December 1995

Three nights after I was slapped by Mr Malfoy for bothering him, I was 'summoned' again to go and fetch him. This time, however, was different. Whenever I find Mr Malfoy, he may be a little tipsy or plain drunk. On this particular night, he was very drunk, like stumbling-against-me-and-leaning-heavily-on-me drunk. I don't know what brought it on, but I didn't ask as I was busy helping him along the Terrace's private corridor, making sure he didn't tumble down the outside stairwell to the street. As he was so plastered, I had to disapparate with him to Malfoy Manor, where I expected I would leave him in his wife's care on the doorstep, or in the hall. As it was, she actually bade me help her to get him upstairs to their bedroom, which I did like a good girl.

Well, once we got up there, Mrs Malfoy told me to stay with him while she went to a different room to fetch a potion used to cure sickness from drinking, just in case. He was sitting in an armchair by the fireplace, and when he suddenly stood up to do whatever he thought of doing in his drunken stupor, I of course put my hands out and told him to sit back down. He had enough brain cells left to understand me, but when he made to back up to reseat himself, he tripped over his robe. I caught him before he fell, though rather awkwardly, as he is a full-grown man and considerably heavy. I pushed him back in the armchair, and when I reached into his back trouser pocket to put his wand on the table so he wouldn't sit on it, something brushed against my forearm—something warm and soft, yet startlingly firm. . .

He had an erection.

I jumped back as though I'd been burned.

My arm had been brushing against his (thankfully fully clad) penis! My face grew as hot as a candle flame. When I tell you I was in such horrible shock. . .! Mrs Malfoy came back just then, holding a draught of some hangover cure. I wasted no time in getting out of there!

"Good night, Mrs Malfoy! I've got to go now!"

"What? I haven't said you may leave yet—Miss Burke, whatever is the matter?"

But I was already past her and fleeing down the hallway. I knew she'd seen how stricken I was, but she didn't need to know why, as far as I was concerned.

I've seen three dicks in my life—my father's before I was old enough for any of his nakedness to be inappropriate around me, Llon's, and Afon's. Outside of bathing my little brothers and checking their gonads whenever they say something itches or hurts down there, I've certainly never touched one. It's a nasty enough feeling to be walking down the street to the grocer's when some bloke watching you grabs his crotch and leers at you, so I don't want to know what it's like to see one up close or feel one—clothed or unclothed.

When I got back to the apothecary, I sat down in the sitting room beside the kitchenette and tried to convince myself that what had just happened at the Malfoys' hadn't actually happened, but of course, it had. The whole thing was so mortifying that I couldn't stand the thought of what repercussions might follow, so I quietly packed my gear and some extra clothes, wrote a note telling Donius and the kids I wanted to find some ingredients, and disapparated to a forest in the south where I've been camping out and foraging for the past four days. It's early December, but there's plenty of berries and leaves that are hangers-on, and some kinds of potions require ingredients that have been picked in winter. I find a pond and shove my arm into the mud beneath its surface to find hibernating frogs. I pull toads from their burrows. I forgot to pack any food, so I suffer through hunger pangs while subsisting off of one rabbit I manage to snare and a lucky amount of edible mushrooms I find in the woods.

Anything that distracts me from thinking about that night and the feeling of Mr Malfoy's . . . well . . . it.

Why was he like that all of a sudden? That's just one of the reasons I don't want to go back: I'm afraid he'll remember, drunk as he was, and I'll have to see it in his eyes when we next meet. His wife will certainly have noticed his state when I fled, which will make everything twice as embarrassing. The whole thing is just too confusing and shameful for me to consider, so I hide out in the forest, collecting a half-arsed amount of goods until I finally grow too starved and chilled from no tent and only a fire outside of a lean-to to keep warm. I've lasted five nights.

When dawn begins to wash out the stars on what I think is the ninth of December, I pack everything up, cover the signs of my camp, and disapparate back to Knockturn Alley.

Donius is up, bleary eyed from recent sleep, and quite surprised to see me trudge through the door. He doesn't say anything to me though, and I ignore him.

Now that I'm back, I'm worried as to when I'll be called on by the Malfoys. To distract myself, I clean my gear and sort what I've brought back from the forest, after which I bathe, then cook breakfast for everyone as usual before going back to my ingredients. I spend the rest of the morning, and noon, flipping through a booklet on how to best process sloes that have been gathered after the frost. Occasionally—nastily—my thoughts wander to where I've been trying to keep them from going, bringing with them a fresh wave of shame and confusion, duly followed by an ugly worry over my next encounter with my patron and his wife.

