Note: Despite what I have mentioned to a number of reviewers, my imagination has not quite forsaken me yet! So, here is an update for you all! When the next one will be I cannot possibly say, and I am sorry in advance if I find myself unable to update for any long period of time.

I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you very much to everybody who reviewed the last chapter, I had not expected such a flood of reviews in my inbox and you have made me smile despite everything that has been happening to me recently! So...thank you!

Most importantly, thank you to those of you who wished my grandad well. Truth be told I don't really know any of you, and you probably only did so in passing, but thank you nevertheless. Unfortunately whilst I was halfway through writing this note, my dad came into my room to inform me that sadly my grandad has passed away. Again, excuse my lack of updates.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I making any profit from this piece of writing.

20: Cleo's Mission

When she had been younger, Cleopatra Doreen Clancy had despised her middle name. She had complained to her mother that it was the most boring, normal sort of name ever, and she didn't understand why she had to have it.

It was because, her older sister Boudicca had explained, her first name was so utterly ridiculous that she had to have a boring middle name to balance things out a bit. Cleopatra had dismissed this notion as silly, since as names went Boudicca was equally as ridiculous, and despite this the elder of the two sisters had been given the middle name Wilhelmina, which didn't seem to balance anything out at all.

Benjamin and Saskia Clancy's naming of their daughters, though faintly obscure, had in one respect been very logical: each daughter was named after one of their grandmothers, Boudicca after Saskia's mother Wilhelmina and Cleopatra after Benjamin's mother Doreen. Boudicca liked to point this out to people when she met them, explaining that her parents' sensibilities had kicked in a little too late: had they always been sensible she would have been named something normal like Rosie or Hannah. Cleopatra was forever thankful that she hadn't been born a boy; she could have been an Imhotep or a Claudius, though sometimes she wasn't too sure; Claude would have been quite acceptable, or she could have been named after Alexander the Great or Richard the Lionheart, and people would probably have never noticed.

When she was ten years old, Cleo decided that she was in actual fact glad to be named after her Nana Doreen. This was firstly because she preferred Nana Doreen to Grandma Wilhelmina. Cleo had met Grandma Wilhelmina only twice in her living memory, since she lived in Germany and rarely traveled further than the her local butchers shop. On the rare occasion of her Grandma coming to visit, Cleo would always find herself under intense scrutiny and resented the fact that Bowie was clearly the favoured granddaughter. Wilhelmina would tell Cleo's parents repeatedly how beautiful Bowie was, such a charming little girl, and yet she would also tell them that Cleo looked grubby and should spend less time running amok in the garden and more time giving her hair a good brush.

"If I wanted to visit a grandson," she'd announced loudly to Saskia at the dinner table one evening, "I would go to see your brother in Berlin! His little boy Bruno is a lovely, lovely child."

Cleo had seen her Nana Doreen on a much more regular basis, for she had lived just the other side of town. It was thanks to Nana Doreen that Cleo had become so interested in magic and witches. She had had a mole upon her chin and had told three year old Cleo that it was a magic mole. The stories that followed had captivated Cleo for years. Nana Doreen had also baked the most wonderful cookies that Cleo had ever tasted and she used to let Cleo help her make cakes for tea. And yet this was not the primary reason why ten year old Cleo decided that she was glad to be named after her Nana. Doreen had died when Cleo had been nine, and the little girl had told her father that it was nice that she had Nana Doreen's name to keep her memory alive. This, however also failed to be the reason why Cleo was truly glad to have the name.

Cleo was glad to have her name from the day she had found out about Nana Doreen's volunteer work in Africa. When her father had told her about it, Cleo had wondered why her Nana had never mentioned it, and Benjamin had said it was because everybody would be proud of her and she hadn't liked a fuss.

Cleo was very proud to say the least, not to mention impressed, for her father had claimed that the area that Doreen had visited had in actual fact been very dangerous in parts. Cleo was proud to have a brave grandmother, and she vowed to try and follow Doreen's example in life.

Dead telephone humming in her ear as she stood staring out of her bedroom window, Cleopatra Doreen Clancy could not help but think that perhaps this was precisely the time to ask herself: What would Nana Doreen do? As she pressed the end call button and tossed the phone in the direction of her bed, Cleo thought she knew the answer.

By the time she had pulled the front door closed behind her, Cleo wished that she had bothered to change out of her pajamas, rather than simply pulling her coat on over the top, for the weather was truly bitter and it sent a shiver down her spine. Nevertheless she headed down the side of the house to fetch her bicycle and before she knew it she was cycling along the dimly lit street towards the main road. At first she wished that she could reach the main road faster, for the side street was eerily quiet and she found it quite unnerving. Almost as soon as she turned the corner onto the main road, however, Cleo wished the exact opposite, for the roar of passing traffic made her heart pound in her chest and she bent low over the handlebars as she approached a trio of men who were staggering up the road towards her. At the sound of their loud, rowdy voices the girl pedaled faster, feeling a little relieved as she shot past them, ignoring one of them shouting after her, some drunken comment about it being past her bedtime. She was glad not to come across anybody else on her little journey, though the drunken men had shaken her nerves and she was feeling decidedly less brave when she finally turned the corner into Carrie's road some while later.

Carrie's road was even more quiet than Cleo's own road, for there was no main road nearby. There were tall trees at precise intervals along the road, casting dark, creeping shadows in Cleo's path and she slowed her pace, concentrating on counting the houses she passed, for it was difficult to spot the one she was looking for in the dark. She finally skidded to a halt at the bottom of Carrie's driveway, staring for a long moment at the house.

