Author's Note: Thank you so much to GraceMonroe for your two reviews! I hope you all enjoy this next chapter! It's another long one. :)
Chapter Six: Road Trips and Revelations
"Five green and speckled frogs
Sit on a speckled log
Eating some most delicious bugs - yum, yum!"
Mairead balanced atop the ridiculously tiny storytime stool and bounced jauntily side-to-side while she led the group of toddlers and their parents in the fingerplay. She wished more of the parents would sing along with her. She felt like an absolute prat sitting up here rubbing her stomach in circles and trying to say things like "Yum, yum!" without sounding like her soul was actively dying. She watched as a man spaced out and his toddler took the opportunity to make a bid for freedom. The man had to throw himself onto his belly and catch the little girl around her middle to stop her from making a break for it.
Kid, I know how you feel, Mairead thought to herself.
She continued singing, horribly self-conscious about her voice, as one by one the toddlers each began to do what they did best: toddle. By the time she was down to two green and speckled frogs she saw that she had lost the group, so she made an executive decision to end the song and switch to a fan favorite.
She managed to salvage the storytime with a song about a bus that most of the parents knew as well, and then finished out with the standard good-bye song that was used in every storytime. At least all the parents joined in this one, since they knew all the words. It also probably helped that they were relieved to be getting out of there before their child had a complete meltdown.
She ended the storytime, thanked everyone for coming, and read an announcement about an upcoming program off a flyer the librarian in charge had shoved into her hands as she was walking in. She heaved a heavy sigh of relief, then realized that she had forgotten to direct the parents to the craft that was set up on the tables.
"Oh! Erm-" she half-heartedly called out to them, but they were clearly in no mood to stay behind and fingerpaint. "Right," she said under her breath.
Mairead unfolded her legs from the contorted position she'd had to fold them into to get herself onto the stool without flashing her knickers at anyone - a skirt had clearly been a poor choice of attire today - and gave a little groan of discomfort as the blood rushed back into them. She hobbled around, cleaning up the room, then headed back to what was supposed to have been her post that morning at the children's circulation desk.
Her footsteps stuttered and her heart gave a familiar little flutter when she saw that Lupin was waiting for her at the desk. He was wearing a dark grey button-down shirt that even from across the room she just knew would perfectly bring out his incredible eyes. He gave her a smile when he caught her eye and she responded with the dorkiest wave she could possibly have conjured.
Forcing down her embarrassment, she walked over to meet him at the desk.
"Hello," she said, a smile irresistibly tugging at her mouth.
"I didn't know you were the children's librarian here," he said by way of greeting.
"Oh, I'm not," she said, shaking her head. "I'm just filling in. The regular librarian got... striped throat?"
Lupin frowned. "I'm not sure what that is," he said, shaking his head.
"Me neither," said Mairead with a shrug. "Anyway, I just have to help them get through the rush of check outs and then I can go. Do you mind terribly waiting?"
"Not at all," said Lupin.
"I hope you weren't too bored," said Mairead as she took her seat behind the desk.
"Oh, no, I was quite riveted," Lupin said, putting his hands into his pockets. "It's always been a dream of mine to learn the various components to how buses operate."
Mairead froze and closed her eyes in mortification. She didn't even have to look at him to know the teasing expression that would be on his face. She let out a guttural groan, and Lupin began to laugh.
"You're going to hold this over my head for the rest of my natural existence, aren't you?" she muttered at the desk.
Lupin leaned in close. "You bet your green and speckled log, I am."
Mairead clapped both hands over her face, letting out a sound that was something between a laugh and a moan.
"You've got customers," Lupin muttered, drawing her out from behind her hands.
"Oh, hello there!" Mairead said, instantly brightening and putting on her customer service voice.
She and Lupin didn't speak for the next several minutes as she chatted merrily with the patrons lined up to check out books. A few of the regular customers gave Lupin curious looks, but he had politely taken several steps back away from the desk. One boy, however, broke away from his mother and walked straight up to Lupin. Mairead glanced over to observe their interaction.
"Do you like sarks?" the boy asked with zero preamble.
Mairead was still working out what a 'sark' was when Lupin crouched down in front of the boy and earnestly said, "I love sharks. What about you?"
The boy nodded. "My uncle's gonna sow me a movie with sarks."
"Wow!" said Lupin as though he couldn't imagine anything better. "I bet there are lots of good books here on sharks, as well."
The boy gravely held out his pile of books, and Lupin craned his neck to look at the titles. Lupin delicately took the top book from the boy and began flipping through the pages. The boy pointed to a page and demanded to know what it said and Lupin obediently began reading the page to him. The boy sidled over to Lupin, rested a hand on his shoulder, and leaned against Lupin's side as he read. Lupin faltered in his reading for a moment, looking startled at the boy's familiarity. Then, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, Lupin turned back to the book and continued reading.
Mairead was fairly certain that her uterus was about to explode.
"Does he work here?" asked the boy's mother, who had also been watching their interaction, at first with a wary expression of apprehension as her son interacted with a strange man and now looking touched by what she saw.
Mairead blinked and returned her attention to the picturebooks that were forgotten in her hands. "No," she said. "He's just... he's picking me up after work."
"Well, he's wonderful with children," said the woman approvingly.
Mairead smiled and nodded, feeling her face grow warm. "He's a teacher," she said.
"Ah, yes, I can see that," said the boy's mother.
Mairead finished stamping the books and made to hand them back to the woman, but the woman wasn't looking. The boy's mother clicked her tongue and muttered, "Oh, dear!" under her breath. Mairead looked over and let out a laugh. The boy had somehow persuaded Lupin to sit down, had climbed into his lap, and was now reclining against Lupin's chest. Lupin looked up and gave Mairead an adorably befuddled look.
The boy's mother walked over to her son and said, "Geoffrey, leave that poor, nice man alone."
Lupin looked at the woman and Mairead felt a stab of sadness at the look of alarm and guilt that flashed over his features. "I'm very sorry, ma'am," he apologized quietly, closing the book he had been reading and scrambling to get Geoffrey off his lap. "I was just-"
"No, no, I was watching the whole time," the woman said with a smile. "You're very kind." She reached down and plucked Geoffrey out of Lupin's lap and Lupin braced his hand on a nearby table and started to rise. "Your girlfriend was just explaining to me that you're a teacher?"
Lupin's hand slipped and he stumbled back to the ground. "Er -" he said, looking flustered. Mairead's mouth fell open in dismay.
Before either of them could say anything, the woman went on. "I was telling her that you're simply marvelous with children." She smiled and winked at Mairead. "You hang onto this one, sweetie," she said in a conspiratorial voice, as though Lupin were not standing right there and able to hear the whole thing. "He's a keeper."
Then, balancing her son in one arm and gathering up his books in the other, she bustled off, leaving Mairead and Lupin staring after her, mouths open in identical expressions of surprise. They exchanged an awkward glance and both hastily looked away, Lupin scratching his head and Mairead's fingers fluttering over her lips uncertainly.
Mairead was relieved a few minutes after twelve by one of her favorite coworkers - a young woman named Melissa who looked to be in her late twenties. She was always dressed fashionably and everything about her screamed cool and hip. Melissa jerked her chin at Lupin, who had wandered a short distance away from the desk and had busied himself looking at a display of new books.
"Who's he?" Melissa asked, a sly smile on her face. "He's kinda cute."
Mairead's face flushed so quickly that she could actually feel the heat burning her skin. "Oh, he's erm..." she faltered, not realizing until then that she probably should have come up with some sort of cover identity for Lupin. Her mind raced to come up with something plausible as Lupin looked over at her with a smile and made his way back towards the desk. "Melissa, this is, er -"
She was saved from having to concoct something by Lupin himself, who stuck out his hand with an easy smile and said, "John. Nice to meet you."