Maybe neither of them noticed, I keep saying in my head, or maybe they've completely forgotten about it.

I wonder what my friends would say if I told them what happened. I haven't seen them (or any of my classmates, for that matter) since the last day of school. Isra and Tibby, my chums, didn't even get on the train to go to London. Tibby walked right out of the school gates to try her luck in Hogsmeade; Isra simply didn't want to go home yet.

Tibby, whose full name is Tabitha Leesham, grew up in Lincolnshire with her mum, along with a few relatives who lived nearby; Carrows, she said, from her mum's side. When she was a baby, her father dueled an Auror who'd come to their house to question him and was summarily thrown into Azkaban where he died after two years. Tibby said her mother, whom I've never met, makes a living two ways: by selling illegal potions out of their back door, and by the money she cajoles from whatever lowlife punter is screwing her at the time. Tibby rarely has good things to say about her mum, or anyone in her family, really, but as she avoids talking about them, she's usually pretty jocular.

Tibby is plump, with soft blonde hair, a round, smiley face, and a deep voice that quickly grows gravelly from lots of laughter. Tibby kind of went along with whatever Isra and I thought of doing for fun, but when she got distracted by something to the side, she was off, and we wouldn't see her until she'd grown bored with it. A determined girl, could be Tibby!

Isra, whose last name is Thwaites, is the one who hates Aurors. I mean, so do Tibby and I, but Isra scratched 'Kill All Aurors' into the fabric of her school bag when we learnt that Mad Eye Moody was to be our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. The funny thing is, Isra is not a naturally violent person. She's not a lady, and her crass, laidback personality doesn't hide itself, but she's never hurt anybody (anybody who didn't deserve it, anyway. . . ). Well, either another student or a teacher complained because Snape told her she had to get rid of the wording, or else get a detention and be forced to erase the words. She took the detention and charmed the writing to only appear on the inside of her bookbag's flap. Tibby and I thought about doing the same, but Snape made us show him our own bags since he knew we felt the same way as Isra, so we gave it up. Eventually, he discovered that Isra hadn't fully gotten rid of the words, and so Isra was forced to sweep and mop the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom every Saturday until the Christmas holidays. She refused to do it if Moody was in the classroom, and we were rather surprised when Snape made a deal with her that she would only have to do it while Moody was absent. Snape was always odd that way—never truly kind, but clearly favoring the members of his House, always taking our side even when we were clearly in the wrong, but still ready to make us, his Slytherins, act according to our status as students. As Isra often said with her customary smile, "He's such a weird cunt, eh?!"

Isra's father was from Egypt, but she doesn't have his surname because her mum felt the need to change it back to her maiden name after what happened to him during the war, which is to say, nobody knows. "That makes it even worse!" Isra always said—the not-knowing of whether he was dead or had fled Britain to go back to Egypt as the Department of Magical Law Enforcement maintains. If he fled, said Isra, it was to keep from being tortured and thrown into Azkaban without trial, which was the way the Aurors, under Bartemius Crouch, worked in those days. They were allowed to use the Unforgivable Curses not only to fight against the Dark Lord's followers, but to capture and interrogate suspects—suspects! All kinds of people had their lives ruined simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and had poor connections.

In the case of Isra's father, he was being investigated on suspicion of trafficking in the Dark Arts. After his arrest, his family never saw him again. The Aurors claimed they released him, and that if he fled afterward, then it was proof of his guilt. So, Isra has memories of her home in Lancashire being under surveillance and her mum and grandparents getting harassed by the Law Department—or as they call it, 'questioning.' As if! The whole Department of Magical Law Enforcement acts like it's the most important faction of the magical community, but as far as I'm concerned, they're as much head-arses as the rest of the Ministry and are given too much clout. Anyway, once the war ended and the Aurors decided Isra's father wasn't worth the trouble anymore, her mum changed their Egyptian surname back to her English maiden name. Isra was only four at the time, and since her mother rid their house of all his belongings, even his documentation, Isra only knows his first name—and hers, for her mother changed Isra's original Arabic name to 'Sonia', which is a nice name, but still. . .

"It's like she wants to forget all about him, but then she changes her mind and gets all pissed and sad about it!" said Isra once. "My nana said she was really in love with him, and that the investigation just ruined her life!"

