Part 2

Sirius Black

On the six o'clock news, right after Big Ben tolls his placid evening greeting, Sirius Black becomes an infamous household name for the British people. Though the disaster was broadcast the morning after the event, the Muggle police haven't seen fit to release his name or any details until today. He wonders if this is how long it took for the Ministry of Magic to give the Muggle government the information, or if this is just the way Muggles deal with things. In addition to all the British news, he is reported on briefly in America, France, Germany, Spain, and suddenly, it doesn't seem like there is a single safe harbour on Earth left for him.

He consoles himself by thinking that it's unlikely the inhabitants of yurts in Mongolia will ever hear of his name; it's a cynical comfort, as loose and distant as clouds.

John turns the television off after the third repetition of the story, after the third replaying of the footage of the burning street–post event, after the third showing of Sirius' own grainy image. His hair is shorter in the media photograph, the thin crinkles around his eyes a little less noticeable. He doesn't remember it being taken, though he recognises the face he is pulling. It's a typical James-just-told-a-really-bad-joke look, but the flat line of his mouth and exasperated eyes are out of context. In stark black and white; he looks sinister.

"It's a tragedy, what happened to those people," John says to Padfoot as he steams broccoli for dinner, John has taken well to owning a dog that understands him, and Sirius suspects that he never grew out of that stage of childhood in which you could believe that your pets lead double lives. "But heaven knows, there is enough tragedy in the world to go around that we don't have to pick at the scab. Such a strange crime to commit, too; they say it was like terrorism, but with no motivation. I suppose it's not a very classy thought, but sometimes I wonder about what happens in those sort of murdering peoples' lives that drives them to do the terrible things they do."

Sirius watches the blank screen for a few moments after the picture cuts out, seeing himself, still there, as an after effect like staring at a light for too long. Cast in shadows of grey and taken out of context, and for a single second, he almost believes himself to be guilty too.

After they finish dinner, the girls go upstairs to play dress-up and John reads the newspaper. Sirius watches the sickly-sweet display of domestic family life with a removed amusement. When John begins to nod over his paper an hour later, Padfoot nudges at his foot until he wakes. He looks around for a minute, muzzily, reminding Sirius of morning-Remus, all cloudy eyes and stretching. He scratches Padfoot's head mutely, then stumbles upstairs to bed.

Padfoot curls into a ball on the braided rug by the front door. He doesn't have any idea when Remus might be coming, but he trusts that it won't be too long. He misses Moony; it's been about four days now, since he last saw Moony properly, and a much longer time if he counts in those weeks of aching distrust before Halloween night.

He wonders what he will say to Remus, when they have the inevitable discussion concerning the lethal shards their relationship has been in. And yet, at the same time, he doesn't want to have to think about it. He never stopped loving Moony, and he trusts him now. He wishes he could believe that was enough for either of them.

Despite this, sitting in the dark, silent house, watching the unmoving door, Sirius is mostly concerned with thoughts of Moony's laugh when Sirius does something stupid for the sole purpose of extracting that bone-shakingly exquisite sound from Remus's pale throat; or, the thoughtful face he makes when he presses his fingerprints into the skin on the underside of Sirius's wrists; the way he smells while he's reading: a stingingly lovely mix of old parchment, skin, linen, and binding glue.

He contemplates this last thought with such intensity that when the real thing is suddenly apparent to Padfoot's acute nose, he's convinced it's only his imagination, but then Moony is standing in the shadow of the staircase, his eyes like twin stars, entering on silent footsteps through the back door. His breathing is a little harsh, and he almost looks surprised to see Padfoot sitting on the doorstep.

"This is the third house I've broken into," Remus says with a wry grin, and suddenly Padfoot's black and white vision is not enough, and he must see Remus in all the shades of muted colour the late hour will allow. His form shivers as he builds himself into a man.

The two of them stand still in the hall for a moment, the distance between them much wider that Sirius could have imagined, a great gulf filled in with the tatters of dreams they had that will now never come true, and with weeks of barely concealed lies and with hands grasping for the touch of each other in separate rooms, barricaded by their own insistent loneliness.

And then the space crumbles apart, and they are only two men who are younger than they think, and in love. They collide like base elements, reactive and chemical–mouths, hands, chests meeting, toes stepping on toes and eyelashes sticking together. Remus pulls Sirius's lower lip into his mouth, bruising, distilling them into a singular truth of togetherness. Sirius folds Remus into his arms, tighter and tighter until Remus whimpers for lack of oxygen.

"I'm so sorry—" Sirius begins.

Remus cuts him off immediately with, "No, I'm sorry, I should never have even thought—"

"I was such an idiot for listening to Peter when he said you were—"

"I had no good reason for—"

"I regret so much of—"

"I shouldn't have pushed you to tell me about—"

They snap their mouths shut, both of them suddenly very aware that they aren't going to get anywhere this way.