Lupin and Melissa struck up a friendly conversation and Mairead watched in fascination as Lupin so easily slipped into another character. His manner of speaking, his posture, even his accent changed in the blink of an eye. Not for the first time, Mairead thought to herself that he would have made an excellent actor. She excused herself briefly to fetch her bag from the staff room and when she returned, Melissa and Lupin were discussing football, which Mairead didn't even know that Lupin knew about.
"Ready?" he asked her when she paused by his side and she nodded mutely.
"Nice to meet you, John," Melissa called. Lupin smiled a smile that was entirely not his own and nodded his head upwards once in a way Mairead had never seen him do.
She and Lupin walked off side by side, and Mairead noted that he had even made subtle adjustments to his gate. As they neared the doors of the library, Mairead watched as Lupin slipped back into his regular mannerisms. He looked down at her to offer her a smile, but something of the off-kilter way she was feeling must have shown on her face, because he paused and asked, "Everything all right?"
She nodded, trying to shake off the uneasy feeling.
"Where are you parked?" Lupin inquired, looking around the car park.
"In a minute," said Mairead, turning her body so she stood in his path. He cocked his head slightly to one side.
"Yes?"
"What gift did I bring back from Easter vacation for you?" she asked.
Lupin's face broke into a wide smile. "Well done!" he praised her. "I'm very proud."
"Well?" she asked in a tight voice. The easy way in which he had changed everything recognizable about himself before her very eyes had finally driven home why Lupin had felt it so important to teach her this lesson.
Lupin sobered and said, "You gave me a vinyl recording of 'What a Wonderful World,' by Sam Cooke."
Mairead thought for a moment to make sure she had not told anyone else she had done this. Satisfied, she nodded and turned.
"I'm parked -"
"Wait a minute." Lupin laid a hand on her arm. "My turn. What was the title of the book you were repairing the first time I saw you in the Hogwarts library, and in what manner did you repair it?"
"To Kill a Mockingbird," Mairead answered at once. "It had been doused in coffee, which had since dried, and I repaired it by soaking the pages in water and then summoning the coffee."
Lupin nodded and released her arm. He followed Mairead as she began walking towards her junky but beloved Ford Sierra.
"And that was the second time you visited me," she remarked as she unlocked the passenger door and opened it for him. "In the library, I mean."
"Ah," he said softly. "My mistake."
It was a twenty-minute drive from the library to Westminster, and they easily passed the time by chatting. The atmosphere controls in Mairead's car were virtually nonfunctional and it was a hot day, so they both rolled down their windows and talked over the sound of the traffic.
Mairead relished being alone with Lupin like this. She felt as though she hadn't had him to herself in ages, and it was all too soon that Mairead pulled into the car park of a twenty-four hour drugstore where Moody had instructed them to rendezvous with Tonks.
Tonks emerged from the drugstore carrying a drink tray with three takeaway cups in it from the coffee shop next door. She tripped coming off the curb and crashed into the side of Mairead's car, just barely managing not to spill the drinks. Lupin jumped out of the car and went to help Tonks. Mairead watched from her seat as they chatted outside the car, quickly verifying one another's identity. Lupin chivalrously offered Tonks the passenger seat and Tonks beamed at him as he folded himself into the backseat.
"I brought coffee!" Tonks chimed cheerily, handing the tray to Mairead. Mairead gratefully breathed in the smell of the coffee. Though she had been exhausted enough to sleep through most of the dog's incessant whimpering and barking last night, it had been far from a restful night. She had been haunted by the now all-too-familiar nightmares that had been an almost nightly occurrence since Cedric had died.
Tonks went to sit down in the car and whacked the side of her head on the door frame. "Bloody fucking hell!" she exclaimed, clutching her head.
Lupin winced sympathetically and leaned forward. "Are you hurt?" he asked, concern in his voice.
"Nah," groaned Tonks. "Just banged myself up." She twisted around and showed Lupin the bump already rising on the side of her head. Lupin let out a quiet hiss and delicately reached out a hand to examine Tonks's skin. Their fingers brushed one another's and Tonks looked up into Lupin's eyes, smiling softly.
Mairead swallowed a jealous sigh. This was not going to be a fun afternoon.
Remus could scarcely remember the last time he had had such a fun afternoon. Mairead was an excellent driver - at least by wizarding standards - and easily maneuvered them through the various roundabouts and out of the city. Soon they had left London behind and were speeding down tree-lined roads, past farmland and open fields. Remus enjoyed the feeling of the wind whipping through his hair. He allowed himself to relax in the backseat, listening with a peaceful smile as Mairead and Tonks chatted in the front. Tonks frequently twisted her body around to talk to him in the backseat and he was perfectly content to let her go on, but Mairead always found ways to pull him into the conversation.
She had always had a gift for drawing conversation out of him. He smiled to himself as it occurred to him that the last time he had enjoyed himself this much was when they had been working closely together at Hogwarts. He watched her from the backseat, eyes lingering on the way the sunlight played on her cheekbones and the tip of her nose. The wind streaming into the car blew her hair all over the place and he breathed in her familiar, sweet scent, which was all over the car, even in the backseat.
At one point during the drive Remus was startled by a shrill beeping sound. It was a tinny melody, coming from someplace on the floor. Without taking her eyes off the road, Mairead reached behind her for her bag, which was on the ground by Remus's feet. She fished around inside it for a moment before withdrawing a strange-looking black device. She pressed a button on the thing, and when she held it up to her ear and said, "Hello?" Remus figured this must be the mobile telephone she was telling Arthur about.
She spoke for a minute or two to someone she addressed as "Mr. Thompson," and promised that she would stop by that evening before nine o'clock. When Mairead ended the phone call, she returned the mobile to her bag and smiled at the riveted look on Tonks's face.
"I've always heard my Dad talk about phones but I've never actually seen one before," said Tonks, still looking wonderstruck.
When they were about an hour from Hermione's house, Remus asked Mairead to find a place to pull off the road away from prying eyes. He and Tonks got out of the car and set about casting protective wards and enchantments over it. He noticed Mairead watching from her spot in the driver's seat, curiosity mingling with something else that Remus suspected may have been envy.
When he and Tonks got back into the car, Tonks found a zippered case shoved beneath her chair.
"What're these?" she asked in fascination as she opened up the case and pulled out a hard, rectangular piece of plastic.
"Oh, those are cassettes," said Mairead. "Music," she added at Tonks's blank look.
Tonks's face lit up. "Muggle music?" she asked eagerly, and Mairead nodded.
"Can we listen to some?" Tonks begged.
"I don't mind," Mairead said. Remus saw her looking at him through the mirror that hung from the center of the windscreen. "Do you mind, Professor?" she asked.
He smiled, too pleased that she had included him to be irked at the formality. "Not at all," he said.
Tonks began riffling through the cassettes, looking at the labels. "This one says 'Eighties,' this one says 'Dance Songs,' oh, what's this one? It says 'RJL.'"
"Not that one!" said Mairead sharply, snatching it from Tonks and cramming it under her seat. At Tonks's curious look, Mairead said, "It's, er, broken. The tape will unwind and get stuck in the player and make a huge mess."
Tonks shrugged and went back to sorting through the case. Eventually she selected one that was labeled "Favourites" and Mairead showed her how to insert it into the tape deck. Remus rested his head on the back of the seat as he contently watched Mairead's copper hair flow hypnotically in the breeze, breathed in Mairead's scent, and listened to Mairead's favorite songs.
"Professor Lupin? Sir? Erm, we're here."
"Oi, REMUS!"
Remus jolted awake to the sight of Mairead and Tonks both craned around in their seats, Tonks with a big grin on her face and Mairead chewing on her bottom lip, looking guilty for waking him.
He took a deep breath, gave his head a small shake, and smiled at them. "Forgive me," he said hoarsely. "Your car is very comfortable, May."
She smiled shyly at him. "I'm glad you think so," she said sweetly.
Remus and Mairead went to fetch Hermione together, leaving Tonks to guard the car. Hermione had been informed that someone would be coming to pick her up at some point, but they had been intentionally vague on the details in case their communications were intercepted. Remus was not surprised, however, to find Hermione, clever as she was, had already packed and was ready to go. He was touched at how happy she seemed to see him, and she very easily kept him awake for the entire car ride back to London, bringing him up to date on what her fourth year at Hogwarts had been like and peppering him with questions about the Ordinary Wizarding Levels.