Probably whatever good standing her mother had in society was shattered by the Law Department sniffing around and throwing accusations at her and her husband. If her friends suspected that she was involved with the Dark Arts in any way—and people who hate the Dark Arts really revile them—then she was likely shunned by everyone but those who loved her deepest. The fact that her husband was a foreigner can't have helped, either.

I've seen Isra's mother, and she's definitely a sorry looking woman, but just because her mum was shattered by the bad things that happened, it doesn't mean that Isra feels sorry for her all the time. Just as my mam drank and often forgot about her kids, Isra's did the same, and we bonded right quick over it after our Sorting.

Isra is also on the fleshy side, a little more than Tibby. I think she's very pretty, with her shiny black hair that she kept in a ponytail, and good brown skin. She's got full cheeks that bunch up when she smiles, a short, slightly curved nose, and long eyelashes. She likes to gossip, read tarot cards, and tease boys. She's bubblier and more open than I am, but she never expected me to act less 'serious', just as Tibby also didn't.

Isra was interested in boys, though when I think about it, she never actually dated anyone; she flirted a lot, but she wasn't especially romantic. She wasn't a shy girl—she talked candidly about her looks, her tastes, and any dirty thoughts; always in a way that could make you laugh. I think many of the boys were a little scared of her, and I think Isra knew it and found it funny.

Tibby wasn't into boys so much as open to the prospect of them. She's a very laidback, happy sort of person, just like Isra, but I remember that she often pulled back from flirting when it would start to get serious. I always got the sense that Tibby was avoiding something. What it was, I never tried to find out. She would've brought it up if she'd wanted to.

That's the sort of friendship we had. We accepted what each had to say about herself and didn't pry. Maybe that's why we stuck together, despite so many differences in our personalities. We almost never wrote letters to each other; we've never been to each other's houses. Tibby actually said, "Don't ever come to my house!" with her usual grating laugh, but her eyes and tone were deadly serious. Neither I nor Isra questioned her about it. We recognized it for what it was: a warning, not a rejection. Isra described her home as stressful and boring, and we believed her. My own home-life was as tense as Isra's and growing nearly as dodgy as Tibby's. We all agreed that we didn't need to visit each other's homes to be best friends. It wasn't as if two months without the others' company were going to kill us! The other ten months of the year, we had all kinds of fun.

We talked seventh years into getting us books from the restricted section, and we would copy all sorts of Dark rituals, spells, and potions recipes into our notebooks. Together we grew obsessed with divination, though we heeded the older students' warnings that Trelawney was a fraudulent weirdo, and a shite teacher besides. In our second year, we tried to summon a demon-servant who would do our bidding. It might have worked too if Tibby hadn't farted in the middle of the incantation. By sixth year, we were able to enter the restricted section ourselves. We got to work copying more spells and recipes into our notebooks, labeling and organizing them into categories for future use. We may not have been able to summon a demon, but it hardly mattered—we could've made one if we wanted.

Even now, months after I purged my trunk of random school junk and trinkets, it holds my stash of all those copied instructions, right under the bed.

*

The next morning, I rise to make breakfast as usual, then I go back to bed for a lie-in. An hour or so passes before I'm woken by my siblings jumping on the bed as they announce that Mrs Malfoy is here to see me.

Oh no. . .

Well, there's nothing for it, so I get out of bed and hurry downstairs to see her highness. She's splendidly put together as always, dressed today in a charcoal black traveling cloak embellished at the edges with solid black embroidery in tight, swirling patterns.

"Oh!" She says with some surprise as she eyes me in my rumpled, sleeveless old nightgown and un-brushed hair. With a little consternation she says, "You are not up yet, Miss Burke."

"Can I help you, Mrs Malfoy?"

Behind me, I hear my sisters and brother hanging about on the stairs. They're wary of Mrs Malfoy; she's the kind of person who cares for their child, and their child only, unlike her husband who's easily charmed by cute kids—the ones in his social sphere, anyway.

Mrs Malfoy stares at me with her mouth slightly agape as though she were prepared to say something immediately upon seeing me, but she gathers herself again and says, "I need a word with you, Miss Burke. Get dressed. We're going out for a bit."

I feel my gut clench.

"Why?"

"Do as I say. Now hurry!"

So, I rush through my usual morning ablutions and put on a set of clean, plain robes, which do not meet with her approval when I hurry back downstairs.

