He'd said he preferred to leave her out of it, but she was certainly in it now, wasn't she? They were so funny together. The Minister had watched them avoid each other's eyes all through dinner. Played footsie under the table like two kids. And when the Elder had spoken to her in that way he had with women - like she was a bright child who'd just shown him her crayon drawing - the Minister had registered the change in her partner's posture: quiet seething. Whether it was over the disrespect or the fact that she seemed to be loving it he couldn't tell.

Her quick thinking had been impressive. So had her partner's poker face. The Minister supposed they must be awfully chuffed with themselves, right now, pretending not to be lovers in their separate rooms. But he'd gotten a rotten feeling in his gut when he'd seen her hair change. She was in it, all right. The Elder had underestimated them, but they'd underestimated him, too: he was a sportsman. Always after another head for the wall.

"So, by the end of fall semester I had 'em all convinced there was a hidebehind loose somewhere in the castle. They were spooked as hell. Goin' to the God-damn bathroom in pairs. So over Christmas break I start gluing rocks to popsicle sticks, stickin' feathers on 'em, and I bring a bunch of 'em back to school in January. Called them "talismans" and sold 'em for five bucks a pop. Good against hidebehinds, grindylows, you name it. Powerful magic." The Elder winked at Tonks. "Still smelled like fudgesicle. Made about, oh, two hundred bucks - not bad for a third year, huh? Tell you what, I cleaned up at the next field trip to Salem. Got absolutely sick on Peanut Butter Pukwudgies. Can't eat 'em to this day."

Sister Dymphna picked at a spot on her chin, frowning. One of her long kinky curls had fallen in her potato soup.

Tonks's shoe lightly tapped Remus's ankle. He didn't dare use the charm to whisper to her - not here in the Elder's house - but he snuck a glance. She gave him a fond smile, but behind it was a question. She nodded her head subtly toward his lap. He looked down, pulled back the corner of his napkin: Tonks's slapdash handwriting there.

HOW OLD DO WE RECKON SISTER DYMPHNA IS?

Remus refolded his napkin and folded his hands on top of it. He gave his head just the tiniest shake. Too risky to communicate this way. Tonks tapped his ankle again with the tip of her shoe, but he took a sip of soup and didn't respond.

Sister Dymphna looked like one of his fall-term sixth years, but he didn't want to think about that just now.

The Elder knocked back a swig of his bourbon. He fixed his eyes on Remus with the ghost of a smirk on his lips. "So, Miles, Jane - how long have y'all been married?" His twanging American accent was disarming; Remus couldn't tell if he was teasing them.

"Oh," peeped Tonks. "Well, we're -"

"We're not," said Remus flatly.

The Elder smiled and tossed his bouncy jet-black pompadour. "Well, maybe you should be," he said, winking at Tonks, who raised her eyebrows innocently and took a bite of her soup. "You have a certain way with each other," he explained to Remus. "You've been partners a long time." It wasn't a question.

Beside him, Tonks stared into her bowl, chewing and chewing.

"You know," said the Minister. "You can thank Sister Dymphna for this delectable soup - she foraged the wild leeks herself. Mushrooms, berries, healing herbs - she's got a real - if you will - seventh sense for finding them."

"Jane does a bit of foraging," said Remus. Tonks gave him a look that told him to shut it, but his nerves made him ramble on: "Healing herbs and that. She's quite good. Quite a - what's the expression? A green thumb, I suppose. She's rather, er, outdoorsy."

"Well, isn't that sweet." The Elder clasped his hands together and looked from Remus to Tonks. "You two girls ought to go out gathering sometime, see if you can bring home something nice for supper."

Sister Dymphna shrugged noncommitally and fished her curl out of her soup.

Remus half-expected Tonks to mumble something sarky - she hated being patronised - but she smiled gamely and said, "That sounds lovely," with a lilting pleasantness that sounded disconcertingly like her mother.

Remus looked down at his napkin. On it in Tonks's scrawl: ARE YOU OKAY?