Mad-Eye had insisted that they take a circuitous route back to London, and twilight had fallen by the time Mairead pulled up outside Grimmauld Place. They all got out of the car and took a few moments to stretch, then Remus reached into his pocket and offered Hermione the scrap of parchment that Dumbledore had given him after the meeting the previous night.
Hermione read the words quickly and her mouth opened into a perfect 'o' as the house that Remus could already see appeared before her eyes.
"Oh, this is a Fidelius Charm, isn't it?" she asked, her eyes taking on an almost manic gleam as she immediately began drinking in her surroundings. "And Dumbledore's the Secret Keeper, I expect? I've always wondered how word could be spread, whether it needed to be in person or whether a note would suffice. I don't suppose you could have written the same note and have had it work, right, Remus?" she asked him. "Even though you know the location."
"Correct," Remus said as he and Tonks unloaded Hermione's trunk from the boot of the car and carried it up the steps.
They tried their best to enter the house quietly, but what with four people coming in at once, a very unhappy cat yowling and moaning from inside the carrier Mairead was holding, and Tonks stumbling and dropping her half of Hermione's trunk on her foot, the portraits burst to life and began screaming and wailing. He and Tonks immediately pulled out their wands and began stunning the portraits. Remus noticed that Mairead had also drawn her wand and drew nearer to her, curious to see what spell she was using.
"Enchanted sleep," he muttered as he watched the subject in the portrait in front of Mairead drop off to sleep and begin to snore, chin bumping gently against his chest. "Very clever."
Sirius arrived then and he and Tonks began heaving at the curtains flanking Walburga's portrait. Remus and Mairead went over to help and soon silence was restored.
"Yeah," said Sirius, observing the wide-eyed look on Hermione's face. "It's a shit show. Welcome."
"Oh, erm, hello, Sirius," Hermione squeaked, pausing mid-way through releasing Crookshanks from his confines. "H-how are you?"
"Sitting on a rainbow," Sirius said briskly. "Why don't you head downstairs to the kitchen? Molly's cooked up a feast. Remus and I'll take care of your trunk."
Remus watched Mairead and Tonks lead Hermione towards the kitchen before joining Sirius in hauling Hermione's trunk upstairs to the bedroom she would be sharing with Ginny Weasley.
"How has it been here?" he asked Sirius as they made their way back downstairs.
"Spectacular," said Sirius sarcastically. "Been taking orders from Molly all day. I swear the Ministry should have her guard Azkaban. I never would've escaped."
Remus's stomach gave a hungry gurgle when he and Sirius joined the others in the kitchen and he was engulfed in the mouth-watering aroma of the dinner Molly was preparing. In all the hubbub of fetching Hermione, he had missed lunch.
Despite the fact that Mairead had also missed lunch, Remus heard her politely making her excuses to Molly, saying that she had promised to meet with a client that evening and couldn't stay. Mairead went over to Hermione to say good-bye, and Molly marched up to Remus and snagged him by the sleeve.
"You get her to stay, Remus," she ordered, looking stern, and Remus suddenly felt as though he was getting a small taste of what Sirius had been putting up with all day. "She needs to get a square meal into her. She's been losing weight ever since Cedric died."
"I-I'll try, Molly, but I don't know what I -"
"You get her to stay."
Remus was a fully-grown werewolf. He had been chased out of towns by gangs of wizards with their wands in one hand and literal flaming torches in the other. He had been in multiple duels with Death Eaters and had narrowly escaped death on more than one occasion. But one look into the formidable brown eyes of Molly Weasley and he cowed like she had spanked him and he scarpered off to find Mairead and persuade her to stay for dinner.
Mairead, thankfully, turned out to be easier to convince than he had thought she would. "Oh," she said uncertainly, looking torn. "But I need to go see my last client. I told him I'd be there by nine."
"I'll make sure you get out of here on time," Remus assured her. "Please stay? As a favor to me?"
Mairead nodded. "All right," she said quietly.
Remus smiled at her, then went back over to Molly at the stove and reported that Mairead could stay until eight o'clock. Molly beamed at him.
"Good," she said approvingly. "Now you sit next to her and make sure she eats."
Remus obediently returned to the table and pulled out a chair for Mairead, who smiled shyly and tucked her hair behind her ears as she sat down.
Hermione, who had been catching up with Ginny and Ron, now turned to Mairead. "Mairead, what have you been up to this past year?" she asked as Sirius, Tonks, and the rest of the Weasley family took their seats.
"Oh, this and that," said Mairead vaguely. Remus remembered that she had given him this same answer when he had asked.
"Where have you been living?" Hermione followed up.
Mairead shifted in her seat. "Here and there," she said with a smile that looked forced to Remus.
"That's what I'd want to do after getting out of school," said Ginny, buttering a thick slice of bread. "Just travel around. Not settle down in one place."
"It's got to be incredible, being out of school," said Fred, eyes gleaming. Remus noticed that his twin was nodding, exactly the same expression on his face. "Can't wait to be shot of the place, us."
"Won't you miss Hogwarts, though?" Hermione asked the twins anxiously.
"Not likely," said George through a mouthful of peas. "Is it amazing, Mairead? All the freedom, just doing what you want?"
Mairead shot a nervous look at Molly, who did not appear to approve of her sons' anticipation of being turned loose on the world. "It's been nice, seeing everyone from Hogwarts again," she side-stepped the question. "Professor Sprout and everyone."
"And what have you been doing for work?" Hermione asked again.
"Oh, you know," said Mairead, squirming uneasily in her seat. Hermione looked confused.
"Well, what's your career trajectory?" she pressed. "Are you in training for a profession? Professor McGonagall told me that this year we'll have Career Advice sessions and discuss our futures. What was yours like? What did you and Professor Sprout discuss?"
Mairead busied herself with taking a long, slow drink of lemonade. "Hmm?" she said, as though pretending not to hear.
"I said, what was the plan you and Professor Sprout developed in your Career Advice session?"
Mairead cleared her throat. "Erm, mostly we developed a plan for me not to flunk out of school."
"Same," said Fred and George in unison.
"F-flunk out?" Hermione repeated, looking perplexed.
"Mm-hmm," Mairead confirmed. "Yeah, we picked a bunch of classes for me to drop so I could just do the bare minimum I'd need to be able to graduate."
"Drop classes?" Hermione asked, looking ill at the thought. Ron chuckled.
"'Flunk' is the real f-word in Hermione's world," he said.
Everyone laughed but Hermione, who was frowning at Mairead. "Were... were you not a good student, then?" she asked in what she probably thought was a delicate way. Mairead shook her head and snorted.
"No."
"I thought you were a good student," Remus argued mildly, looking over at Mairead. She raised an eyebrow and smiled crookedly at him.
"I was auditing your class, sir."
"But," Hermione said, looking like Mairead had just told her the earth was flat. "But you worked in the library."
Remus exchanged an amused look with Sirius. It was as though Hermione thought that working in a library and being an impeccable student were mutually inclusive.
"I still work in a library, actually," said Mairead. "The one in Diagon Alley. Plus occasionally in a Muggle library."
"You work in a Muggle library?" Arthur asked, leaning forward and pushing his glasses up his nose.
Mairead nodded. "Mm-hmm," she said. "I do a lot of odd jobs in the Muggle world. It's easier to find work there a lot of the time."
"Why do you just work odd jobs?" asked Ginny. "Don't you want something permanent?"
Ron gestured at Ginny with a fork speared with roasted chicken. "Well, not many places are likely to want to hang onto her once they find out she's a Partial Squib," he said.
Hermione squeaked and turned pink while Molly cried, "Ronald Weasley!" in an admonishing tone.
