Disclaimer: Unlike many talented authors, I can't come up with very interesting ways to say I don't own what I'm writing about. :(

Chapter Three

{1982}

Lily didn't come in on time the next day, but this was nothing new. Being a single mother was a full-time occupation, but so was being a full-time waitress, and so, despite her attempts to handle everything in her life independently and efficiently, she needed quite a lot of help, and quite a lot of slack. The nanny she paid to watch Harry from nine to five every day (except on the days they were assigned evening hours, in which case the nanny would also have to shift her schedule) wasn't winning any awards. On the days that the nanny came late, Lily did, too, refusing to leave her son alone in the apartment for even a moment (although Remus suspected the nanny did all the time).

So Remus covered for her. It wasn't easy, balancing two trays and rushing from table to table as quickly as possible to keep everyone happy, fed, and refilled, but he knew she did the same for him on the days he took off due to full moon related injury or illness.

People in their situation had to take care of each other.

"Flynn!"

Remus stopped short at the harsh voice, suppressed a roll of his eyes, and stood at attention. Mr. Dolohov, his much-despised superior (inferior only to the manager himself), strode across the café towards him, pale face twisted in a scowl, as was often the case. He planted himself in front of his employee, hands on his hips. "Mr. Flynn, where is Miss Thatcher?"

They had picked each other's aliases in an attempt to insert some humor into their lives.

"Taking care of her son, I expect, sir," he said, shifting a tray from his right arm to his left and picking an empty plate up in his free hand.

Dolohov leaned forward, sneering. "Taking care of her son on my time?"

"I'm afraid she's got a rather unreliable nanny, sir."

"An unreliable nanny for an unreliable waitress, then."

"If you say so, sir." There was no use trying to defend Lily to Dolohov, who had a low opinion of them both, because the manager was almost openly infatuated with Lily, and liked Remus well enough. As long as they stayed in the manager's good graces, there was little that Dolohov could do to them.

Except, perhaps, order them around a lot.

"Go get these people their orders and then wipe down tables four, eight and fifteen! You'd better hope that Thatcher arrives before the lunch rush, because I doubt you have the capacity to handle the lunch crowd by yourself."

"Yes, sir." Remus waited until Dolohov had stormed out of earshot before adding, "And thanks for the vote of confidence."

When noon arrived, Lily still had not. Remus wiped down the tables, as instructed, diligently flitted between them, endured catcalls and bottom-pinching from various horny older men and younger girls, watered the plants in front of the café, and set to work mopping the kitchen. He was not the only waiter on duty, but the others were mostly Muggle teenagers, who, needless to say, were nowhere near as efficient as he was at getting the job done, even without the use of his magic.

Magic was not something he was at liberty to use anymore, as per Dumbledore's specific instructions.

{1981}

Order of the Phoenix Headquarters

"It is not safe for either of you here, among wizarding society."

Dumbledore had spoken the words as he knelt before them; Remus holding tight to Lily, whose body jerked and twisted with violent sobs. Remus himself was silent and still as the eye of the storm, staring up at the Order's founder with open plea in his face for Dumbledore to guide, to comfort, to reassure that what had just happened hadn't really happened. Dumbledore lay a hand on his shoulder, but there was not much he could do in the way of comfort.

"I can help you disappear. You will be safe if you slip into obscurity in the Muggle world. Voldemort knows who you are and will want to find you. I have no doubts that Sirius Black will also be looking for you."

Remus tightened his hold unconsciously on the sobbing redhead.

"I will find you a place to live. I will set up a life for you. You cannot use magic or reveal your identities to anyone but those most trustworthy. Representatives of the Order will be sent to check on you." His long, thin hand moved to the back of Lily's head. "Of course if you still wish to fight, I cannot force you to hide. Indeed, I would almost expect you to want to continue in your loved ones' stead. But you must remember that you are not living only for yourselves, anymore."

Lily stopped sobbing abruptly. She slowly disentangled herself from Remus' arms, and although tears continued to form along the rims of her red eyelids, her expression was stonily composed.

"Harry," she said.

"Harry." Dumbledore nodded gravely.

Lily ran her hands down to Remus' forearms, and turned slowly to look at him. They had a silent conference with their eyes, then turned back to Dumbledore together.

"Alright, sir," said Remus. "We'll do it."

{1982}

That had been nearly a year ago, and Remus would be lying to himself if he said he had not felt every day crawl by under the weighty responsibility of caring for Lily and Harry and not simply giving in as he had wanted to since that fateful night. But Remus, despite his gentle, soft-spoken demeanor, was a fighter - always had been. Somewhere deep down he knew that carrying on was all he really could do.

Magic was very tempting at the moment, though. It might have been the lunch rush, but his own lunch break was not for another hour, and there would be no opportunity to slack off like he had last night, under Dolohov's critical eye. He was also becoming more worried about Lily as the day progressed. It wasn't uncommon for her to be late, but for her to be as late as this was an anomaly.

Had something happened? His stomach clenched. Had something happened to Harry? His stomach clenched tighter.

He took a steadying breath, and bent to pick up the bucket of now dirty water he had been using to mop the floor. There was no sense getting anxious. He would drop by Lily's apartment for his break and check on her. Until then, he had to keep working, for both their sakes.

He moved awkwardly to the kitchen's side door, water sloshing dangerously close to the rim of the bucket as he shuffled along. Once outside, he hauled back and then tossed the bucket's contents across the shaded pavement.