"I was wrong," Remus finally says, holding Sirius pinned in place with the intensity of his stare, "We were both wrong."

"I know. But it isn't going to happen again. We can't pretend it didn't happen, but we have to get over it." Some piece of Sirius wants grand words and grand gestures, and either of them, or both of them to drop to their knees and plead, but part of the reason he loves Remus is that he would never be impressed by it, and even if Sirius could give him castles or filigree gold in apology, he wouldn't. That isn't how they work; that isn't how they are. Instead he settles for "I promise you, it won't happen again. Will that be enough?"

"If my promise is enough, then yours is enough." Remus leans his forehead against Sirius's chest, and whispers into his collarbone, "We'll make it be enough."

They sit at John's kitchen table with their heads close together. Sirius explains Apparating away from Peter when he heard Ministry sirens, and then being found by Mrs Dursley the next morning, and the Excers' kindness and somewhat surprising sort-of-belief in magic. Remus replies with the story of finding Lily's letter in the lair, and of talking to Dumbledore, and of spotting Sirius on his way to see Harry.

"We need to find a way to prove your innocence, Sirius. I agree that Harry shouldn't stay with the Dursleys but, frankly, it's going to make life for all of us too difficult if we steal him out from under the Dumbledore's nose."

Sirius wants to argue; but Remus is right, of course, and he knows it, "We'll have to go searching for Peter. Or maybe, we could find some of the other Death Eaters I'm sure have disappeared since Voldemort's death…we could get one who's seen Peter at a Death Eater gathering…. But I'm not just leaving Harry as is; they keep him under the stairs, Moony. I can't leave him like that."

Remus looks thoughtful for a moment, tapping his wand idly against the table. "This John Excer. How far do you think we could trust him?"

Sirius considers the question carefully. He has known the man for less than a week; a random Muggle whose only connection to them was through the fact that he happened to live on the same street as his best friend's wife's sister. "Pretty far," Sirius declares decisively. He likes John. He likes spontaneous people with good judgement. He likes people who like animals. He likes people who are good with their children. He likes Muggles who believe in magic.

"I think we should have a chat with the Dursleys," Remus says.

"An intimidating kind?" Sirius asks, waiting with a sort of patience he has learned to develop from many years of watching Remus invent plans. Remus is, and always has been, an idea man.

"Exactly that kind." Remus pauses, smiling a little, "And, maybe then, we could suggest a child minder for them. If we arranged something, like Harry could visit here, we could also come and meet with him, perhaps once a week or every other week, and in between, we'll be on the run, looking for Peter, and moving about so the Ministry doesn't get wind of us." He stops and starts again. "Do you think Mr Excer would…help us?"

Sirius contemplates. "I honestly don't know. Why should he care? I mean, I think he's the sort of person that would help, but he doesn't know us from Adam," he sighs, and some of the confidence melts out of his form. "James would know what to do."

Sirius catches the edge of Remus's expression, one that says, You're right, he would know what to do. This is the worst thing ever. But by the time their eyes have met, his face is fixed into some self-assured grimace.

"This could work--but he has to help. It'd be a good way to keep in contact with the wizarding world while we're laying low, if we have Andromeda leave us messages here."

"You spoke to Andy?" Sirius asks, remembering yet again why Remus is clearly the best person alive.

Remus nods, "I thought it'd be important to you, and to her."

The corners of Sirius's mouth collect up into a dizzyingly private smile, and he leans forward and presses a dry, gentle kiss to the corner of Remus's mouth.

That same moment, the dining room lights flick on to illuminate John Excer's shocked and terrified face.

"Who the fuck are you?!" he shouts. He's holding a cricket bat in one hand, and though his face is painted in an expression straight out of a horror film, his hands aren't shaking. Then, his eyes light on Remus's face.

"Mr Lupin?" he asks, clearly floored.

---

Mr John Excer

It only takes John a moment to recognize the other inhabitant of the table as mass murderer Sirius Black. They don't look like any criminals John has seen before, with their lips still too red from kissing, and the slow fall of daft grins into an exchange of nervous glances. Sirius Black still has one hand curled around the back of Mr Lupin's neck, and he seems to realise this at the same time John does and snatches it hastily away.

Mr Lupin looks about as threatening as he had in the park--which is to say, not very. He's wearing nicer jeans and a short sleeve t-shirt layered over longer sleeves. The cuffs are torn, presumably from regular picking at the threads. Sirius Black is, John recognises uncomfortably, wearing his own clothes.

"We can explain," Black says, "I'm not, I mean he's not, I mean, we aren't going to hurt you or anyone. We aren't criminals-"

"No?" John asks, "So then I'm wrong in thinking that you're Sirius Black." He edges forward, firming his grip around the cricket bat.

Mr Lupin quickly jumps to answer, "He is, but you have to understand, he's never killed an innocent person in his life. He never would. There was a mistake, he's been framed for the crime."