"That won't do."

And Mrs Malfoy sweeps up the stairs to my bedroom, where my siblings and I tentatively watch as she digs through the wardrobe until she finds something she thinks more suitable.

"Here," she shoves a set of robes in soft shades of black and gray at me; it's a set she gave me awhile ago.

I redress myself while she waits in the shop, wondering where exactly it is we're 'going out' to, but more importantly (and worryingly), why?

When I next go downstairs, she looks me up and down, and gestures for me to follow her.

She takes me to the Terrace. Of course. She chooses a sheltered booth at the rear of the tea parlor and orders two coffees. No surprise guests, then. I suppose that's good.

She doesn't speak to me while we wait for our coffees, and I don't start any conversation either. We're such different people, and on such different social strata that it's less awkward than you might think, but after a while, it feels a bit strained—I mean, why is she having me for coffee, and in public too?

Our coffees are brought to us, and once Mrs Malfoy has fixed hers to her liking, she takes a deep breath and begins; "Do you know, the day following the night you brought Lucius home, I visited the apothecary to speak to you?"

Uh-oh. . .

I take a long draught of hot coffee.

She starts again. "Miss Burke, have you ever had a boyfriend, or . . . a boy you fooled around with, at all?"

Oh. My. God.

"No." Please let that put a cork in it!

"None at all? So, you've never had any experience with men's bodies?"

I can feel my eyes bugging out of their sockets. She's quite matter of fact, though.

"Because you see, Miss Burke—" Mrs Malfoy pauses, searching for a way to continue. Whether she's embarrassed or not, I can't tell; I know I am, though. "In that case, I don't suppose you realize that men can grow aroused at any old time, then?"

I wish I were dead right now.

When I don't answer Mrs Malfoy, she tries again. "Sometimes men get—hard—when they don't even want to do it. You have a baby brother; when you wipe him or bathe him, he gets a little stiff down there, yes?"

Her words do get through my mortification. Yes, both Llon and Afon have gotten curiously firm down there during baths, or when getting wiped down after soiling themselves—or when they've toddled around naked and a breeze comes on. Until now, I never connected it to what one would call an erection—I never thought about it at all!

This great revelation must be all over my face, because Mrs Malfoy looks rather satisfied.

"Yes, of course you've noticed; you're not stupid, Miss Burke. Well, that little reflex of theirs continues throughout their lives—with more control, obviously, but when they get distracted—or if they're very drunk, for example, it can go up without their noticing."

She pauses for a sip of coffee.

"Does that make sense, Miss Burke?"

So, her husband was hard that night simply because he was drunk and likely didn't even know he was—well—hard?

I give a stiff (Gah!) nod in reply. She frowns at me.

"I want to hear you say you understand, Miss Burke."

"Yes, Mrs Malfoy."

She watches my expression carefully.

"You know I'm trying to say that no one is to blame for anything untoward, then—that I'm saying you needn't have run off the way you did that night? Because you had me quite startled, Miss Burke."

Oh, she was startled?!

"Yes, Mrs Malfoy."

"'Yes Mrs Malfoy' what?" she huffs.

I'm still so embarrassed, my voice is barely above a whisper; "I am not saying it out loud."

She leans back against her seat and surveys me with a look I take to be disappointment; in what, I don't know.

"He doesn't remember a thing, you know? If you act like a child around him because of one silly incident, we'll have to explain the reason to him eventually . . . don't you think so?"

Fuck. . .

"So, now that you know a few of the facts of life, Miss Burke, you can put aside your childishness about what happened—which was really nothing, as I've explained—and act normally as before. The way you ran off and disappeared . . . really!"

With all that said, she casually drinks her coffee while I sit in complete shock and embarrassment. To be honest, I was hoping she hadn't noticed her husband's—thing (rather, the state it was in)—that night when I ran out so suddenly. I know that's wishful thinking of the dumbest sort; he's her husband, for God's sake; of course she saw he had a hard-on!

Do they really get it up when they don't even want to have sex? Grown men? I mean, I get all tingly down there when I see Cleddyf's ex-wife, Tonwen, sometimes, and it makes me start thinking of men and women being naked and a-doing it. . .

But that's not related to a man not thinking about fucking, yet getting a boner . . . isn't it . . .? I don't know!

