? His eyes became wet again as he thought of all the things his grandmother hadn't done yet: the books and stories and poetry forever unwritten, the talks and readings at universities never to be seen. And he thought of all the places she and Granddad hadn't visited yet, and the maps that would never be made because there was no Jonathan Lupin to make them.

Remus quietly lifted the quilt and stole across the room. He opened the door silently, pushing downward on the handle as he turned it so that it wouldn't stick to the doorjamb and make a loud crack as it opened. He shut the door and thought about going to the kitchen to make a sandwich, but he wasn't really hungry. He stood in the hallway and stared at the floor runner, following the beam of moonlight as it reached, armlike, from the window at the end of the hall across the dark floral pattern of the rug almost to the opposite wall. He paced. He stretched. He rubbed his hands over his face and rumpled his hair. Finally he sat down with his back against the wall, knees hugged to his chest. He was directly facing the room in which Lily was sleeping.

This was the room that had been his nursery as a baby. It was the room that should have been a nursery again. His mother wanted more children, that was clear. His crib was still inside that room. She hadn't the heart to get rid of it, and Owen hadn't pressed her. But there had been no more children. Remus only realized now what that meant, the only thing it could mean.

As he gazed at it, the door slowly opened. Lily, standing silently in a pale nightgown with rumpled hair of her own, regarded Remus without surprise. She took two steps forward and extended her hand. He looked up at her face, gray in the half-darkness, and the song from the pub entered his mind once more:

Suddenly I turned around and she was standin' there

With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair.

She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns.

"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

Heart pounding, he took her hand, stood up, and allowed her to lead him into her room.

A/N: Sorry for the long delay in posting this update. There was some sort of disagreement between my Mac and the fanfic website which I've only just figured out. (I've not solved it, but merely caved in and used a different computer to post!) Thanks for your patience.

Anyone who reviews gets to enjoy this cruel cliffhanger with the Remus of your choice in any way you prefer! Bob Dylan soundtrack optional. ;)