"Yes, you see," Black's voice clamours over the top of Mr Lupin's to continue the explanation, "We're not exactly ordinary people, we've been fighting against a…an evil person. And he was defeated, but our friends were killed in the process by our other friend – or we thought he was our friend, and then when I went to avenge them he ran away, and then--"

"You're making very little sense, Padfoot." Mr Lupin whispers, but John hears anyway, and feels his eyebrows shoot into his hairline. He selects his reply carefully, trying to decide how best to continue the conversation. If he just took a few more steps he'd be close enough to pick up the telephone.

"Please tell me Padfoot is a common name wherever you are from."

"I'm from Cheshire," Mr Lupin says crossly, but John's eyes are fixed on Black, who looks pointedly sheepish.

"Oh damn, right then," he mumbles, and then his whole figure shimmers, like John is looking at him through a heat mirage, and when his vision clears there is a familiar black dog looking at him through wary eyes.

Mr Lupin smacks his forehead with one palm. "For Circe's sake, Pads. Haven't you ever heard of testing the waters?"

Perhaps John had guessed that his life was never going to be the same several months before the appearance of a beaten up black dog on his doorstep. If he is going to be very honest with himself, he's known that the world wasn't what he'd thought since the day his wife died, or as he would come to remember it as in the future: the day he met Lily Potter for the first and last time.

On the day his wife died, it was raining in typical British summer fashion, a little muggy and humid with dense low clouds that were likely to clear off by afternoon and return by nightfall.

The Excers were not great fans of travelling, but with two daughters at impressionable ages, John and his wife believed in exposing them to the world, and it was with this reasoning that they found themselves on the banks of the Thames where it ran near Whitehall, watching the stirring of an old city both too large and too small for itself.

The explosion caught everyone by surprise.

Summer meant that the city was full to the brim, and as the smoke and dust began to settle, the tall black cloaked figures in the midst of the riverside rubble were more petrifying and nightmarish than John had previously thought the idea of sudden terrorism on a London holiday could inspire.

It was hard to see, with the rain and the dust making everything muddy and the screams so loud that it was hard to think. John clutched his daughters' small fingers, one in each hand, and his wife was there at his side, with Millie's other hand clasped in hers.

"Oh, god, oh god," she was crying, and John was running, tugging the girls after him and his wife right there, still close enough to touch, but there were too many people in the same frenzy as they were, and the air was now cluttered with bright bolts of coloured light, which were beautiful in a deadly way as they caught people in the crowd between the shoulders or clipped an arm, sending them crashing to the ground.

John pulled his family into the shadow of a tall tree and tucked his daughters under the stone bench cemented into the street. He hunched down next to them, folding his wife into the corner of his arms. It was still near impossible to see what was going on, but John had sharp eyes and he caught sight of the police force in arrival. They looked just as lost as the mobs of shrieking civilians.

Then there were brighter flashes of light–golden this time–and suddenly more people in cloaks had appeared. They were not in dark colours, but most of them in pale shades of sky blue or cream, some with phoenixes emblazoned on their backs. The amount of flashes of terrible light doubled, but the number of people collapsing in screams halved.

John was so busy trying to determine what was happening that he didn't see the figure in the black cloak come upon their hiding place until it was too late. It was impossible to tell even the gender of the figure, but it hardly mattered. The mask was a cruel parody of a face framed by wild locks of dark hair and John's wife whimpered and huddled in, closer to his side.

"Why are you doing this?" John asked desperately.

The response was an arc of green light, brilliantly hued, from the thin stick the figure clutched in one long-fingered hand. Chilling laughter followed as John felt his wife stiffen and then go suddenly limp in his hands.

"What?" he cried, "WHAT DID YOU DO?"

"I killed her, obviously. Who next? Is that your children I see there?" the figure said, voice muffled from the mask and hard to distinguish, save the coldness.

One moment he was lost and helpless, and then there was a crack and the woman was there.

Her hair was the colour of flames and her cloak the colour of holly berries. She appeared between John and the horrible figure with her body taunt and defensive. She seemed like a goddess, to John, vengeful and vivid. The figure took a step back and wordlessly they began some strange duel of colours. It was like being trapped in a greenhouse of prisms, if each rainbow was a tangible and fatally sharp dagger.

It was difficult to understand exactly what was happening, but even to John, it was apparent that the red-headed woman was winning. For every flash or twist the dark figure could produce, she shot three, with twice the furious passion.

Finally, the cloaked figure fell backwards, and the woman stood over the form, obscuring the silhouette, with her stick just touching her forehead. "You're getting very fast, Evans," the figure said, breathing shakily.

"It's Potter now, Black-- or Lestrange rather," she said fiercely, and spit out another word that John didn't understand, only it was too late, because the figure touched a pendant around her neck and flashed out of existence.

The woman cursed, and then glanced around quickly for any further imminent threats. "Where do you live?" she said, shouting over the din.