When Remus had walked through the empty doorway of the slumping old stone church, there'd been a sensation on his face like walking through spiderwebs. The inside of the church was not the open-air, stone-strewn patch of weeds he'd seen from outside: it was a beautiful high-ceilinged nave, encrusted with bas-relief carvings and and bejeweled with luminous stained glass. Regimented with dark-wood pews and fronted by an alabaster altar. As huge as the Hogwarts Great Hall. Bigger inside than outside.

"Do the - is this what the muggles see?" he'd stammered, as Tonks had walked in behind him and bumped into his back, just as distracted as he'd been by the sight.

The Minister had grinned. "Of course. Not a bad bit of spellwork, eh? The Elder did it himself. Well, mostly."

Remus had looked over at Tonks, trying to catch her eye. If the Elder had done this himself he must be a formidable wizard. But she'd been too busy staring round at the filigreed silver censers hanging from the ribs of the vaulted ceiling to see him.

On the altar had sat three gold coins. The Minister had ushered them over and handed one to each of them, checking his watch. The coin was heavy in Remus's hand and impressed with something similar to the rune Perthro, the dice cup: meaning fate, luck, destiny.

That's a bit on the nose, Remus had thought.

"It's Portkey from here, I'm afraid," the Minister had announced. "We keep the location secret - out of necessity, you understand. The muggles would be knocking down the doors if they knew where they were, obviously. When Sister Dymphna was still living at home, she had people trampling through her mother's hydrangeas at all hours of the night looking for her - not a moment's peace." He'd checked his watch again. "Nearly time. I do apologize for the -"

The portkeys had glowed, then Remus had felt the familiar hook behind his navel, pulling him between space.

- inconvenience," the Minister had finished when they'd landed on the soft lawn. "Though I do find the yank -" He'd pantomimed it with a curled finger at his belly "- stimulates the appetite." He'd pocketed his coin and Remus and Tonks had each done the same.

They'd found themselves standing outside ornate wrought-iron gates. Manicured grounds studded with shapely topiary lay behind them, encircled by dark gnarled woods. In the distance, a man pushed a muggle lawnmower across the grass. A crooked path of flagstones set into the ground led up a slope to a rambling Victorian house, its many sharp peakéd gables drawing the eye toward the heavens.

"Are we near town?" Remus had asked as the Minister led them up the path.

The Minister had shot a sly look back at Remus and said nothing. Tonks had poked Remus from behind and when he'd turned to look she'd cocked her head to the side: a clique of haughty peacocks strutted a few feet away.

"Did they used to be lamps?" she'd called up to the Minister.

"No, no," he'd laughed. "Quite real. There's an African lion and a few zebras in the back enclosure as well. Used to have a giraffe, but couldn't seem to keep it happy. It's at the World Aquarium in Texas now. The Elder does dearly love his animals."

Tonks had made a mock-impressed face behind the Minister's back and Remus had shot her a warning look.

Now, at the table, it was Remus who struggled to control his expression. They'd been seated right away in the grand dining room, crown-molded and dripping with chandeliers, and Sister Dymphna and the Elder had made their entrance a moment later, hand in hand. The Elder had pulled her chair out for her and pressed his lips to the back of her hand as she'd sat. She'd looked round the table at Remus and Tonks and smiled shyly, lowering her gaze to her empty plate. But then she had snuck a glance up at Remus with her huge green eyes and he'd felt a sensation like the zap of static that passes from a hand to a doorknob on a dry day - but in his head.

He desperately wished he'd spoken to Harry in more detail about his occlumency lessons. Remus was an old hand at hiding his thoughts from other wizards, other werewolves, his muggle employers - but not from such a being as Dymphna, whatever she was.

One of the Elder's muggle servants cleared the soup bowls as another pushed through the swinging doors from the kitchen hoisting a tray of silver-domed plates. The smell was so delicious it was almost overwhelming. Remus felt slightly faint. The muggle delicately laid a plate in front of him. The Elder clapped his hands with a vaudevillean flourish and the silver domes vanished.

Sat in front of Remus was a huge, bleeding, rare slab of standing rib roast. His stomach growled with such a feralness he was sure everyone could hear it. He looked over at Tonks: she also had a slice of roast, but done to just a faint pinkness. He took a discreet glance around the table.