"No, he's absolutely right," said Mairead unabashedly. "I did have a job at an apothecary for a bit, but they let me go once they figured it out. Same with a nursery for magical herbs and fungi. I've managed to hang onto the library job for a few months now, but mostly I find it's easier to work in the Muggle world if you can swing it. 'Course I can't hang around too long anyplace. I've found that with short term stays they're more likely to look past anything odd I say as just me being peculiar."
"So you just go from job to job?" asked George. "What's that like?"
"It's not bad, actually," Mairead said with a small smile. "I get to try all sorts of new things and I've learned a bunch of kind of disparate stuff. I helped with an apple harvest last fall - that was pretty fun."
"What's your favorite odd job you've had?" asked Ginny.
Mairead's smile grew into a grin. "Oh, that's easy," she said, eyes shining as she warmed up to the subject. "I had a job last summer delivering luxury cars to rich Muggles. You see, Italy makes loads of fancy cars, like Maseratis and Ferraris, and when people in America buy them they just stick them on a ship and send them overseas, but that obviously doesn't make any sense to do here in Europe, especially to inland countries, so they hire people to drive the cars to wherever the buyer lives. So I would go to Italy, pick up some amazing car, and be paid to drive it to Germany or France or Spain or wherever. Then I would take a train back to Italy and pick up another one."
"Wow," said Ron in hushed reverence. "Why did you stop?"
"It got too cold," Mairead said with a regretful shrug.
"What do you mean?" asked Tonks curiously.
"Well, when these companies pay you to deliver the car, you're also in charge of the car's security. I mean, these cars are worth tens of thousands of pounds. You can't just leave one in a car park and cross your fingers. You had to stay with the car at all times. So if a drive was too far I would just sleep in the back of the car. But when November rolled around it started to get really cold. I tried to just make the drives straight through but I couldn't do that long term, so I had to give it up when winter came. But it worked out okay, because I was delivering this car to this, like, offensively rich Muggle, and he said he was going on vacation and did I know anybody I could recommend to house-sit. I had no idea what that was but I told him I could do it. So that's how I got into house-sitting."
"House-sitting?" Ginny said with a snort. "What is that? It sounds like baby-sitting for a house."
Mairead smiled crookedly and leaned forward on her elbows. "That is exactly what it is. These absurdly rich Muggles will actually pay someone to stay in their house and bring in the mail and water their orchids and make sure the pipes don't freeze while they go skiing or whatever. You're baby-sitting their house while they're gone. Only a house won't scream and chuck its porridge at you."
"This one might," said Sirius darkly. Mairead giggled.
Remus glanced around at the teenagers. Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny looked thoroughly entranced at the idea. Hermione, however, was frowning.
"So, does your flat just sit empty while you're house-sitting?" she asked.
"Don't have a flat," said Mairead.
"But where do you stay in between house-sitting jobs?" asked Hermione.
"If you play your cards right, there is no in between," Mairead said. "I just line the gigs up so that I go straight from one house right on to the next."
"And if you don't play your cards right?" asked Molly, who was looking more and more concerned as the conversation went on.
Mairead shrugged unconcernedly. "That hasn't happened in a while now," she said.
"But where do you keep your things?" Hermione asked with the air of someone who has spotted the giant hole in a deeply flawed plan.
"I bring them with me."
"You bring everything with you every time you move?"
"I don't have that much stuff," said Mairead. She was beginning to squirm again under the scrutiny and Remus could hear a note of self-consciousness creeping into her voice.
"You haven't answered my question, though," Molly broke in with a tone of motherly authority. "What do you do if you don't line things up correctly? Where do you stay?"
Mairead shrank back ever-so-slightly in her chair. "I've slept in a car before," she said, sounding a bit defensive. "It's not a big deal."
"Leave off, Molly," Sirius said. "She's obviously got a handle on things."
Remus felt torn. He knew that Mairead must be uncomfortable with all of the probing and he had no plans to join Hermione and Molly in criticizing her nomadic lifestyle - indeed, he wouldn't even have a leg to stand on if he did - but he hated the image that came to mind of Mairead, huddled in the back of a car, breath clouding in front of her as she shivered her way through a cold London winter night. No wonder I could smell her in the backseat, he thought.
"You know what you need," Tonks said suddenly, gesturing at Mairead with a carrot. "A boyfriend. One with a flat you can stay at in between gigs."
Mairead giggled and opened her mouth to reply, but before she could Molly cut in.
"Tonks!" she said, looking as though she were appalled at Tonks's tactlessness. "Mairead is probably not ready to even think about another relationship yet."
Mairead looked confused, as did Ginny, who asked, "What do you mean?"
Molly fixed Ginny with a stern look. "I mean," Molly said pointedly, lowering her voice as though she thought Mairead wouldn't be able to hear. "Mairead has just had a relationship... come to an end, and I don't think it is particularly helpful to be bringing that up right now."
Remus frowned. He hadn't known that Mairead had been seeing someone.
Hermione turned to Mairead. "Oh?" she said curiously. "Whom were you dating?"
"Er - I'm not entirely sure..." said Mairead, looking just as puzzled. Remus cocked his head to one side, looking back and forth between Mairead and Molly as Mairead asked, "You... you don't mean Roger Davies, do you, Mrs. Weasley?"
"You dated Davies?" asked George, face reflecting the repugnance Remus was feeling internally. He had never liked Roger for Mairead. Had they taken up again since she had graduated? The thought was enough to set his teeth on edge.
Mairead sighed. "Yes," she said with the air of someone admitting to something highly distasteful.
"Oh, don't look so shocked, George," Ginny snapped. "Roger Davies has dated every girl at Hogwarts. Oh, sorry," she added to Mairead as an afterthought.
"No, you're right," Mairead conceded. "All at the same time, as a matter of fact, which is why we're not dating anymore."
Several people laughed, but Remus felt his face form a scowl. Davies cheated on Mairead? he thought. What the hell had to be wrong with that cretin to cheat on someone as lovely as her?
He was pulled from his thoughts by Molly stammering and looking awkward. "Oh... no, dear, I meant... erm... that is to say... weren't you and... Cedric together?" She almost whispered the boy's name, as though saying it quietly would soften the blow of bringing him up.
Several mouths fell open around the table.
"You were dating Diggory?" asked Ron incredulously.
"No," Mairead corrected quickly.
"I thought Cedric was dating Cho Chang?" Hermione said.
"He is," Mairead confirmed. Remus winced, wishing there were some way he could brace her for the crash he knew was coming.
"Oh!" said Molly, taken aback. "I'm sorry! I thought - I am so sorry, Mairead, I thought - well, when you came to the Tournament to support him - I just thought..."
Remus felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. He suddenly had to work very hard not to reach over and touch Mairead.
Mairead shook her head at Molly. "No, it's okay," she said with a smile. "We get that - we... got that all the time."
With her correction in tense, Remus knew that reality had finally caught up with Mairead. He chanced a glance over at her and immediately saw that she had just careened headlong into the solid wall that was her grief. She was looking down now, alternating between holding her eyes wide open and blinking rapidly, and Remus could tell that she was channeling all of her concentration into not breaking down into tears at the dinner table. Remus wanted nothing more in that moment than to pull Mairead into his arms and never let her go. He recalled the few times she had let him hold her at Hogwarts, the way she had sagged against him, trusting him to bear her weight. He wanted to hold her up now, when she looked close to collapsing under the immensity of the loss that was crushing her.
But he knew he could not do that without causing a scene, and it was obvious that Mairead was trying desperately not to cause a scene. The best he could do for her now would be to draw attention away from her. So he turned to Tonks, whose comment on Mairead needing a boyfriend had started this, fixed a grin on his face, and said as light-heartedly as he could, "Are you seeing anyone then, Tonks?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Remus saw Mairead turn her head and look at him. Remus looked at her peripherally and was dismayed to see that she somehow looked even more distressed than she had a moment ago, as though in his attempts to distract everyone he had somehow upset her in yet another way. For the life of him, though, he could not figure out how. He puzzled over this for a second or two before realizing that Tonks had answered him with a cheery, "Nope! Free as a bird."