There came the obvious splatter, and then, inexplicably, a yelp. Remus jumped at the sound, eyes widening in alarm.

A large black shape stumbled out from the line of trash cans, dripping dirty water and whining offendedly. It was only a couple yards from where Remus stood before he recognized it as the dog that had been watching him so intently the night before. "Oh my God." He dropped the bucket with a reverberating bang and stepped back, nervously, into the doorway. The dog had been harmless last night, giving him a wide berth and showing no signs of confrontation, but he couldn't say it would have the same disposition now that he'd thrown a bucket of mop water on it.

With a shake of its body, the dog managed to spray water across the brick walls on either side of the alley. Upon spotting Remus, however, it froze just as suddenly as he had upon spotting it. For a few moments there was only mutual stillness as they matched each other's stares; Remus prepared to bolt if the dog so much as growled.

But the dog didn't growl. Its ears perked forward, and its tail began to slowly, cautiously swing back and forth, as if Remus had just produced a t-bone and laid it on the pavement. After a moment it trotted forwards, stopped, trotted forwards slightly more, and stopped again, appearing to gauge Remus' reaction with every tentative –

"Flynn!"

A transformation came over the dog with incredible swiftness. Its ears went back, its hackles rose, and even the pale eyes seemed to gleam with anger. A low, dangerous, rumbling sound filled the alley. Remus turned to run inside and nearly ran into Dolohov's enormous chest instead, which was blocking his way. The fury in his boss's eyes almost matched the fury in the dog's, and Remus wasn't sure which one he wanted to distance himself from more. Until Dolohov wrapped his large hand around Remus' wrist and squeezed hard enough to hurt. (The dog began to snarl.) Then he knew.

"Flynn, there are customers out there waiting to be waited on! What are you doing in the fucking alley? I swear, if I find you and Thatcher have been sneaking smokes out here during working hours again, I... is...is that your dog?"

Remus blinked dumbly for a few seconds before the words registered themselves in his mind. "Uh, no, it's not. I think it's a stray."

Dolohov stiffened in - yes, it had to be - fear. "Good God. This city's going to shit! Stray animals snarling at you at every corner... Get inside and call animal control!"

But Remus was staring at the dog again, a strange, familiar warm feeling curling in his stomach. He couldn't explain it, why this dog was suddenly so fascinating to him.

"Flynn!" Dolohov twisted his arm slightly, rattling him back and forth.

The dog barked, a gunshot sound that made Remus flinch and made Dolohov release him and back away. It continued to bark and snarl, inching forwards, until Dolohov swore, spun on his heel, and slammed the kitchen door shut behind him. Leaving Remus alone with the beast.

The barking ceased instantly, though it took a while longer for the fur to flatten and the creature's taut muscles to relax. Remus remained frozen against the door, but it wasn't exactly with fear that he was frozen. It was more like spotting something unbelievable in the distance, and not being able to move or think or rationalize at the sight of it. Which was ridiculous, of course. What was so unbelievable about a stray dog in an alleyway?

It moved closer again, tail wagging more enthusiastically now, and, after a moment's seeming hesitation, it bumped its nose against Remus' hand. Cold and wet, it made him gasp, but then the dog moved its muzzle under Remus' fingers and simply stood there, tail thumping wildly, making soft whining sounds of happiness.

Remus finally found his voice, though God only knew what he might do with it. "Um, hello." He tentatively rested his hand on the animal's head. When there was no resistance to the action, he scratched lightly at the junction between ear and skull. "I don't...have any treats. Er."

The dog turned and repositioned itself against him, leaning against his legs as though asking to be scratched on the back. The creature's back was nearly level with his belt buckle, so this was not difficult. As he stood awkwardly rubbing his hand along the curve of the dog's spine, Remus felt the last of his fear seep out of him, slowly but surely, until all that was left was bewilderment. How often did stray animals in the city wander up to people and demand to be petted? It was a little unnerving, but no longer frightening. The dog clearly trusted him, for whatever reason, and he couldn't help but to... trust it back.

He found himself thankful that he had been left with the dog rather than his boss - it was truly the lesser of two evils.

Thinking of his boss, he groaned. The dog looked up, ears perking. "You'll have to go, now," he said. "My boss, see, he'll phone animal control, or he'll get a butcher's knife and come out here, swinging."

A soft growl emitted from the dog once more. Remus was strangely not intimidated at all. "No, really," he insisted. "He's not a happy man. Either way, you can't stay here. Go on."

The dog merely cocked its head at him, stubbornly not moving.

"Look. I have to get back to work. Dolohov's already pissed off." Why on earth was he explaining this to a dog? "If you don't want to leave, fine, wait around for the dog catcher or worse. But I have to go. And I suggest you do the same."

He paused, and added, "I'm sorry for dumping that water on you." Then he turned and twisted the knob of the door, leaning his shoulder against it to force it open, because it tended to stick when it was slammed.

By the time he'd popped it open and turned to shoo the dog a final time, the large, shadowed figure was already at the end of the alley, slipping into white daylight, and out of sight.

Remus went back to work feeling strangely safer.

TBC...

A/N: Again, thankee for the wonderful reviews. I'm somewhat pulling this out of my ass as I go along, but I'll try to be more reasonable with my updates than I have...been known to be in the past.

That said, I will warn you, I'm taking a trip to China very shortly and will definitely be unable to update during that time (two weeksish?). I'll try to make it up to you later, with angst and love, and, if I can manage it, some humor.

Who knows, though, I might be able to get in a couple more chapters before I leave.