Everyone but he and the elder had medium-well meat. The Elder's cut was blue-rare, bloody and glistening, same as his.

"Hope you don't mind, Miles. I know you English like your meat, ah, "cooked," as our Minister says, but you strike me as a man of taste."

"He's not English," Tonks mumbled, but Remus touched his foot to her ankle and she didn't continue.

"Looks wonderful, Mr. Oplichter. I do, er -" he felt Tonks's gaze on him from the side and his neck flushed with heat. "- I do enjoy a rare steak, on occasion."

"Please, Miles, to you, it's Charlie." The Elder grinned toothily, his gaze intense upon Remus.

He was salivating so profusely it was difficult to speak. He hadn't eaten meat like this in years. The closest he'd gotten was back in January when one of the other werewolves had stolen and slaughtered a goat - starving and cold, no one had been able to stand waiting for the meat to finish roasting over the fire and he and his fellows had dug into the bloody, stringy haunch with their bare hands, scratching at each other as they pulled the sinews and licked their fingers. He'd gorged himself, his face smeared with fingermarks of thick blood, and felt nauseous afterward for days.

He didn't ever eat such things in front of other wizards. He knew what they'd think of him: savage, ferine, thirsty for blood.

(You are, you are, said that whisper in him. Thirsty beast, driven with low urges, aren't you? Aren't you?)

He was. The smell taunted him, seized him somewhere deep: the hypothalamus the pons, the bloody sticky root of him. The curse in his blood rejoiced. He chanced a look over at Tonks: that question in her face again, and something else: fear?

Shame spread itself inside him like a red stain. But he ate, he couldn't help himself. It was all he could do to keep a grip on his fork and knife. And all the while, forking bite after gory, revolting, succulent bite into his mouth, round and round went his frenzied speculating: did they know? Did the Elder know what he was, and had he decided to taunt him with it?

When dessert was served, Remus was still scraping the thin red juices from his plate with a buttered bap - and he felt a flare of shocking anger when the muggle maid took it from him.

"Oh, caw, fancy," murmured Tonks, and she sounded like she meant it.

Dymphna snorted with laughter. It was almost the only sound she'd made all evening.

Each dessert plate was topped with a little cake that looked exactly like a ripe strawberry: tiny white seeds piped in buttercream, curling green fondant leaves, glossy red glaze that shone like a gem.

"Oh, it ain't but a little cake," said the Elder, laying a hand on top of Sister Dymphna's. "Leftovers from our dear girl's confirmation soirée. Now that was a party." He cocked an eyebrow at the Minister, who chuckled to himself and clinked his glass against the Elder's.

Tonks dug into her cake, but Remus couldn't: with the taste of bleeding flesh still coating the inside of his mouth and the humiliation of having devoured it still leaden in his gut, the shiny red glaze looked revolting. He picked up his spoon to gamely push the cake around. It felt obscene to sully something so beautiful. But before he could start, Sister Dymphna set her spoon on her plate with a clang and spoke.

"It's time for my reading."

It was the first thing she'd said since they sat down. Her voice was soft and girlish, demure.

"Oh!" cried Tonks, and, flinging her hand out across the table, she knocked over her water goblet. Smooth pebbles of ice scattered across the table and bounced on the hardwood floor. Tonks's face flushed deep red and, to Remus's speechless astonishment, so did her hair.

"I am so sorry," said Tonks, holding her hands up over the mess she'd made. "I am just so clumsy, it's awful."

The Minister's mouth dropped open. He looked at the Elder. So did Dymphna. The Elder's stare did not leave Tonks.

"Miss Taylor," he said, his voice breathless but his eyes focused and intent, ravenous. "Were you planning to tell us you were a shapeshifter, or had you just been waiting for an opportunity to demonstrate?"

Her hair, still as red as Remus's untouched strawberry cake, started to corkscrew at the ends. As if just noticing that it had changed, she tousled it with one hand and it changed back to brown. The blush in her face faded just as quickly.