Not wanting to be rude, he said, "It sounds like you prefer it that way," his mind only partially on his conversation with Tonks.
Tonks smiled and narrowed her eyes slightly at him. "Oh, I dunno," she said in a low voice. "I'd be open to the right offer."
Remus didn't respond, too distracted by Mairead's distress, which he could now feel pouring off her by his side.
"You've got to have guys lining up, Tonks," Remus heard Ginny say. He turned his head the tiniest fraction and could see Mairead gnawing on her bottom lip, her breath coming in short, shaky gasps.
"Well, you see, the problem is, blokes are always turned off by my nose," said Tonks. Remus heard a couple of gasps and then a burst of laughter.
"How did you do that?" Hermione's voice said, sounding awestruck.
Remus reached for the bowl of mashed potatoes in the middle of the table and piled more onto Mairead's plate, which she had barely touched.
"Here," he muttered, ignoring her splutter of protest. "Eat. Molly says you're too thin."
And sitting down the bowl of potatoes and looking fully at the girl next to him, Remus could see what Molly was talking about. Remus had been avoiding looking too long or too closely at Mairead lately because of a mild problem he was having, but now he could see that the healthy glow he had noted recently was gone. Mairead's face was pinched and drawn and there were dark circles beneath her eyes. She was normally quite fair-skinned, but in her current low state Remus also noticed that she was looking even paler than usual.
Mairead folded her arms stubbornly and regarded her plate unhappily. "Hasn't she been reading Witch Weekly?" she mumbled sullenly. "Thin is in."
"Thin may be in but emaciated isn't."
Mairead turned and fixed him with the glare she had heretofore been reserving for her plate. Her eyes were narrowed and her lips were pursed in a resentful scowl. Remus had never seen her like this before.
"Yeah, well, as we've previously established, I live in my car, and there isn't exactly room in there for a kitchenette, so." No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Mairead was wincing and squeezing her eyes shut. "I'm sorry; I'm being horrible," she said, voice quaking as she rubbed a hand across her forehead.
"No, you're not," Remus hurried to reassure her.
She gulped in a breath of air and smiled so sadly that Remus thought his heart would break. "I'm not very good company lately," she said quietly, glancing up at him, eyes swimming with tears.
"I disagree entirely," Remus said, smiling softly at her. "I've just spent seven hours in a car with you and I would do it again in a heartbeat."
Mairead's lips quivered and she pressed her fingers to them for a few moments. "You don't have to be so nice all the time, you know," she said.
Acting of its own accord, Remus's hand reached up and brushed a lock of hair behind Mairead's ear. "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind," he murmured, gently teasing her.
Mairead looked back over at him. Her eyes were red and glassy and they swirled with a hundred different emotions. His sense of self-preservation told him to look away, concerned at what she would be able to see in his own eyes, but he knew her well enough by now to know that she was assessing him, deciding whether he could be trusted to help her carry her grief. He had had no one to help him with his, and he had no intention of leaving her alone to carry hers if it could be helped. So he held her gaze steadily, and if she saw something she wasn't supposed to see he would deal with the consequences later.
Remus wasn't sure how long they held each other's gaze, but eventually they were disrupted by Molly Weasley.
"Mairead?" Molly said. Remus blinked and realized that his hand was still resting on Mairead's shoulder from pushing her hair back. He pulled away from Mairead as nonchalantly as he could while Mairead turned to Molly. "It's eight o'clock, dear."
"Oh," said Mairead, sounding a little foggy and confused. "Thank you, Mrs. Weasley." She began to rise.
"Here, I'll walk you out and lock up behind you," Remus offered, standing as well.
Mairead thanked Molly for the meal and waved good-bye to everyone still seated. Remus followed her up the stairs and out into the foyer, where she turned and smiled at him in an abashed way.
"I know this is probably the last thing you want to do right now," Remus said, regarding her solemnly. "But I am here if you ever want to talk."
Mairead took a shaky breath and blinked rapidly for a few seconds. "Thank you, sir," she said somewhat thickly.
Remus gave her a small smile. "You know, you can do away with the 'sir' thing too, Mairead."
She winced. "Right. Sorry."
"Will I see you tomorrow?" he asked.
She nodded. "I want to get a start on some potions," she said. "But I can help clean, too."
"I look forward to it," he said sincerely. He knew she had a tendency to think herself a burden, and he needed her to know that he would never see her that way.
As difficult as it had been to do lately, he looked closely at her, studying her expression. She looked like she could dissolve at any moment. He wanted to be able to hold her and comfort her, but he knew it would only make his mild problem worse.
Regardless, she rallied her strength and gave him a genuine, if sad, smile. "Me, too," she said.
"Well, until then," he said. "Goodnight, May."
She smiled. "Goodnight, Profess-" she broke off at the sight of his raised eyebrow. At last some color returned to her cheeks. She stared at her shoes and mumbled in a barely audible voice, "Goodnight... Remus."
Sirius had to give credit where credit was due: Molly had been a right pain in his arse lately, but she could cook the hell out of a chicken dinner.
It had been fourteen years since the waistband of Sirius's trousers had felt tight, but right now the only thing stopping him from undoing his fly to relieve some of the pressure was the large number of his godson's friends sitting around the table.
Remus returned to the table after a few minutes, and Sirius watched him, wild with curiosity and fascination. He had watched his friend interact with Mairead all through dinner, and he felt more convinced than ever as to Moony's feelings for the young Squib. He had scarcely been able to take his eyes off her, and there had been a moment right before Mairead left when Remus had reached up and touched Mairead's hair, and the two of them had locked eyes, and Sirius had actually wondered for a moment if they were going to start snogging right there in front of everyone.
If Remus had hoped to slip back into his seat unnoticed, he would be disappointed. No sooner had he pulled his chair back out than Molly pounced.
"Did I understand that correctly, Remus?" Molly demanded. "Is Mairead homeless?"
Remus took a long sip of water before responding. "Well," he said slowly. "I think it depends on your definition of 'homeless.'"
"Oh, don't be ridiculous!" Molly snapped. "She lives in her car!"
"She doesn't live in her car, Mum," argued Ginny. "She said she just goes from house to house."
"Oh, please! When was the last time she slept in her car?" Molly asked, glaring at Remus.
"I don't know, Molly," said Remus, clearly trying to reason with her. "This was news to me, too."
But Molly wasn't finished listing her grievances with Mairead's living arrangements. "And as for this house-sitting nonsense," she went on. "How do we even know what kinds of places she's staying in? How do we know whether they're safe and sanitary?"
"We don't," Sirius broke in, feeling aggravated and fighting to keep his tone respectful. "And we don't have to. That's where the whole 'Mairead's an adult' thing comes in."
"The last place where Mairead was staying was very nice, Molly," said Remus. "It was in a safe neighborhood and the house looked spotless."
"You've been there?" asked Molly, rounding on Remus again.
"I saw her last place briefly."
"Well, what about where she's staying now?" Molly said insistently.
Remus spread his hands. "Would it make you feel any better if I went over there to check it out?"
Molly's expression lightened. "Would you? Oh, Remus, that would be wonderful," she said approvingly. "But how can you be sure she'll invite you?"
Remus shrugged. "I'll come up with some excuse to go over and see her."
You just did, thought Sirius shrewdly. Very clever, Moony.
Tonks yawned hugely, then said, "Well, I'd best be off." She turned to Sirius and asked, "Will you lock up behind me?"
"Yeah, of course," said Sirius, rising to his feet and following his cousin out of the kitchen.
Sirius felt kind of bad for Tonks. She had been resorting to increasingly clownish behavior in her attempts to get the preoccupied werewolf's attention, up to and including transfiguring her nose into various shapes and sizes throughout dinner, an antic which had earned the attention and hilarity of everyone except her intended audience. Now she was looking subdued as she trudged up the stairs, stumbling every so often.
When they reached the door Tonks paused, hand on the doorknob, then turned and faced Sirius.