"Privet Drive. In Little Whinging…Surrey."

The woman looked surprised. "I have family there," she said as she grabbed his arm, and then reached out to gather up his daughters on her other arm. They were sobbing - their faces streaked with tears.

"What-" John began, but in the next second he was being squeezed into a thin tube of darkness, folding inside out and twisted upside down and his sentence was choked off, lost in the space between worlds.

When he could breath again, he was on the street outside his house. The boneless form of his wife was still clutched in his arms, and his daughters were kneeling in the street, covered in ashes, arms clutched around each other. The red-haired woman was swaying where she stood, looking close to passing out.

John laid his wife down as gently as possible and stumbled to his feet, just in time to catch the woman as she fell.

"Fuck," she said from his arms. "It is not at all easy to Apparate four people. Oh, uh oh, maybe you should let go of me-"

"What do you mean?" he asked, and the woman promptly threw-up, narrowly missing his shoes.

She climbed out of his arms, and turned, noticing the lifeless form of his wife. "Oh no," she said, voice hollow, "I am so sorry."

"But-" John turned, "But it was just light."

"It was a curse, the killing curse. Magic."

"But–"

"I'm so sorry," she repeated, "I'm Lily. Lily Potter. Which house is yours?"

He pointed down the street, eyes still fixed on his wife's body. "I don't understand."

The woman – Lily -- put her arm around Hannah and used the other to pick up Millie, balancing the child on her hip in a practised motion.

Numbly, John picked up his wife's body and followed Lily to his house. He started to fumble for the keys, but the woman merely tapped against the handle and the door swung open. He laid his wife on the sofa, and collapsed onto the floor beside her. Lily settled Millie into his arms and Hannah dropped down next to him.

"Can I ask for your names please?" Lily asked gently, crouching next to them.

"John Excer," he whispered brokenly. "And Camille and Hannah."

"Okay, and where were you staying in London–so I can bring your bags back? I need to know your wife's name, too, so I can report in the death to the, eh, government."

He replied to each of her careful questions in a dead voice. Minutes passed, and John felt so cold and far away that he barely started when a large translucent wolf leapt suddenly through the window.

"They've just gotten backup, Lily. We need you," a breathless voice said through the wolf.

Lily stood up quickly. "I'll be there in a minute, Sirius," she said to it, and then a sudden gust of wind carried it off. She bent forward, her hair falling in her face. Her bottle green eyes caught his; they were hot and bright and sad. "I'm so sorry; this shouldn't be your battle."

John believed her. There was nothing of the insincere distance that he'd seen from past dealings with Authorities. In a strange way, he was more awed by the genuine grief and pain she had for him, a stranger, than by her surrealism.

"I have to make you forget this, now," she said, quietly, pressing the tip of her stick (a wand?) to his forehead.

"No," he said, the first words with emotion he'd spoken since he'd screamed at the cloaked figure, "No. I want to remember how she died. I need to remember her."

Lily hesitated for a moment, biting her lip in indecisiveness. Finally she nodded. "Okay," she said. "Goodbye."

And she cracked out of existence.

It is these memories that occupy John Excer's mind as he stands in his dining room, looking at his dog, who is also a man, who became a dog, and the mysterious stranger placing a protective hand on the dog's tall shoulders.

"Listen," Mr Lupin says quietly. "I'm sorry about this, but we need your help. I know that it might take you some time to get used to, but we don't have time. The two of us, we're magic. Wizards…like in stories. And in our world, which overlaps with yours a bit, there was a man called Voldemort who was very evil. We were working to stop him and then–"

"I know," John says suddenly.

"What?" Mr Lupin asks.

"I know. My wife…I'm not completely sure, but I'm pretty sure she was killed by that evil wizard of yours. Or at least some follower. Someone called Lestrange."

Man and dog alike gape at him, and he is glad to finally have the upper hand in shocking news.

"We were in London, on holiday, in early summer. There was some kind of strange terrorist attack. A woman saved us. I think…" He pauses, as he remembers details. Events click into place, completing more of the puzzle in front of him. "You know her. She had a phoenix on her cloak, and you have one on your hip and you spoke to her when she brought us back home. It was some magic. But she called it Sirius. Her name was Lily Potter."

Mr Lupin and Sirius Black's faces both crumpled, and John tried not to think of what it meant. Mr Lupin opened his mouth to reply, but it took a moment for sound to come out, "Lily is…she was…she's…" He paused, and drew a breath, "The traitor – that's why we're here. She's…dead."

"Oh." John says, feeling suddenly and strangely crushed. "But she saved us. In June."

"The Battle of the Thames." Mr Lupin says quietly, not even noticing when Padfoot reformes into Sirius Black. "I remember her telling me about it. I wasn't there, Padfoot. I was meeting with a Pack in North Wales. Do you remember? You got the scar on your shoulder in that fight."