"Well, I try not to show off," she demurred. Remus almost snorted at that. The Minister touched the book in his breast pocket and the ice water mess was dried instantly. Tonks went on, mashing at her cake with her spoon as she spoke. "Bit of a useless talent, isn't it? Haven't made a single, er, quid off it yet."

The Elder suddenly rose from his chair and crossed the room to crouch next to Tonks. He reached up and took a lock of her hair in his fingers.

"Do it again," he commanded. Tonks squeezed her eyes closed and morphed her hair to match Sister Dymphna's: long and curled and ginger as a Weasley's.

The Elder rubbed a strand between his thumb and forefinger. "Feels so real," he breathed.

Acid rose in Remus's throat. He could see, from where he was sitting, Tonks's fingers flexing around her wand inside her sleeve. He wanted so badly to whisper in her ear. He wanted knock the Elder's suntanned hand away. He really wanted to grab her and apparate them both out of there.

Suddenly, with a softspoken imperiousness that sent a chill across the back of his neck, Sister Dymphna spoke again:

"Excuse me. It's time for my reading."

She was staring at Tonks, who was still wearing Dymphna's hair. Her lips were pressed together, thin and white. The Elder turned to her with what looked to Remus like surprise.

"Well of course, baby girl, plenty of time for that -"

"It's for her," Dymphna said, with a quiet steeliness. The Minister shifted in his seat, and the Elder's eyes darted to Remus for just an instant.

"Well - now hold on now - I think Mr. Alphard here -"

"It's for her or I'm going straight to bed," spat Sister Dymphna, with the quaking energy of a child on the cusp of a tantrum. The Elder dropped Tonks's hair and held up his hands in surrender.

"Well now, sugar, if that's what you want, you girls go and have yourselves a little reading." He turned to Remus with a smooth grin. "Miles, what do you say to a cigar and a digestif in the game room?"

"Bring your fork," Dymphna told Tonks, and stood up from the table.

Sister Dymphna's salon was like any teenage girl's bedroom, but there was no bed. A low plastic table sat flanked by purple embroidered poufs. A magenta scarf was draped over a lampshade and blushed the room rosy. Stuffed toys of every species piled in drifts at the corners. A hank of bright feather boas garlanded a mirrored vanity with a velour chair shaped like a shell. The only thing atop the vanity table was a tube of cheap cherry chapstick.

Dymphna kicked off her shoes in two different directions and reached up with both hands to twist and pile her hair into a knot atop her head. Suddenly Tonks remembered she was still wearing the same mass of marmalade curls and changed it back to her own brown.

"I like the pink better," said Sister Dymphna airily.

Tonks's body tautened instictively and her fingers wrapped themselves around her wand. Dymphna regarded her with a look of faint amusement.

"Sit," she said, and extended her hand toward the little table.

Tonks lowered herself onto a pouf and had to put one hand on the floor for balance. She'd forgotten she was still holding her fork and it clattered on the table.

"Thank you," Dymphna said, and dropped smoothly into a pouf. She picked up the fork and ran her fingers over the greasy tines. She rolled it over in her palm. Her eyes widened, and Tonks thought at first it must be surprise, but they stayed that way, staring past her as if she wasn't there. Tears welled along the pale lower lashes, glistening in the low pink light.

"I'm very sorry," Dymphna whispered.

Tonks frowned. "What for?"

Sister Dymphna was silent and rolled the fork over and over in her little hand.

"Blue-green," she sighed at last. "What a lovely colour."

Tonks shook her head slowly. "I don't -"

"There's three things." Dymphna spoke over her, her voice low and urgent now. "First, you shouldn't drink the brandy in the game room. Second, you should apologize for breaking the train."

A bolt of alarm discharged through Tonks. Her heart was thunderous in her ears and she wobbled slightly on her pouf. "How do you know about the train," she asked slowly.

"I don't," said Dymphna. "I know how you're going to feel about it."

"What's wrong with the brandy? Is - is Miles drinking it right now?"

"I'm getting tired," Dymphna complained, and set the fork down with a click. She blinked and her eyes were no longer glassy. They looked directly into Tonks's. "Will you bring me my colours and paper?"

Dymphna pointed across the room, where a spiral notebook lay on the floor under a scatter of coloured marker pens.