The driveway was bathed in a soft glow from the electric lamps beside the front door. Abandoning her bicycle upon the pavement, Cleo took a few cautious steps up the driveway, holding her breath as gravel crunched under her feet. She was just panicking at the realisation that the front door appeared to have been left open a crack when something caught her foot and she tripped, throwing her hands out to break her fall with a gasp of surprise. Cleo scrambled back onto her feet, hands stinging in protest as she dusted the specks of gravel from her palms. When she looked down to see what she had tripped over, she felt her stomach twist into terrified knots.

A fluffy pink slipper lay discarded upon the driveway, and Cleo stood rooted to the spot, staring at it for an entire minute before she finally stooped to snatch it up and made a dash for the neighbors' front door.

It had been some days since Remus Lupin had managed a full night's sleep. He had long since taken to sitting downstairs until the early hours and even when he did finally decide to drag himself up the staircase and into bed he slept poorly. He could not seem to help but have despairing dreams and each time he awoke he would stare up at the ceiling above him for so long that before he knew it his wife's alarm clock was buzzing loudly on the bedside table. By the time Tonks had grumbled and complained about having to get up and had stumbled off to get into the shower, Remus would feel much too awake to go back to sleep, the sound of the running water tormenting him as he buried his head under his pillow.

And yet the previous evening Remus had managed to break the routine. It had been easier than he had suspected, though with hindsight he would suppose it could be nothing except easy, what with Teddy being out of the house and Dora being injured enough to be given sick leave, and yet not injured enough to truly need it. It was equally as unsurprising just how quickly a tub of Bruise Away and a discarded pair of jeans could persuade one to go to bed early. Indeed, he had smashed the routine to pieces and both he and Dora had been in bed by 5pm. Truth be told there had not been a whole lot of sleeping involved to begin with, and of course then there had been the sudden alarm and mad scramble for elusive pieces of clothing when they had heard Teddy calling a greeting as he exited the floo, but once they had managed to send their son to bed with the customary mug of hot chocolate and banished the last stray blobs of Bruise Away from the living room sofa, they had gone back to bed and Remus had slept soundly for several hours...

Until he became vaguely aware of something invading his half of the bed, warm air tickled his ear and as the duvet shifted he felt a sudden weight pressed against him.

"Wake up." a voice whispered in his ear, and the werewolf's eyes drifted open to find a head of disheveled pink hair buried into the crook of his neck.

"Hmm?" he managed, attempting to blink the sleep from his eyes as he felt his wife's leg move to rest across his own.

"Can't sleep." Tonks complained, voice muffled by the collar of his pajamas. Her hand came to rest upon his chest, fingers toying with the buttons on his shirt as she muttered: "Bloody bruises...every time I roll onto my side...!"

"More Bruise Away?" he suggested, smiling when she sniggered.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Probably."

"Well tough luck love, you were right, it's useless. I should have gone to Sloane."

"I don't know...maybe I didn't rub it in properly..."

Her snigger rose to a giggle, louder still when she withdrew her face from his neck and rolled onto her stomach, legs astride him, one elbow either side of his head as she rested her chin in her hands and grinned down at him. He could not help but be acutely aware that if he were to drop his gaze from her face just a little, he could see straight down her...

"What was that?"

She was moving, turning to look over towards the bedroom door.

"What?" Remus attempted to drag his mind back from wherever it had been headed as he stared groggily over towards the door too.

"I thought I heard a noise downstairs." Tonks said, reaching to push herself further up from the bed, straining her ears to hear.

Remus was vaguely aware that, given his family's current predicament, he ought feel alarmed at such a claim, ought leap out of bed and bolt downstairs. But for some reason he couldn't quite bring himself to care enough to move.

"I didn't hear anything." he told her, and she stared at the door for another moment before giving a small shrug, dropping back down to rest upon her forearms and leaning to press a kiss to his lips.

"Must be imagining things." she murmured, frowning ever so slightly for a moment before offering him another wide smile. "Hey...you remember when I told you that Sloane was a pervert?"

"Mm?"

"Well, d'you know what he reckons works better than Bruise Away?"

"What's that?"

As his wife reached to slide her arms around his neck, leaning to whisper the Miracle Cure All in his ear, Remus was pretty sure he heard a tapping noise coming from...somewhere...but it was little more than a passing thought because his attention was soon much too fixated to muse any further.

Across the hallway in his own bedroom, Teddy Lupin was also wide awake. He had been that way for some ten minutes, for he had woken to discover that he had forgotten to bring a glass of water up to bed with him. He had spent the first five minutes of consciousness feeling irritated with himself. He always took a glass of water to bed, every single evening without fail just in case he woke up feeling thirsty in the night. Most mornings when he awoke he would find the glass upon his bedside table still full. And yet tonight, the one night when he actually needed the drink, he had forgotten to get it.

Teddy supposed he would simply have to get out of bed and go downstairs to get the drink, for he was sure he could not go back to sleep when he throat felt so dry, but he still lay in bed for many minutes contemplating the action, because when he stuck an experimental toe out from under his duvet he had found the room to be terribly cold. He was pretty sure that it would require sheer Gryffindor courage and determination to throw back his covers and make a dash into the arctic climate outside of his bed.

He had no idea that his decision as to whether or not he would risk the chill would have such a huge impact on his best friend's life.