Even after what I've just learnt from Mrs Malfoy (God, that was awful) I'm afraid I find sex and arousal about as confusing as I did when I was little and just learning about things!

Malfoy Manor

What Narcissa told Branda about Lucius having no knowledge of what had occurred was a lie. He didn't remember it, certainly not! No, she'd told him at breakfast the following morning.

"You'll excuse me while I go drown myself in the pond, my dear?"

"Oh, stop it, Lucius."

Narcissa was considerably nonchalant about the whole thing whilst Lucius was as mortified as the girl would turn out to be.

"Well, Lucius," began Narcissa when she arrived back at the manor after her conversation with Branda, "I told her you know nothing about it, so it need never be brought up between you."

Lucius was grateful that Narcissa had stuck it out and gone to the apothecary every day to see if the girl was back after having bolted so suddenly. He certainly couldn't say anything to Branda about it! Thankfully, he'd married a woman who could be quite imperturbable when it came to certain subjects.

"I just can't believe a girl goes so long without a single thing to do with a boy!"

Lucius thought a little on this, and he agreed with Narcissa that it was a bit odd a relatively attractive, eighteen-year-old girl should have had neither previous nor present boyfriends, crushes, nor even little coffeeshop dates. Only two nights previous, during a small gathering at the manor after a meeting with the Dark Lord, he had asked Severus about it.

Severus merely shrugged his shoulders; "I never saw a thing between her and any boy; not a look; not a note; not even a giggling fit with those slag friends of hers in the corridors."

Narcissa shook her head. She just couldn't understand not wanting some sort of attention from males at that age.

Yaxley was present, so of course, he had something to say on the matter. "You ought to count yourself lucky, Narcissa, that the girl's rather a dyke."

"Who's a dyke, now?" Pherena Crabbe leaned eagerly over the back of the sofa she was lounging on.

"That Burke girl," said Yaxley sourly. "Honestly, Narcissa, as close as she is to your family now, I'd be worried about her scheming her way into—"

"She's not that great of a schemer, I'm afraid," said Severus.

Narcissa quirked an eyebrow. "Too salt-of-the-earth for that, is she?"

"All I'm saying," continued Yaxley, "is that if she is a little bull-dagger, then it's good for you and Lucius because you won't have to worry about her trying to worm her way in through Draco . . . or your husband, for that matter—not that I'm saying Lucius would ever. . ."

Yaxley trailed off at the looks of everyone around him, realizing he'd gone too far. He had the grace to look sheepish as he apologized to the Malfoys.

"Why exactly are we discussing this girl?" asked Severus.

"I'll tell you later," said Lucius, and he did after everyone else had gone home.

Severus listened silently as Lucius explained his current arrangements with both Miss Burke and Donius, his eyebrows rising ever higher and higher until Lucius finished.

"You really wanted her in your grasp, didn't you, Lucius?"

"I suppose I did, yes."

From Lucius's end, Severus maintained as unreadable an expression as ever. What did his old friend think of this, exactly?

"I'm her patron; that's all she sees of it, Severus. And I'm still trying to find her damn father if that's what you're wondering. I even tracked down her mother to ask her about him, and let me tell you, it was like pulling teeth!

"So Eira doesn't know where Nicander is, either?"

"That's what she claims, but d'you know, I'm not entirely sure I believe her."

"Hm. . ." Severus looked away from Lucius a moment. "Perhaps . . . perhaps it's no great loss if he stays gone, Lucius."

Lucius's eyebrows flew to his hairline. "Come again?"

"I'm wondering . . . Nicander avoided everyone—our crowd in particular—after the Dark Lord's fall at the Potters' . . . He—allegedly—abandoned his wife and children years later . . ."

"Then his wife had two bastards that look just like him," added Lucius.

"I can't speak to that; I've never seen them. You're certain they don't look like Nicander's brother?"

"They easily could. If they're not Nicander's, they have to be Tolmander's." Lucius was certain.

Severus nodded, continuing, "He vanishes after years of ignoring his old friends; his wife has two more children of mysteries yet obvious parentage; his eldest daughter refuses to speak of him; his wife also. Donius doesn't know where he is either. He isn't in Azkaban—I recall you checked their records—and there are no death records for him, either."

Severus paused to gauge Lucius's thoughts, but Lucius was only waiting to hear the rest.

"Have you considered the possibility that—should Nicander still be alive—he perhaps does not want to be found?"

Lucius chewed his lip before answering, "I've rather hoped not."