Tonks stood unsteadily and fetched them. Dymphna turned to a blank blue-ruled page and uncapped a hot pink marker with her mouth, holding the cap there and chewing it absently.

Tonks leaned in to see what she was drawing: it looked like the runes she had been seeing all over town and on the Elder's book. She couldn't read them. She pictured Remus awkwardly sipping a brandy, gangly legs crossed in an armchair. He'd know what they meant, if they meant anything.

Dymphna ripped the page out of her notebook and presented it across the table to Tonks. Little scraps from the spiral binding fluttered from it like snowflakes.

"Bring this to Charles," she said. She sounded bored. Tonks reached out for the paper but didn't take it.

"Wait," she said. "What's the third thing?"

"Oh," said Dymphna sadly, her voice trailing down. "It seems stupid to say. I know you will anyway. But don't follow him. You shouldn't follow him. Your mum won't ever forgive you."

"Follow who?"

"Your husband."

"I don't - he's not my husband."

Dymphna sighed. "I'm tired of this," she said again, and pushed the sheet of paper across the table at Tonks.

"I've never seen one before," said the Elder. Have you?"

"No, never." The Minister swirled his brandy and quirked an eyebrow at Remus. "How does a man like you pull a metamorphmagus? No offense."

Remus forced a dry chuckle. "Wish I knew," he said, and buried his nose in his glass.

The game room walls were covered in mounted animal heads: pronged deer and antelope, a feathery hippogriff, a humped brown buffalo, some kind of white leopard. They leered down with their vacant eyes at the leather wingbacks, the mahogany snooker table, and the three drinking men.

"Just imagine the possibilities," mused the Elder, and he elbowed the Minister in the arm. "I'm sure you don't have to imagine," he told Remus with a smirk.

Remus smiled tightly and took in a long breath, his face burning. He'd already swigged a quarter of his Draught of Peace in the loo after Tonks and Dymphna had left, hoping it would help him keep a lid on himself. But between it and the brandy he had a precarious, uncontrolled feeling, like the giggle that rises in the middle of church.

"You know, Miles," drawled the Elder around his cigar. "If it'd just been you coming here trying to get a slice of our pie, I'd have had you obliviated and dropped at the docks in Inverness."

"If you were in a good mood," interjected the Minister. The Elder grinned, his teeth shocking white in his tanned face.

"But she is something special." He stabbed the air with his cigar for emphasis. "She is valuable. Think of the potential. The little girls will love her. Sister Dymphna seems quite taken, and she doesn't usually like other girls."

"She is talented," Remus said neutrally. He'd refused a smoke but now he wished he'd taken one. Something to do with his hands besides lift his glass to his face and try not to fidget.

The Elder leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, pointing his cigar at Remus. "So, what can we offer you?"

"I'm sorry?"

"For the girl. I'm sure she's worth a great deal to you. You can name your price."

Remus shook his head, confused. "I'm not sure why you're asking me," he said slowly. "It's her you'll need to convince."

The Elder and the Minister exchanged a look. The Elder leaned forward, the warm light of the game room gleaming on his brilliant teeth.

"Son, I'll tell you what. I'm not near as stupid as I look. It's plain as day to me that if I want her, I'm gonna have to go through you. So what's it gonna be?"

Remus blinked. His heart was thumping so hard he thought the Elder must be able to hear it. After what felt like a very long pause, he said carefully: "We're a package deal, I'm afraid." His own voice sounded strange in its level confidence. "That's my price."

The corners of the Minister's mouth twitched and the Elder laughed uproariously, slapping his knee and scattering cigar ash over his trousers, which he vanished with a wave of his hand.

"I thought you might say that," he said. "Tell you the truth, I don't know I could quit a girl like that either. I'm sure we'll find a use for you. You have a specialty?"

"Magical creatures," said Remus. "Stealth and tracking. Defense against the Dark Arts."

"Interesting. You have any experience with the Imperius curse?"

Remus had been about to take a sip of brandy and nearly choked. "Do you mean - have I used it before?"

"Of course. Matthew here never even got that far in school. We could use a man who's comfortable with Unforgiveables."