"Remus and Mairead," she said quietly. "They're..." she tilted her head and shrugged significantly. "...aren't they?"
Sirius's eyebrows went up. Tonks was more perceptive than he had given her credit for. He sighed.
"Yeah," he replied. "I doubt either of them knows it yet... but yeah."
Sirius definitely felt bad for Tonks now. She was a fantastic person, so like her mother in many ways, but he had trouble seeing her with Remus. She was loud and ostentatious, two qualities which Remus certainly didn't mind - after all, Sirius and James had been his best friends - and there was no denying that she was brave, smart, and could make Remus laugh. But she could be incredibly tactless at times, and she lacked the patience, compassion, and most of all the sweet nature that Sirius felt made Mairead particularly well-suited to Remus. What was more, even though Tonks was three years older than Mairead, she wasn't as mature as Mairead, and Sirius felt certain that Remus needed a mature partner.
Tonks smiled sadly. "Every time I meet a nice bloke..." she trailed off. "Ah, well. She's a lucky girl."
Sirius cocked an eyebrow grimly. "Yeah, well, you might be getting off easier than you think. She's got her work cut out for her with him."
Mairead told herself she wasn't allowed to cry until she had gotten through her meeting with Mr. Thompson. She gripped the steering wheel of her car tightly and focused on driving safely, shoving everything painful and unimaginably horrible to the special corner in the back of her mind that she was thinking of permanently dedicating to where she kept thoughts of Cedric's death.
She was feeling more even-tempered and in-control by the time she walked up to the house in St. John's Wood and rang the doorbell. She even managed a smile that felt normal and natural when Mr. Thompson answered the door.
Mr. Thompson, however, did not return her smile. "Mairead," he said seriously. "Come in."
Mairead felt nervousness begin to flutter in her stomach as she followed Mr. Thompson inside. She had assumed that he had wanted to meet with her because he couldn't find something or because he wanted to schedule another house-sitting gig with her, but now she began to flip through what she could possibly have done wrong. Mr. Thomspon didn't have any pets - had a plant died?
Mr. Thompson led Mairead down a hallway and stopped in front of a door that had been locked the entire time Mairead had stayed in the house. He now turned to face her, hands clasped behind his back.
"Mairead," he began. "You recall, do you not, that there were certain house rules you were required to follow in order to house-sit for me, yes?"
"Yes," said Mairead slowly, brow furrowed in confusion. Which of them had she broken? Eating on the furniture couldn't possibly include the kitchen island, could it?
"And you recall that you agreed to follow these rules, do you not?"
"I do..."
"You understood that failure to follow those rules would result in loss of future engagement, loss of a reference, and/or forfeiture of your house-sitting fee, correct?"
"Yes, that's correct," Mairead confirmed quietly.
"Follow me, please." Mr. Thompson turned around, fished a key out of his pocket, and used it to unlock the door.
Mairead followed him into the dimly-lit room and looked around, trying not to gawp. She had never been in a room like this before. She was surrounded by computer monitors, whose ghostly blue glow provided most of the lighting in the room. Mr. Thompson took a seat on a stool and pointed to another. Mairead perched on it, curiosity battling with nervousness, and watched Mr. Thompson lean towards one of the monitors and begin fiddling with a computer mouse and keyboard. Mairead looked over at the screen as well, then blinked and leaned in closer. She looked around at the other monitors in disbelief, unsure that she could trust her eyes.
Each of the monitors displayed a black and white image reflecting a different part of the house. There was an image of both the front and back doors, an image of the kitchen, parlor, the primary bedroom, and one that seemed to be trained on a closed closet door.
"This footage is from July sixth," said Mr. Thompson, leaning back so that Mairead could see the monitor. He clicked the button on the mouse. She saw the front door to the house, and for a moment she was desperately confused. Then her mouth fell open as the image began to move. It was like she was watching a film that took place at the house. As she watched, a man with light hair approached the door and rang the bell. Mairead would be hard-pressed to describe how surreal it felt to watch herself come to the door and smile widely at the man.
It's Professor Lupin, she realized.
She watched herself invite the man inside and close the door. Mr. Thompson then slid over to a different monitor, fiddled for another moment, and then Mairead watched as she and Lupin walked into the kitchen. Oh, no, she thought urgently to herself. Was there sound on this recording? If that were the case, Mairead was going to need to Obliviate Mr. Thompson. And she had no idea if she was capable of modifying memories or if that counted as an offensive spell that would be unavailable to her.
Mairead watched the screen in mute dread. Lupin had just sat down and Mairead had gone to fill the kettle when Mr. Thompson clicked the button on the computer mouse again and the image froze. He turned to her, looking very stern.
"Do you recall that you were not allowed to entertain male guests while staying at my house?" he asked. "Or do you need to see the list - and your signature - to refresh your memory?"
Mairead's eyes boggled. THAT'S what he's upset about?! Her mind nearly melted with relief. She raced to concoct an excuse. It was too late for Mr. Thompson not to have seen her shocked face, so she decided to run with it.
"I'm so sorry, sir," she said humbly. "You're absolutely right. I did agree to that and yet I invited Professor - Black... over."
"Professor?" Mr. Thompson repeated. "He's your teacher?"
"Yes, sir," said Mairead. "You know how I'm taking a gap year before applying to uni?" This was a common excuse she used among her Muggle clientele who were curious about her background.
Mr. Thompson nodded.
"Well, he was one of my secondary school teachers," she lied, her mind racing to write the fabricated story even as it came out of her mouth. "I reached out to him recently and asked if he would write me a letter of recommendation. He came over to chat about it. I'm so sorry. I never should have invited him. We should have met in a coffee shop or something. You're absolutely right - I broke the rules. I just... I didn't think. I completely understand if you want your money back, and I absolutely do not expect you to engage my services again or provide a positive reference for me."
She looked down at her lap, the picture of penitence. At least my Catholic upbringing was good for something, she thought. Mr. Thompson looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then turned back and considered the image frozen on the monitor.
"Well," he said slowly. "I suppose... if you promise it will never happen again..." Mairead nodded frantically. "I suppose then, that I can forgive this. But there will be no further exceptions made." He looked piercingly at her. Mairead looked back, eyes held wide to show her innocent intentions.
Mr. Thompson heaved out a sigh and looked back over at the monitor. "You did take exceptionally good care of the place," he remarked. "I don't think it's ever been so clean. You didn't go near the safe..." Here he looked over at the monitor that was trained on the closed door. Then, he reached for the computer mouse, clicked its button again, and the image began moving. "And you did just sit and have tea with this... professor."
Mairead was about to thank him profusely for understanding when something happened to the image. It broke up into a thousand tiny boxes in shades of grey and became completely distorted. The image froze momentarily, then the boxes rearranged themselves several times in a jerky fashion. Then, just as quickly as it had happened, the image returned to normal. Computer Mairead was pouring steaming water into two mugs.
"What happened?" Mairead asked, unable to contain her curiosity.
"Oh, who knows?" Mr. Thompson waved a hand derisively at the screen. "They say that digital recordings are the way of the future, but the data is so easily corrupted or scrambled. It'll only be a matter of time before analogue makes a major comeback - you mark my words."
"'Digital recordings'... is that what these are?" Mairead waved her hand around at the computer screens.
"Unfortunately," grumbled Mr. Thompson, looking unhappily at the monitors. "More storage space is all well and good, but you'd never see distortions like that on a tape. But that's the direction all security cameras are going."
Mairead tilted her head to one side. "What are security cameras?" she asked. Mr. Thompson looked at her very quizzically, and she realized with a jolt of nerves that this was probably a strange question.
"They're these," he said, pointing at the screens. "They record footage that you can review for signs of criminal activity. Haven't you ever been to a shopping mall? How do you think stores monitor for thieves?"
Mairead laughed breathily. "I'm sorry, I misspoke," she said, grinning like she felt stupid. "I just don't understand what the difference is... you said digital recordings and then... tape? What's the difference?"
"It's digital versus analogue, isn't it? Like how CDs are replacing cassettes and records."