"In the case that he is found but wishes to remain absent, what will you do?"

Lucius exhaled loudly. He'd avoided thinking of such an outcome. He felt himself in so deep with Nicander's children that he now struggled to imagine never finding him. All he knew, for now, was that he would continue his support of Branda and her siblings whether their father returned or not. Besides, if Nicander hadn't disappeared as he did, and if they'd remained good friends, then he and Lucius would have maintained the kind of relationship that would benefit the less well-off wizard's children. It was good for wealthier wizarding families to support such friends; it created bonds—largely based on reciprocity, which in turn bred loyalty—between the families.

"If that's how it turns out . . . well . . . his children are from a good line; they're worth redeeming. And it's smart to create allies, especially ones that owe you," finished Lucius.

Severus could tell that Lucius didn't like their conversation, though he was good at hiding it. He didn't doubt that Lucius would keep Nicander's brood close should their father never turn up (or refuse to). Lucius had been an excellent mentor to Severus when he was a new student, and a good friend after. With their pedigree, the Burke-Cadwallader children deserved, in the eyes of many pure-bloods, to have certain doors held wide-open for them.

Severus left the manor with a small twinge of pity for Lucius. He knew a secret about Nicander he could not share with any Death Eater, even though it nearly killed him to hold it close for the sake of the Order's own pet werewolf!

Unable to sleep immediately, Severus found himself staring out of his bedroom window. The recently full moon bathed the snow-covered grounds in hues of blue and white, the scene made eerie by the blackness of the forest beyond. Eerie, like the feeling he now had from the realization that Branda—sullen, ingenuous, needy Branda Burke—was in deeper with Lucius than Severus had ever realized despite what Lupin had told him privately after a meeting with the Order. She was almost as well-in with the Dark Lord's topmost servants as Severus had been right before he'd taken the Dark Mark.

By the time Severus was fifteen, he'd known he wanted to become a Death Eater. He needed no convincing; required only encouragement, which was given freely by Lucius and the older students who'd left Hogwarts some years earlier. Already, they themselves had joined the Dark Lord.

He thought of Barty Crouch Jr, who'd been Branda's age when he'd joined the Death Eaters. Starved for affection from his brilliant but over-preoccupied father, the boy was pulled swiftly into the Lestranges' welcoming company, and easily enthralled by the clever master who knew just how to appeal to each of his servants.

Ludovic Bagman, though never a Death Eater, and never a supporter of the Dark Lord, had been used and duped by his father's friend, Augustus Rookwood. Ludo Bagman wasn't the brightest; his days on the Quidditch field were numbered, and he knew it. What would he do then? What else did he know how to do but zoom about on a broom? It must have been a relief—an utter relief—when Rookwood spoke of landing him a job with the Ministry.

Severus was Lucius's friend, and Lucius Severus's. That had never changed, and likely wouldn't, but Severus saw past Lucius's affection for the girl for what was really happening, and it reached beyond just finding her damned father: Branda was being groomed. It was a slow process, cushioned by a rich man's mentorship and attention, and who knew what else? The finding of her father was at the forefront of it all, to be sure, but Severus wondered what Lucius would do with Branda if he got a hold of Nicander; he would continue to look out for her, yes, but at what cost to the girl? Severus could tell Lucius was truly fond of Branda Burke, but Lucius Malfoy was Lucius Malfoy: if you weren't his family, you were disposable, and your distance from the chopping block depended upon two factors: your degree of usefulness, and his level of regard for you.

Truly, Severus didn't care about Branda; her plight was insignificant. But Severus, now knowing he would have to bear witness to the pulling and prodding of an unawares young witch onto the same path as the Death Eaters, found himself wishing that Branda Burke had been sorted into a different House than his.

Remus

Weeks earlier, at the end of an Order meeting in late November, Remus had asked Severus for a word in private.

"If it is quick, Lupin; I've a job to return to, as you well know."

When he was sure no one else, including the house elf, Kreacher, was in the kitchen with them, Remus confided his worry about Branda to her old Head of House. Severus had been quite unmoved.

"I'm afraid I don't keep correspondence with every pupil who was in my House, Lupin."

Remus pressed him; "We've all learned that many Death Eaters frequent the apothecary she lives in."

"Indeed, though I don't recall her name being mentioned—not that many here would recognize it."

Remus could tell Severus wasn't interested anymore, so he decided to take a risk.