The Minister looked uncomfortable and stared down into his brandy.

"Yes," said Remus. "I have -"

Tonks's voice from the other side of the doors stopped him. "What do you mean ladies aren't allowed, that's ridiculous, Sister Dymphna told me to come and give this to the - nope, don't touch me, I'm going in, just bugger off, please -" The doors creaked open and Tonks stumbled through, clutching a crumpled paper in one fist. One of the Elder's muggle housemaids stood in the hallway with a look of horror, twisting her apron in her hands.

"I'm so sorry, Sir, she wouldn't listen -"

"It's fine," the Elder said dismissively, and waved his hand to shut the door behind Tonks. His face lifted into an indulgent smile. "Young lady, come and sit, would you like a brandy? Cigar?"

"No, thank you," Tonks said guardledly, and sat in the chair next to Remus's. She snuck a glance at him, then smiled back at the two other men. "Sister Dymphna said to give you this." She thrust the crumpled paper out toward the Elder.

"Of course." The Elder took it from her and folded it up small to tuck into his jacket pocket. Remus tried to subtly crane his neck to get a look at it, but couldn't see much. It looked like a child's scribblings.

"Glad you're here, my dear, I was just about to ask Miles here if the two of you would like to stay with us here at the ranch. Plenty of room. A lot more comfortable than the Shrike & Marten." He tilted his head at Tonks. "Do you like animals, sweetheart?"

"I've told her about the lion and the zebras," said the Minister, slumped back in his seat and still looking sulkily at his drink.

"Sure," shrugged Tonks. She tossed her hair casually and changed it into black-and white stripes. "I like zebras."

The Elder pinned Remus with a look. "Fabulous," he purred. "We'll have your things brought from the inn. Matthew, will you show them...?"

"Gladly," muttered the Minister, and set his snifter down with a clank.

The rooms were next door to each other. Tonks didn't understand why they'd been given two rooms, since everyone seemed the think they were married, but she hadn't said anything. As soon as the Minister's footsteps had faded down the long hallway she'd come out and rapped impatiently on Remus's door.

He opened it with a finger to his lips. "I'm still checking," he murmured, and let her in. With his back to her he resumed tapping his wand along the walls, around the furniture. Tonks drew her wand and joined him, waving it under the broad, damask-canopied bed to check for monitoring charms. She watched him as she did it: he had that stiff, tight-shouldered, anxious look. When he was satisfied there was no one listening, he shoved his hands in his pockets and began to pace.

"I wish you'd have let me look at that paper," he scolded her. "Who knows what information she could be passing to -"

"Fuck off," Tonks chirped pleasantly, and drew a rectangle in the air with her wand. The area inside the square turned black and populated itself with scrawled white symbols. Remus walked up and hunched to peer at it.

"This is an exact copy?"

"Of course," said Tonks, sounding affronted.

Remus turned and regarded her for a moment. "Well done."

She rolled her eyes. "I know."

Remus took the runes to bed. The rectangle hovered over his face as he lay on his back. They were a curious assortment. Some were backwards and some had an extra line. A mix of elder runes and younger. Nonsensical. He recognized something like the Berkana, representing femininity, fertility, regeneration; also the Thurisaz, meaning conflict or destruction. Vague. There was a war on. A group of younger runes stood out to him, and after turning his head to the side to puzzle over them for a few minutes, he realized with a jolt that they spelled a word he knew: Vargr. Old Norse meaning exile or outlaw. But also, sometimes, wolf.

Dymphna's piercing green eyes flashed in his mind.

Tonks had told him that Dymphna knew about her father's train. Remus remembered the story (and, vividly, where he'd heard it: under the covers in her little London flat, tipsy on the nasty sweet lambrusco she liked, kissing a path down her inner arm as she spoke). Tonks had been about twelve and home for the summer. She'd been invited to a pool party and, for one of the first times, looked in the mirror and morphed her body to fill her swimsuit to her liking. She'd not been trying to be sexy, she'd insisted to Remus. Just to please herself. Well, Ted had caught a look at her as she came down the stairs and forbade her to go, insisting she change herself back. She'd mouthed off in response and he had snapped at her with a fierceness that had shocked and unbalanced her. He had always been so delighted with her morphing. So later in the week when she was left home alone for a few hours she'd gone into Ted's study, picked up his beloved model of the Flying Scotsman - charmed to emit real smoke - and calmly crushed it under her foot. She'd placed the remains back on the track and shut the door. Ted had obviously known it was her, but he'd never once mentioned it. Their relationship had recovered, and Ted was obviously exuberantly fond of his Dora - but she'd said that his betrayed face and wounded silence over dinner that night had stayed with her forever.