Mairead nodded. "Oh, yeah, right," she said airily, though inside her mind was racing. Her heart was accelerating and she was experiencing the slightly euphoric state that came over her when she was on the verge of a breakthrough in one of the quandaries she so often puzzled over.
Mr. Thompson looked back over at the screen where Computer Mairead and Computer Lupin were now dunking biscuits into their tea and chatting happily. He reached for the mouse once more, clicked on something, and began dragging the mouse sideways. Mairead watched in fascination as the image zipped along at an impossibly fast clip. Mr. Thompson let go of the mouse and watched as Computer Mairead and Computer Lupin stood up. Computer Mairead led Computer Lupin out of the room. Mr. Thompson frowned then, and turned and looked at Mairead.
"Why did you take him out the back?" he asked, suspicion creeping back into his tone.
"Oh, I told him about your prizewinning rosebushes and he wanted to see them," Mairead lied, feeling her underarms beginning to sweat with all the lies but not seeing any way to be honest.
Mr. Thompson moved his stool over to the monitor with the image that showed the back door and the backyard. He tinkered with the mouse and keyboard for a few more moments, and then Mairead saw herself and Computer Lupin come out the backdoor. To her immense relief, she saw Computer Lupin pause and take a few moments to appreciate the rosebushes. He even reached out a hand and gently brushed one of them.
Mr. Thompson turned back to Mairead. "All right, I believe you," he said in a somewhat begrudging tone. "We'll let this slide this once. But not more."
"Mr. Thompson, thank you," said Mairead sincerely. "Please believe me that I feel mortified about this. I would never want you to think that I don't respect your rules. It will never happen again; I promise."
He nodded. "See to it that it doesn't," he said sternly. He turned back to the screen just as Computer Lupin was saying his farewells to Computer Mairead. Mairead's mouth dropped open in horror.
He Disapparated from the backyard! she thought frantically. It's all going to be shown!
Computer Mairead was looking down in awkward embarrassment and Computer Lupin took a few steps away from her. Any moment now Computer Lupin would turn on the spot and disappear into thin air, and Real-Life Mairead would be royally screwed.
She held her breath, too clueless to know what to do and too paralyzed to do it. Her hand inched towards her back, feeling the slender wood of her wand tucked into the back of her skirt. Just as she was practicing the incantation to modify Mr. Thompson's memory in her head, Computer Lupin's right foot twisted.
The picture once again dissolved into a thousand tiny dots that moved around the monitor in a jerky way and refused to form a normal picture.
When the square dots finally rearranged themselves into the backyard of the house, Computer Lupin was gone and Computer Mairead was making her way back into the house.
Mairead blinked. It can't be... is it really? Have I really finally found the answer?
Mairead managed to fix her face into a bland, unassuming expression just as Mr. Thompson turned back to her.
"Well, that's all I wanted to speak with you about," he said. "Thank you for coming over."
Mairead nodded. "Of course." She stood and followed Mr. Thompson back to the front door. He opened the door and wished her a good evening, saying that he would be in touch shortly with another request for house-sitting.
Mairead couldn't care less at the moment, but she smiled broadly and thanked him obsequiously. She walked out towards the street where her car was parked, but turned at the last minute.
"Oh, Mr. Thompson?" she called, trying to make it sound like an afterthought. "How would I find out more about the differences between digital and analogue, if I wanted to?"
Remus paced the length of the kitchen back and forth. After a few circuits, he stopped, checked his watch, and resumed his frantic march.
Mairead hadn't shown. She had said that she was going to come by, and she hadn't shown up. Remus had passed the morning in the way that was quickly becoming routine: working on whatever bit of cleaning or pest removal Molly Weasley assigned him that day. As he worked, though, he had kept an ear out for Mairead's arrival. Normally, she either came by first thing in the morning, or right after lunch, depending on her work schedule. But lunchtime came and went, and she did not make an appearance.
He had refrained from saying anything, because he had been working side-by-side with Sirius, and Remus had a vested interest in preventing Sirius from finding out about the mild problem Remus had been having with Mairead lately. But worry steadily burrowed its way into Remus's mind throughout the afternoon and made itself at home. By suppertime, Remus was scarcely able to think of anything else.
Dinner had now been over for half an hour, and Remus had spent most of the time since pacing back and forth, trying not to lose his head from worry.
He heard the kitchen door open and spun around on his heel, eyes seeking out Mairead's familiar face, but it was only Sirius. Sirius took one look at Remus and was instantly alert.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
Remus took a moment to gather up the emotions that had been throwing their tentacles out into the room and got them back under control. His voice sounded almost normal when he said, "Mairead said she'd be over today, and she never came."
Sirius walked over to a cupboard, opened it, and withdrew a bottle of Firewhisky. "What time did she say she'd be here?" he asked, retrieving two shot glasses and filling each with a generous shot.
"She didn't," said Remus with what he hoped was a casual shrug. "That's why I didn't give it another thought until just recently."
Sirius considered him in silence for a moment. He had his shrewd, calculating look on that Remus had been trying to avoid evoking when it came to the subject of Mairead. But he couldn't bother with that now; Mairead's safety was more important. Sirius offered Remus one of the shot glasses, but Remus shook his head. With a shrug, Sirius downed one shot, then the other.
"Maybe she got busy," Sirius said, his voice hoarse from the burning liquid.
"Maybe," said Remus, unconvinced.
"Maybe she forgot."
Remus shook his head. "That's not like her," he said, resuming his pacing. "She's not flaky."
"You know her better than me, Moony." Sirius said, his eyes following Remus's progress across the room and back. "Are you worried?"
Remus stopped and massaged his forehead with his fingers. "Yes," he admitted.
"Then let's go." Sirius returned the Firewhisky to the cupboard and pulled out his wand. "Where to?"
"No, Sirius, you can't," Remus reminded him wearily. "You've got to stay here."
Irritation and rebelliousness flashed in Sirius's eyes. Remus raised his hands defensively.
"Not my rules, Padfoot," he reminded him firmly. "I'll call for you if I need you."
Sirius rolled his eyes but Remus could tell that he was not going to make his life any harder.
"Where will you go?" Sirius asked a bit resentfully.
Remus looked around the room, then sighed. "The library, I suppose," he said. "Maybe she got called in to work. Then her house."
"Well, the good news is the place she's staying has a dog, right? So he'll have provided some defense if it came to that."
Remus ran a cold hand over his face. "Let's hope it didn't come to that," he said quietly.
As soon as he got outside, Remus Disapparated and rematerialized on Diagon Alley outside the library. He tried the door and found it locked, then saw that it had closed for the day. Cursing softly, Remus turned on the spot, next appearing in an alley near the Muggle library where Remus had picked Mairead up the day before.
This library was still open, and Remus walked inside as briskly as he could without drawing attention to himself. He headed straight for the children's room, where he found Mairead's coworker, Melissa, at the desk. She looked up and smiled as he came closer.
"Hey - John, right?" she said. Remembering the characteristics he had adopted the previous afternoon, Remus smiled toothily at her and nodded.
"What's up, Melissa?" he said, adjusting his accent as he spoke. "Haven't seen Mairead today, have you?"
Melissa shook her head. "No, she called out sick," she said. Lowering her voice to an exaggerated whisper, she said, "Food poisoning. Poor thing. Said she ate something didn't agree with her."
"Oh, that sucks," Remus said, folding his arms casually and slouching on a hip.
Melissa smiled sympathetically. "Did you have a date or something?" she asked.
Remus nodded. "Yeah, or something," he said. "Oh, well. Thanks anyway. See you, then."
Grinning at her once more, Remus managed to maintain the unhurried, rolling gate he had used for John until he got out of the library. His face was impassive, but his heart was thumping with dread.
There was no way Mairead had gotten food poisoning. The only thing she had eaten the day before had been Molly's food, and no one else had gotten sick. Involuntarily, his mind leapt to an image of Mairead being held at wandpoint and forced to call in sick so no one would be suspicious. As soon as he was out of the library he took off running for the alley he had emerged from and Disapparated.