Sirius Black laughs humourlessly. "Yeah, I remember. I remember I was so mad at you for missing that fight, Moony. Dumbledore said you were doing translations for him. You came back with scars too. I believed you when you said you ran into a biting book. Fucking hell, that was stupid of me."

"I shouldn't have lied. We'd never listened to teachers before."

They smile at each other, with grim twists of the mouth; the hurt doesn't last long, and it comes out cleaner that John imagines they intended. He's a school-teacher, and he has learned to read between the lines, or to find a story in a story, and this one is the kind that ends with a happily ever after, he's almost positive. Even so, John wishes that he knew what they were talking about.

Sirius Black returns his attention to John. "Well, it's a small world, isn't it? We certainly are a bunch of Dickensian coincidences."

John nods in agreement. He realises that he's still clutching the cricket bat, and so sets it against the wall and picks at the stray threads on the hem of his pyjama shirt nervously.

"I'm going to make some tea," John says. "And you are going to explain exactly what you're doing in my house, and why I shouldn't be on the phone with the police telling them about the mass murderer, and about this wizarding world business. And also, what exactly you think you need my help for. But I will tell you now: I'm probably going to help you, because of your friend saving my life."

Mr Lupin grins again, wolfish and clever. "Well, Mr Excer, I appreciate a man who asks the right questions. Please, call me Remus," he holds out his hand to shake.

John takes it without thinking and, not for the first time in the last week, wonders at what point he lost his sanity; and, also, what he has gotten himself into.

---

March 19th, 1982

Sirius and Remus arrive an hour before the Dursleys are due to drop Harry off for his weekly visit. They usually only manage to make every other week, but on the off chance that the two wizards do appear, and because the girls love having the baby around to dress up and coo at, Harry comes to the Excers' every Saturday.

Also, John worries that Harry is still having trouble saying some words he should know, though phrases like "Shut up" have been newly added to his vocabulary, and it leads John to believe that the Dursleys aren't caring for Harry properly.

Remus appears first, knocking politely on the back door. His hair is cut badly, choppy and a little uneven around the ears, and John remarks upon it as he comes inside - he had just been letting it grow longer.

"Dragon," he says. "Werewolves are mostly fireproof; unfortunately, our hair is not."

John winces, opens his mouth, about to say tell me about dragons, are there really dragons? but he feels silly and child-like, and so he closes his mouth with a snap. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Remus notices and guesses his thoughts.

"We were in Romania; they've quite a collection of natural and also some man-made hatcheries out there. It's quite an amazing thing; we got to see a hatching – it was the dragonet that coughed a few flames at me–and the grounds were wild. Just miles and miles of hot sand with eggs in all amazing patterns and colours–colours I've never seen before, and bonfires built around–some of them won't hatch unless their exposed to live flame. We just thought it'd be interesting. No real reason for going. Sirius bought a dragon-skin coat. He's quite pleased with it."

"Dragon-skin? Do they-"

"No, no." Remus corrects hurriedly. "Some breeds shed. You can buy dragon-hide, but it's black market stuff."

"Where is Sirius, anyway? Harry's due in a few minutes."

"We Apparated – er, jumped into a train station by accident. Sirius got distracted. He'll be along in a few."

John nods, and finishes setting the tea tray. Hannah appears in the doorway a moment later. "Moony!" she says, delighted. She hugs him tightly, and Remus looks a little embarrassed by the affection but ruffles his hand through her hair nonetheless. She steps away and tugs her at the bows on her dress shyly. John watches as Remus pretends not to notice her eyeing his bag in anticipation.

After a few amusing moments of this, she says, hesitantly, "Moony, have you got-"

"PRESENTS!" Sirius Black yells tracking mud into the recently-cleaned kitchen floor, looking just as excited to be handing gifts out as John's daughters are to receive them. Millie skids into the kitchen on small stocking feet with a gap-toothed grin.

John watches the two men with sharp eyes. After five months, it's hard to imagine life without them; John now counts them among his best friends, traipsing in and out of the back door and John's small normal life like they have the secrets to everything on the other side of John's garden fence.

The magic of having fugitive wizards making his kitchen their home base is undeniably interesting, but it's also a source of eternal worries.

It isn't that he's afraid of being found out; he has faith enough that Remus and Sirius could escape fast enough; as for himself, it wouldn't be too difficult to say that Remus and Sirius had lied or tricked him into helping. No -- John worries about the men themselves. John has always been a worrier. He's a bit of a mother hen in that way.

John remembers the first few times they'd come back to visit, still nervous of John; and, in accordance with a story John doesn't know all the words to, nervous around each other. They hadn't yet got the hang of travelling, and they'd collapsed into his living room in the night. He'd come downstairs some time in the early hours of the morning and found them passed out on the sofa, still fully dressed, long limbs entangled.

They'd been underfed and exhausted and their explanations of travels laced with hopelessness and disappointment. Clearly, it had been a jarring realisation for them – that it wasn't going to be easy to prove Sirius's innocence.