He'd asked if she'd been thinking of the train over dinner, and she'd said no, of course not, but she'd briefly thought of her dad when she changed her hair. When Remus had asked if Dymphna told her anything else, she had averted her eyes and mumbled that it had mostly just been nonsense.

He wanted to charm the wall so he could speak to Tonks through it but he didn't dare. He also wanted to go to her room and lie down behind her, drape his forearm over her waist, mold his cold bony body along her soft warm one, let her slip her smooth little foot over his calf and ensnare him there, and fall asleep with his nose sunk in the warm sweet scent of her hair.

But he didn't. (Urges, urges, hunger for flesh, chanted the voice inside him.) The ferrous taste of blood seemed to cling to the back of his throat even after two cleaning spells. (Flesh of a steer, flesh of a woman -)

He folded the pillow round his head, but the voice was in there with him, taunting without cease.

When he fell asleep, he dreamed he was back on his bed of yellowed newspaper and fur, clutching his mothholed old coat around him.

Tonks had tossed and rotated in the bed until the sheets were twisted around her legs. Remus's bed would be right on the other side of the wall, his head a few inches away. She pictured him lying there, those deep wrinkles in his brow all knitted up in thought. Blue eyes troubled with it. Long fingers drumming on his chest. She wished she was there with him, but he'd insisted they keep to their own rooms. He'd muttered that he couldn't afford to be distracted, here in the Elder's house. She had a feeling the Elder had made some raunchy aside about her talents as a metamorphmagus over the brandy and Remus was feeling ashamed of himself. He got that way about sex sometimes: after their first time he'd gotten so in his head about how quick it went that he'd barely met her eyes for a whole week. She'd had to let herself into his room and wait for him in his bed wearing nothing but one of his ratty old cardigans with a single button done to convince him she ever wanted him to touch her again. (And to her delight he'd been thoroughly enough convinced that she hadn't left his bed again until it had been time for her night shift at the Ministry the following evening).

But tonight she'd have been happy just to lie beside him, feel his steady warmth and lay an arm over his chest, his soft snores vibrating her hair. She sat up in bed and kicked the covers from around her legs until they slumped to the floor. She picked up her wand.

She thought of Remus's sleepy face the first morning they'd woken up together, the yellow light from the grimy window of his bedroom at Headquarters glowing in the tips of his lashes. Motes of white crust at the corners of his eyes. And his astonished, bewildered grin when she'd reached up and smoothed back the hair that had stuck against his forehead. Weeks of frustration, awkwardness, glum chats over tea with Molly, animated ranting over pints with her mates, a yeast infection from wearing her good knickers all the time just in case, and feeling her heart forget a beat every time he looked up at her across the long kitchen table had won her that grin. Even the tang of his morning breath had seemed somehow very precious to her at that moment.

"Expecto Patronum," she whispered.

Pearly light in the dim room: the wolf slipping through the wall like a ghost. Silver swishing tail and bright eyes. The man was curled in the bed on his side. Hands gripping his elbows even in sleep. Body curved around the empty side of the bed, protecting nothing. The wolf padded over to look him in the face. White hairs glinting. Worry lines between the eyebrows and around the mouth, deep and dark in the phosphorescent glow.

The patronus leapt weightlessly onto the bed. The man didn't stir. The wolf padded in a circle, twice, and nestled itself into the void around which the man was curled. It laid its jaw on his shoulder and rested there: ears up, alert, looking out.

On the other side of the wall, Tonks laid her wand down beside her and fell asleep. Her wolf flickered in the dark of Remus's bedroom and then was gone.