He was taking a chance Apparating into a strange neighborhood in a location he hadn't previously scouted, but he decided to do it anyway and deal with any consequences. He materialized in a rhododendron bush, which made up in cover what it lacked in being a comfortable place to land.
Remus clambered out of the bush, took a look around, then started up the street at a light jog, eyes picking out the house numbers in the dim lighting.
There was one light on inside the house Mairead was supposed to be staying in. Remus dashed up to the door and rang the bell, heart racing, one hand resting on his concealed wand.
There was no answer, save the sound of a dog barking from somewhere within.
Remus rang again, ears straining for any sounds from within.
He rang a third time.
He took a covert look around the street. It was deserted. Remus pulled out his wand. Just as he was raising it to blow the door off its hinges, he heard footsteps inside. Lowering his wand but keeping it clutched tightly in his fingers, Remus waited.
The door opened, and Remus's heart leapt at the sight of Mairead.
"Oh. Hey," she said, not sounding at all like someone who had been missing up until a few seconds ago. "Good. You're here. That's good."
Every alarm in Remus's head began going off at the same time. In the span of an instant, he took in the details of Mairead's appearance. Her hair was a tangled mess, and there were dark circles beneath her eyes, which looked glassy like she hadn't slept.
She was still wearing the same clothes she had been wearing the previous day.
Mairead turned around, looking distracted in the extreme, and began walking across the entrance hall, which was decorated in a nautical style. "Come in," she called over her shoulder, sounding heavily preoccupied. "I have something I need to show you."
Tightening his grip on his wand, Remus said, "Ask me a question first, Mairead."
Mairead flashed him an impatient look. "Later," she said. "Come on, Remus, this is important."
Remus.
She never called him Remus.
In two long strides, Remus was on her. He grabbed one of her arms with his free hand and roughly spun her around.
Mairead - or whoever she was - let out a gasp of surprise.
Remus forced her backwards with his body and slammed her back into the nearest wall. Her cry of fear broke off abruptly as he held her in place with one hand and trained his wand at the side of her face with the other. He leaned in and glared menacingly into the imposter's dark green eyes.
"Who are you?" he said, his voice a low growl.
The woman beneath his arm began to tremble. Her eyes were wide and her mouth opened and closed silently.
"I - I don't -" she whimpered. "It's me."
Remus glared at her. "Oh? Then what was the first spell we worked on in our lessons?" he growled.
"F-Finite Incantatum," the woman said in a quaking voice.
"And what spell were you trying to end?"
"A Cheering Charm," she said. "You were casting a C-Cheering Charm. And - and then a Leg-Locker Curse."
Remus blinked. "What was the effect of the Cheering Charm?" he asked.
"I - I couldn't stop l-laughing," she said meekly. Her voice hitched as she added, "I said you were my all-time favorite person."
Remus stared at her in mute horror as he realized his mistake. He had been so beside himself with worry that he had panicked. He had sprung into an attack unprovoked and scared the hell out of her.
He released her and took several large steps back, giving her space as quickly as he could. Mairead stood rooted to the spot as though afraid to move, shivering as she watched him with wide, frightened eyes.
Not knowing what else to do, he fell back on the standard procedure that had been drilled into him in the First War. "You should ask me a question now."
Mairead made a valiant effort to pull herself together. She rubbed a trembling hand over her eyes and forehead and cast her gaze around the room. "Er - erm - I - erm -" she stuttered, but she was too scattered to be able to focus. Eventually she gave up. She pressed a fist to her mouth, looking away from him and trying to control herself.
Remus felt torn. He didn't know what to do. He looked at her, trying to assess how great the damage was he had caused, when he heard a clicking sound coming in their direction. His head whipping around, adrenaline still high in his system, he saw a big, goofy-looking Golden Retriever come moseying down the corridor, tongue lolling out. The dog trotted jauntily right up to Remus and began showering him with slobbery kisses. "Some guard dog you are," he muttered resentfully.
"Don't blame the dog."
Remus's head shot around and the sound of Mairead's voice. She was looking at him reproachfully. She was still trembling, but she seemed to have regained some control of her emotions.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. She looked at him in wary silence, evaluating, assessing. Remus flipped through a dozen excuses in his head, but he knew it was no good. It was never any good when it came to her.
The truth, then.
"I was worried," he confessed. "You told me you'd come by Grimmauld Place today, but you never came. I went to the library and Melissa said you'd called out sick. I came here and rang and rang but you didn't answer -"
"You rang three times in like, fifteen seconds."
Remus blinked. "Did I really?" he asked, feeling confused. She nodded, frowning. He shook his head. "It felt much longer. Anyway you eventually came to the door and I saw you and - and you were still wearing the same clothes you were in yesterday -"
"How do you remember what clothes I wore yesterday?" she interrupted him.
"Because I thought you looked nice." The words were out before he could stop them, but they seemed to have a softening effect on Mairead. Her eyebrows went up and her eyelids fluttered in surprise. "And anyway, you called me 'Remus,'" he said, more accusatorily than he had intended.
"You asked me to!" she cried defensively.
"Yes, but you haven't," he argued.
"I said it last night!" she yelped.
"And you looked like you were about to choke." Remus didn't mean for this to come out as resentfully as it did.
"Well, I - I practiced," her voice faltered. She said the last word so quietly that Remus wasn't sure he had heard her correctly. He blinked at her and that was all the time it took for Mairead to go from indignant and irate to embarrassed and blushing.
"You - you practiced?" he repeated softly.
She wouldn't look at him, so she confessed quietly to her hands, "It seemed like it was important to you. So I practiced saying your name so it would sound right."
Remus needed a minute. His face suddenly felt too hot, his collar too tight. Twice in the silence that followed he found himself moving as if to go over to her, but he couldn't trust himself to be too close to her right now. He didn't know what he would do if she was close enough to touch.
Silence fell between them once more. Remus felt miserable. Had he lost her? Had he destroyed her trust in him? He stole a glance at her and found her watching him through her lashes. As soon as she saw him looking, her eyes darted away, but as he watched, she looked back at him, and this time, she held his gaze bravely.
Remus knew that he had already shared too much with Mairead. He shouldn't have told her that he had thought she looked nice, and he had been so caught off-guard by her confession about practicing his name that he couldn't be sure what she might have seen in his face. He had learned at an early age never to let himself be exposed in front of other people. He had been building walls around himself since he was six years old. But he knew all too well that she had walls of her own that she had built. And she was giving him a chance to come back inside them; he could see it in her expression. She deserved the same in return.
"Please forgive me," he whispered. "Please. Mairead - I was so afraid that something had happened to you. I - I was so frightened that I lost my head. It's no excuse, but it's the truth."
Mairead considered his apology for a few moments, eyes swimming with emotions. Then, miraculously, she pushed herself away from the wall, walked slowly across the polished floor, and stood right in front of him.
"I'm sorry I scared you," she whispered, looking sadly into his eyes.
Remus let out a deep breath of relief. He immediately forgot all the reasons why he shouldn't go near her or touch her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. She returned the hug, nestling her face into the crook of his neck, and he had to stifle a groan. He breathed deeply, inhaling her sweet scent and feeling like he was bathing in the sensation of her warm breath caressing his throat.
Before he could get overwhelmed, he pulled away from her. "So why - what kept you?" he asked her curiously. "Where have you been?"
"Oh, right," she said vaguely, looking a little dazed.
She must be exhausted, he thought. But when she looked into his eyes, he saw that they were sparking with fire and excitement.
"I think I've found a way to spy on You-Know-Who."
Author's Note: Ooh, intrigue! I hope you all enjoyed the love triangle-y bits in this chapter! Plus, we got Mairead calling Remus by his name to his face for the first time! And hmmm, why is Remus feeling all tight around the collar? I hope you all have a lovely week!
Songs for Chapter 6: "My Church," by Maren Morris (Mairead), and "Sweet Disposition," by Temper Trap (Remus)