They still look worn around the edges. Tired, a little grungy from too long without an appropriate place to sleep, but John can see they have improved vastly. Grief is a little farther removed from them now, and he knows that they've stopped going on every excursion with the desperate intention of finding some kind of proof. They are travellers; and, oddly, it suits them.

John grins fondly as Sirius carefully removes objects wrapped in yards of silk from Remus's messenger bag – they'd forgone the bulky backpacks when John had curiously asked if there wasn't some way to magically store a large amount of items in a small space and they'd groaned at each other, remarking upon their forgetfulness.

"For the lovely Hannah…" Sirius says, and pauses to build tension, "The eggshell of a real dragon." He pulls something round wrapped in a red scarf from the bag. Hannah carefully pulls the fabric away to reveal a large oval object, with a cracked back, presumably where the animal had escaped. It is opalescent greenish and pink, like an abalone shell, but as thick and hard as marble and perfectly smooth.

"And for the enchanting Camille…" Sirius pulls out another round item, this one wrapped in blue. "Fireflies." Millie takes the object from its scarf to find a glass jar with no apparent way to be opened. Inside are five bright pinpoints of reddish-purple light, which buzz back and forth like insects.

"They're not alive, so don't worry about feeding them," Sirius says, by way of explanation to John. "It's what dragons sneeze."

"You're kidding me," John exclaims, staring at the little flames inside the glass bubble.

"Not all breeds," Remus says, "Mainly smaller; it's a self-defence of sorts."

John shakes his head in the kind of disbelief that is now second nature to him.

"Any word from Andy, lately?" Sirius asks, plucking an apple from the basket on the counter.

"She dropped in this morning with a letter to give you," John says, going to the desk in the corner of the room and retrieving the thick vellum envelope.

The girls hug Remus and Sirius again, and then begin chattering to them about their past two weeks, describing spelling test grades and Millie's newly-missing tooth.

John answers the door when Mrs Dursely comes with Harry, as neither Remus nor Sirius can always be trusted to be civil. There had been one notable incident a few weeks ago when Vernon had brought the child and Sirius had received him–remarks had been made that ended up with Harry squalling and Remus holding Vernon against the door, his feet only just touching the ground, face very close to Vernon's plum skin. Remus had whispered, "I've warned you once." His teeth had looked strikingly sharp and John, who'd never before connected the idea of 'werewolf' with 'Remus Lupin', suddenly understood.

Vernon had nodded his head vigorously and practically run down the path away from the house. John didn't approve of the violence; and it had scared him a bit, too, seeing the usually peaceful and reserved Remus so suddenly sharp and wild, eyes too yellow and nearly vibrating with anger.

Sirius had grumbled "I can handle my own fights, thank-you-very-much" upon shutting the door, and bouncing Harry gently on his hip until he calmed.

In what John assumed was a rare display of public affection, Remus had leaned forward to press a line of three kisses across Sirius's neck – the last and longest in the vulnerable soft spot just beneath his ear. John barely caught his whisper of "But I like fighting for you."

Some parts of John were glad that they weren't often physical in front of him. John was a free-thinking man, but he'd never been around gay people before, and sometimes he caught himself getting a little nervous about it. In that moment, though, he'd wanted nothing more than to have a camera, and capture that singular moment of family – Remus curling one arm protectively around Sirius's lower back, the other reaching to brush Harry's hair from his face; and, with a secret kind of smile, cradling them safely.

---

August 28th , 1982

Remus Lupin

The sheets are clean and smooth around Remus's body when he wakes. He lays with his eyes closed, breathing in the smells of Parisian mornings. He can taste the steam from Sirius's shower when he opens his mouth, wet and hot at the back of his throat. There are pastries on the table, and coffee, which means Sirius has already been out this morning.

Remus rolls over. A single bandage pulls at his stomach as he stretches, and his muscles feel sore and tired but, as far as mornings after the full moon go, there have been few better. They had spent the night in a vineyard in the South of France; Remus only remembers the sunrise as if he is seeing through a veil - hazy flashes of Sirius's arms collecting his boneless form under the lightening edges of a morning sky; then the familiar squeeze of Apparition; being propped against a column in the reception of the hotel.

Still, without opening his eyes–a little unwilling to let go of the last whispers of sleep folded across his skin like wings--Remus listens as Sirius shuts off the water, then to Sirius slightly off-key singing.

He opens the bathroom door towelling his back absently. The whistling cuts off abruptly.

"Don't think I don't know you're awake Mr Moony. I can tell the difference between a sleeping smile and an awake one. We're going to see the Eiffel Tower today, proper tourists. None of this backwater hiking-through-dusty-towns business."

"Yes sir," Remus replies scratchily, squeaking when he yawns, like a dog.

"How do you feel?" Sirius asks, a little more softly.