"You mentioned once that the Death Eaters were looking for her father. . ."

Severus raised an eyebrow. He had mentioned it—once—and it had been many weeks ago.

It had warranted only a brief report, sandwiched between other topics Severus had heard the Death Eaters discuss. Many in the Order didn't know who Nicander Burke was, and Severus certainly hadn't mentioned him in the context of being Branda's father! Both Severus and Remus doubted most who'd been present for that meeting even remembered Nicander's name being brought up, for the man wasn't a Death Eater, hadn't been of particular note even in the old days, and hadn't been seen for years, besides. When it came time for Remus's own report, which included him meeting the three werewolves in September, he hadn't mentioned Nicander by name—he didn't know who he was, and none of them had offered their names. However, Remus did recall having the distinct feeling that the one he now knew to be Nicander might have recognized him.

At the meeting when Severus talked of Lucius wanting to find Nicander, Remus hadn't connected the dots. It wasn't until November, on a day he was reminiscing about his brief tenure as a teacher, that it hit him: Branda had told him her father was a werewolf, a man who, of course, had 'disappeared' (like most werewolves); the Death Eaters, especially Lucius Malfoy, were searching for a long disappeared Nicander Burke—Burke! Branda Cadwallader Burke—with a disappeared werewolf father. Branda Cadwallader Burke—who'd been helped out of criminal proceedings at the Ministry by two Death Eaters, including Lucius Malfoy, the one whom Severus had said was especially looking for Nicander Burke!

After this revelation, Remus realized he needed to say something.

"Severus, one of the werewolves I met in September, the three men who refused to see me again, who wouldn't give me their names. . ."

And the Potions Master's cold, black eyes lit with understanding.

"Severus, I think one of them was Nicander Burke—Branda's father."

All Remus had to do was let Severus into his mind for them to realize he was correct.

Remus was disappointed, though not exactly surprised, when Severus expressed not a drop of concern for Branda, but he'd agreed not to divulge this bit of information about her father to any of the Death Eaters.

"I can assure you, Lupin, that I won't reveal Miss Burke's secret, not even to Lucius."

With a slight sneer, Severus brushed past Remus, but stopped at the door and looked back with an expression that was no less scornful. "I do hope you don't expect this to become a priority for the Order, Lupin. Branda Burke is of no more importance to the Dark Lord than her reprobate of a father, nor is she of any note to Dumbledore."

"I am aware of her relative obscurity, Severus. I merely thought you should know I'd seen her father—"

"—Whom Lucius Malfoy is searching for," Severus finished curtly for Remus. "Your information is noted, Lupin. Now, if there's nothing more important. . .?"

"No, Severus. That is all I wanted to tell you." Really, had he, Remus, expected anything else of Severus Snape?

Severus nodded in farewell and swept from the kitchen, leaving Remus alone to ponder whether or not he should make more of an effort with Branda, or to heed Severus's word and place her at the back of his thoughts, where she'd been before.

*

It was December now, and Remus, since that evening in September (ironically the same month he'd met her father) when he'd rebuffed her in Knockturn Alley, hadn't seen Branda at all. He could recall—always with a pang—the shocked look of hurt on her face when he'd snarled at her to, "Fuck off!" She'd looked so happy to see him, but he couldn't break his cover for her. Of course, he'd continued to keep an eye out for her. On his rare trips to Diagon Alley he would search the crowds for a familiar head of long, dark hair and a stolid, ruddy brow. If his ventures out into the public were more frequent, he might have made amends with her by now, but they weren't frequent, and he had so much to do now, with Sirius at Grimmauld Place in need of company, and with duties to the Order of the Phoenix. Mostly, Remus found himself watching Death Eaters at night with another member. His forays into the world of his fellow werewolves were even less repeated than his furtive trips to Diagon Alley. Fenrir Greyback, as far as anyone knew, hadn't been made aware of Voldemort's return. When that would change remained uncertain. Severus had noted that Voldemort rarely mentioned the werewolves—yet. Dumbledore felt that, at least for now, Remus was best utilized as a pair of eyes alongside the other Order members. Only twice had he asked Remus to seek out other werewolves, which Remus hated.