"Good." Remus's eyes finally blink open. The room is all shades of cream and white, and the four-poster bed has gauzy curtains. Sirius is leaning against the wardrobe, studying Remus with a strangely awed expression on his face. He's wearing only a towel, loose around his hips, and his hair is India ink black, wet and sticking to his neck. They've taken to charming it pale in big cities, and Remus has forgotten how dark it is. The scene is nearly too idyllic to be real. "Really good."

Remus sits up as Sirius lets the towel slide to the ground and crosses the room, slipping into the bed on his knees just behind Remus. He presses his mouth to the back of Remus's neck and then bends, and kisses again, and again, with just a hint of teeth, in a line down Remus's back. He places one final open mouthed, sucking kiss on the silvery line of Registry numbers tattooed into Remus's shoulder and Remus arches into his mouth.

Sirius pulls away and Remus makes a rumbling noise of protest.

"No, no, I'm all clean now, and you're all sore. Later."

"Did I just hear Sirius Black turn down sex?"

"Non!" Sirius declares, standing up to dig through their leather messenger bag in search of clothes. "You just heard Sirius Black postponing sex. Il ya une très grande différence."

"I'll have the shirt with the tree on it, please," Remus says, yawing again.

"That's mine!"

"It doesn't even fit you. The shoulders are too broad."

They go about dressing in companionable silence. Remus finishes before Sirius, who is busy poking at his hair with his wand in the toilette.

"I don't like being a blond. It makes me look like Narcissa."

Remus shrugs, and though Sirius can't see him, he is fairly sure he knows Remus's sentiments of the subject anyway. Remus leans over the railing on the window down to the street below. There is a bakery, a shoe store, and a news stand, all with amusingly stereotypical French people bustling about. The hotel is just as stunning on the outside as the inside, and if Remus cranes his neck he can just see Montmartre, with the gleaming white dome of the Basilica of the Sacré Coeur like a particularly lovely wedding cake atop the hill.

"This is a nice hotel," Remus says, absently, "I feel a bit like a kept woman here, whisked off for a European honeymoon."

"It would be a more convincing story if we hadn't just tortured a partially mad Death Eater for a confession saying that he recognised our traitorous ex-friend as a follower of Voldemort, Moony," Sirius calls from the mirror.

"Dolohov killed Marlene McKinnon, you know."

"I'm not saying it wasn't true - his confession, or that he didn't deserve it. I'm just saying that, in general, the world would be wonky if people were making use of relashio and cursed daggers on their honeymoons."

Remus chuckles.

"Besides," Sirius continues, "You'd make a more convincing kept woman if you hadn't just earned 200 galleons breaking all those awful wards on that French duchess's dungeons."

Sirius comes out of the toilette just in time to catch the tail end of Moony's pleased grin. Remus tries to make himself scowl, but he can't – he's got a terrible weak spot for being successful.

---

They're standing on the street a ways down from the Arc de Triomphe in a crush of other tourists, all gawking and staring at the monument. Remus tugs them away from the crowds and down a side street. He uses his perfect French to charm their way into a tiny local café, and they sit at the tin table with coffees, their knees touching pleasantly.

"I've been thinking," Sirius begins, "What if we went to Beauxbatons? I still don't think Peter would have run to somewhere completely unfamiliar, but I can't think of anywhere else to look. We've searched pretty much every single place we know he's been. We've even been to that garage he worked in for the week he was dating the Muggle girl, Wendy."

Remus nods in agreement, "And the holiday home in Wales," he adds. "That poor woman who owns it now - she thought we were trying to murder her."

"Well anyway, I've never seen Beauxbatons; but it is a magical school--it might feel familiar to him…" Sirius pauses to take a gulp of coffee and then, suddenly, his eyes widen and he sprays his mouthful out across the table in his sudden haste to speak, "Hogwarts!" he shouts, "Why haven't we looked in Hogwarts. For fuck's sake, that should've been the first place."

"But – so close to Dumbledore-"

"Peter Pettigrew could be sitting in a cage on Dumbledore's desk and he'd never know. He's a rat, Moony."

"Merlin," Remus says, quietly, "You know, you could be right. And all the work he did getting into small places when we were making the map…he's probably the only person on Earth who knows the castle better than we do."

They sit in silence for a moment, imagining all the terrible things Peter could have gotten up too having the run of the school. Remus feels a little guilty, as it's partially his fault. He doesn't think he was wrong not to tell Dumbledore about Sirius, but it does mean he's not aware of the danger Peter could present.

"How do we get in?" he wonders aloud.

"The same way I'll bet Peter did," Sirius answers him solemnly, "Through the Shack."

---

If they have learned one thing in the past almost-a-year, it's that jumping into the middle of some big new plan without thinking about it first is stupid and usually ends in near-death. Remus finds it funny that being on the run has made Sirius more thoughtful and less compulsive. Sometimes, he isn't completely sure if this is a lesson Sirius learned through experience, or maybe he's just finally growing up.

The thing to remember is that a few weeks is not going to change anything, and so they stay in Paris, eating at a different ridiculously expensive restaurant every night for a week, leisurely planning with old trial versions of the Marauder's map.

Soon enough, it's off to the Excers' to see Harry again. Andromeda comes around while they're there and cuts Sirius and Remus's hair with a sort of motherly persuasion and charm she usually uses to get them to do what she wants.

It's so nice to have the whole group–their own strange, puzzled-together family– that Andromeda stays over in the guest bedroom, and brings Nymphadora and Ted along. Remus calls the Dursleys to tell them to wait to pick up Harry until the next morning.

Nymphadora gets on swimmingly with Hannah and Millie; they eagerly compare souvenirs they've received from Remus and Sirius, the adults standing around in the kitchen, Harry hanging on Sirius's arm, looking up every now and then to comment stoically on their conversation, giving sage two-year-old advice.

Around ten o'clock, the children go to bed, and everyone moves to the living room. Sirius and Remus share one armchair and Ted nods off against Andromeda's shoulder. It's weirdly like being a teenager in the dorms again–having exhausted the serious subject of their plan to sneak into Hogwarts, which commences in the morning, they are left with the other topics–things that responsible adults, as they have become, rarely discuss.

"So, John," Sirius says lazily, his head tipped onto Remus's shoulder, eyes fixed on some point of invisible interest near the ceiling, "Have you been courting any young ladies recently?"

"What century do you think you live in, Pads?" Remus says, glancing down at him fondly.

John blushes, "Well, there is this teacher. She's a long-term cover for the Maths department."

"Is there, now?" Remus says.

That is when the door bell rings.

Perhaps if it hadn't been months since Sirius had bothered with any disguise more extensive than a different hair colour and still no one even looked at him twice, or perhaps if the whole lot of them were even just a little less pleased with the world and feeling safe and happy…perhaps if they weren't tired and just ever so slightly tipsy on French wine Remus and Sirius had brought with them as a treat– then maybe they wouldn't have been quite as careless, as forgetful, as stupid as they were.

But they are that stupid, and Remus and Sirius don't even move as John gets to his feet slowly, calling "What a strange time for visitors," as he shuffles out of the room.

"It's probably just that arse Vernon coming round to ask us for money for Harry again–as if they spend anything at all on him. We buy his clothes, we buy him toys…" Sirius continues on his rant until Remus muffles him with one hand.

"It's not the Dursleys," Remus says, face going paper white, as his nose turns up to scent the air. "Fuck. Fuck, we have to go. Turn into Padfoot right now, Sirius."

Sirius looks at him with a growing sense of terror clawing at the inside of his chest. He leaps out of the seat, and throws himself forward, hitting the ground on four black paws. Andromeda shakes Ted awake, and upon seeing her scared face, he sits forward alertly.

In the hallway, Remus hears John saying, "Well, I think it's awfully late to be checking the metre, but I suppose you can come in."

And then they're trapped.

Putting wards on the house to prevent Apparating directly in or out was one of the first protective spells Remus cast on the house, and now it's backfired. The only way to get to the garden and away is the hallway, which is now occupied by Kingsley Shacklebolt, and all his excellent Order and Auror training.

They could fight their way out, but they're so close to finding Peter and ending this whole mess that Remus can almost taste it. They've made it this far without hurting a single innocent wizard. They have broken no laws except for not turning Sirius in. If they have to hurt Kingsley to escape, they'll lose the right to eventually return with clean names.

As a dog, Padfoot can smell Remus's terrified sweat and feel him shaking very slightly. He presses his nose into the back of Remus's leg, hiding his face.

"What is it?" Andromeda whispers.

"Kingsley Shacklebolt," Remus replies. "Probably making some neighbourhood inspections; I'd be surprised if Dumbledore didn't order them regularly."

In the hallway, there is a shout of surprise – John's, it sounds like, and then he yells, "Rem-"

But before he can even finish the warning, his voice cuts off. There is a thump as his body hits the floor, and then Remus's sharp ears catch Kingsley mutter to himself: "I don't like this idea of stunning people to search their house."

There is some more movement, and Kingsley grunts, and then there is another thump, perhaps the sound of John being propped up against the wall, and then some ruffling of fabric, presumably the shaking out of robes.

It is silent for a moment, and Remus decides to draw his wand. He feels Padfoot crouched, tense by his side, and the sound of Kingsley's steps up the staircase is apparent, thick Auror boots stomping away. They reach the top of the steps, and Remus hears one of the bedroom doors open.

"Now!" he whispers, "I'm so sorry to leave you with this mess, Andy," he says quickly, and sprints from the living room, down the hall, and out the back door, not even closing it should it make more noise.

He puts one hand on Padfoot's neck, and together they pop out of existence. The last thing he hears is Kingsley's surprised yell of "What the hell is Harry Potter doing in this house?"

To be continued…