It wasn't that he disliked other werewolves, but Remus had never associated with his kind at all. His parents loved him. They hadn't abandoned him. He was bitten in the days before Theron Grosvenor and his ruthless command of the Werewolf Capture Unit (God, thought Remus, what if the rumors that Grosvenor allowed bitten children to be left to exposure were based in truth?) Remus had been isolated as a child, yes, but raised by loving parents. He'd gone to school with normal witches and wizards, tried to live and work as normally as possible with his condition. Other werewolves were nearly as foreign to him as they were to everyone else.

Despite the support of his parents and friends, Remus's lycanthropy tainted everything for him. If he saw a dog with a wolf-like appearance, he crossed the road to avoid it. If he woke in the night and saw moonlight beaming onto the worn rug through the window, he shuttered it to kill the white glow. From the time he'd been bitten, he could see agony in the way the moon's rays penetrated through curtains on cloudless nights, burning like metal left out in the cold.

What few friends he had were precious to him. Branda might not be a friend, exactly (Remus wasn't sure what the definition of their acquaintance was), but her kindness to him, her openness to his existence while knowing what he was, and the light he saw on the rosy plains of her face whenever she saw him meant as much to Remus as the love and acceptance he had with few others.

Lucius

Come on . . . come on . . . take it, damn you!

Bode was proving more resilient than Lucius had expected. As he watched Bode rocking on his knees between the rows of glowing prophecies, he supposed to himself that Unspeakables were, in general, a hardy-minded lot.

"Take the prophecy with Harry Potter's name on it . . . the one right before you. Take it, now. . ."

Lucius was good at using the Imperius Curse. Whether he understood it or not, he, raised as the son and heir to one of Britain's wealthiest, most powerful, and most well-known wizarding families, had learned he could expect things to go his way; whether by nature, effort, or force, he expected it. The fact that Broderick Bode's moans had become anguished, near keening, elicited nothing in Lucius Malfoy but frustration. Lucius needed him to retrieve that prophecy for him. The Dark Lord held two strikes against him for never searching his lord out after his fall at the Potters', and that diary. . .

"You are fortunate, Lucius, that I regard you so highly . . . You've made mistakes yes. . ."

"My Lord knows I wish I had not—

"Yes, I know, Lucius . . . but you will earn your way back into my esteem, will you not. . .? Even now, I hold you highest amongst the Death Eaters. . ."

Bode still refused to touch the prophecy. It was such a simple thing: small as a snitch, formed from spun glass. It glowed dully, as did all of the prophecies in that room, which lent a ghoulish, grey-blue light to the atmosphere, which, in turn, gave one a feeling of some sort of sacredness—a kind of caution in thought—or perhaps one was made keenly aware of all the breakable glass spheres that surrounded them.

"Stand up . . . stand . . . Good . . . Touch the prophecy . . . or just touch the label beneath it . . . yes, touch the label . . ."

Reluctantly, Bode's fingers brushed the old, yellowed strip of parchment that bore the label S. P. T. to A. P. W. B. D. Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter. Briefly, Lucius wondered what the question regarding the subjects of the prophecy was, but that was unimportant; the Dark Lord needed to hear it, and if he Lucius, were the one to deliver it, his debt to his master would be forgiven. As Bode' fingers rested more firmly on the label, Lucius felt his stomach leap.

"Good . . . good . . . Yes . . . how easy that is . . . (If only Imperiusing Bode were as easy as Imperiusing others! Damn, but the Unspeakable was strong!) . . . See how simple that is . . .

Once the sweat had stopped streaming down Bode's temples, Lucius went for it. "Yes . . . That is good . . . Now raise your hand just a little . . . just over the prophecy . . . good . . . Now, a fingertip . . . just a fingertip. . ."

Bode's finger grazed the surface of the glass ball, and he collapsed. He seized; his eyes rolled back; his mouth gaped open in a silent scream while his body shook and trembled.

"Shit!" Lucius lowered his wand and stared skyward at the high ceiling. Could he not get a break?

He looked down at Bode and watched him continue to seize. He was drooling now, and his eyes had begun to flicker down and back into his head again. The row filled with the sharp smell of urine. Lucius furrowed his brow; he realized Bode was in a state that would continue without intervention.

The Ministry had closed its doors for the night just a half hour before; Lucius had remained hidden while an Imperiused Bode told his colleagues he was working late that night, so Lucius let out a growl of frustration that mutated into an echoing "FUCK . . .!" before he swept from the Hall of Prophecy, having failed again.

Behind him, Broderick Bode remained addled and cursed while his mind tried desperately to bring its master back to the world.