"…Soon we were leaving the Shrieking Shack and roaming the school grounds and the village by night…I doubt whether any Hogwarts students ever found out more about the Hogwarts grounds and Hogsmeade than we did…"

-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

CHAPTER 19

December 22nd, 1979

The snow that blanketed the grounds gave Hogwarts the air of one of those sentimental paintings of eighteenth-century landscapes dotted with peasants—the sort of pictures of which her great-aunt Cassiopeia was so fond.

At least the path to the castle had been cleared off before their arrival, Narcissa thought, sulkily. All it took was the mere sight of snow—even the compacted, smooth kind that she had modestly lifted her skirts for as she trailed behind her aunt and old school master on the winding path from the flanked gates up to Hogwarts Castle—to put Mrs. Malfoy in a high dudgeon. She did not like the cold—a frigid, wet unpleasantness which seeped into the skin and burrowed straight down into the bones—the cold that knocked the wind right out of you. She was not a creature of extremes—she would take an English summer, with its breezy, mild haze and damp sunsets, over a Scottish winter, any day.

She was not Bellatrix.

Narcissa shivered. The thought of her sister—who she had once seen walk across a frozen pond with bare feet in December, just to prove she could—conjured memories of another Christmas holiday, long gone by. They had been with their father, who—instead of letting his daughters take the train back to school (which would have meant a long, comfortable ride filled with light gossip and the company of friends and Lucius)—had dumped them in the village a day before start of term for his own convenience. The tedious visit at the pub with his parents (which Papa had naturally begged off of) had dragged on so long they'd missed their portkey, and had to hike up the hill to school on the foot through a blizzard.

She had trudged up this very path through almost two feet of the stuff.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Slughorn called out, as he lead the small party with the air of an explorer of the Antarctic. "Snow stopped yesterday. They say it'll be clear for the rest of the week! Quite pleasant for a walk."

Narcissa was far enough behind them that neither Aunt Walburga nor her old head of house caught sight of her eye-roll.

Professor Slughorn had come to meet them, that time, too.

She had thought it the most degrading chore to have to walk instead of take a carriage with the rest of the school—Andromeda had tried to cheer her up by conjuring a flame in her gloved hand to melt the ice from their gloves, but nothing could stop Cissy's railing against papa's unfairness, and by the end she'd nearly been in tears.

("Don't whinge, Cissy." Andromeda's gentle scolding could be worse than Bella's cruelty, when she deployed just the right way. "It's only a bit of snow—and anyway, won't it make the common room that much cozier?")

She had told Andromeda she supposed that was true, wiping her eyes—just in time for Bella to dribble ice down the back of her cloak.

("What a baby you are, Cissy—" She called, in her horrible sing-song voice. "You need toughening up.")

And then, of course, to illustrate her point, Bellatrix had smashed a snowball into the side of her head.

What had led to sobs and hysterics then only brought faint irritation, now. Everyone always treated her like a child—the family baby, so spoiled, too delicate for even the lightest burden. They always had.

Once she thought they always would.

At least Colette didn't see her that way. It was nice to have someone who looked up to her, for once—instead of looking down.

"A shame about your friend Miss Battancourt taking ill so suddenly, Narcissa!" Professor Slughorn's booming voice, which always filled his study and office, somehow seemed diminished by the blanket of whiteness that surrounded them. He sounded very far away. "Didn't she want to see the castle?"

"It was the reason we came, professor!" she called up the hill, unable to keep the clip out of her voice. "Other than to see you, of course."

It certainly was a shame, Narcissa thought, as she pulled her fur-trimmed cloak more tightly around her shoulders. They had had the most absorbing lunch, after a busy morning of shopping in the village—a most promising debut for their Miss Battancourt. The distracted, distant quality that Colette had shown at the theatre the night before had been quite wiped away by a good night's rest. The girl was gay and lively—almost determined to have a good time—and Slughorn had been very taken with her. Of course, it helped that he knew her grandfather, he enjoyed regaling them with the tale of a potioneering symposium in Morocco during which he and the formidable Professor du Bellay had gotten lost in the casbah.

"A crying shame," Slughorn mourned, jovially.

"Must've been the mutton," Aunt Walburga sniffed, derisively. "And perhaps the altitude."

"She went to school in the Pyrenees, Auntie."

"Anyway, I'm sure she'll perk up after a good rest."

What a bother, though—when this visit—and this dratted slog up to the castle, the 'scenic stroll'—was supposed to be for Colette's benefit.

It was a little…odd, how it happened.

The thought had crossed her mind that Colette might've been pretending—except that when she'd stood up after lunch the girl had been so obviously light-headed that she'd nearly fainted into Narcissa's arms—and that was the kind of theatrical taking ill that not even the most skilled actress she knew—her oldest sister—could have pulled off.

And Colette wouldn't have contrived to sneak away without first telling her. It wasn't in her character. Less artifice than a kitten—one of her great charms. Of course, she was coming out of her shell. She'd certainly put far more effort into her appearance this morning that Narcissa had ever seen from her before—Colette had even asked (with obvious embarrassment) for advice about which cosmetic potions to use.

This conversation had brightened Cissy considerable. Clearly she was a positive influence. Her Christmas project was shaping up. By the time Regulus returned from France she was sure her friend would be quite ready to show herself off to full advantage.

What had really been astounding was Aunt Walburga being so indulgent as to let Colette rest on her own in a strange bar before she Flooed back to Grimmauld Place. She'd almost expected her aunt to use Colette taking ill as an excuse to get them out of going up to the castle for a drink—Professor Slughorn preferred his particular store of liquor to anything Madame Rosmerta kept in her bar—but Walburga had taken an unusual firm stance in the matter, insisting they go on without their guest.

Perhaps, Cissy reasoned, her aunt knew that if she didn't honor the old potion master's wishes now she'd be badgered to come back that much sooner. Well, she could understand wanting to get it out of the way.

Yes. The visit was a chore and a duty to be fulfilled, made marginally less interesting by the absence of her friend. Luckily she knew her duty well. She had grown up since that far-off day (not so far off) and knew better than to complain about something as trivial as her feet getting damp in the snow.

When she caught sight of the massive turrets over the hill, even she was struck by the beauty of it.

It was a crying shame that Colette had missed this view of the castle.

Still—there would be other chances. She might one day have children herself at Hogwarts. Narcissa instinctively ran her hand over the her stomach and smiled.

"Shall we warm up with a toddy?" Slughorn asked, as the women bustled into the castle.

As Narcissa politely declined, she hid the small, secret smile under the edge of her cloak's hood.

The first and principle duty of a house-elf was to obey his master's orders.

The enchantment that bound an elf to his family reminded him of this fact constantly—but any elf worth his salt took such pride in serving his people it would never occur to him to do anything else.

It had certainly never occurred to Kreacher. He scorned the very idea.

Kreacher was a good elf.

The second—and no less important—law that governed the life of an elf was that he was bound to keep his master's secrets.

Kreacher understood this well. Like all great and noble families of pure magical blood, Kreacher's family had many secrets, and he considered it his greatest duty to guard them from prying outsiders, all those lowborn and meddling and unworthy. His mistress didn't need to order him anymore. He knew how to hold his tongue.

Discretion and obedience were paramount.

Along with these, there was a third rule, little known to the wizards that ruled over the elves.

They were not meant to know it. For them to know it would defeat its purpose—but for the elves it was an implicit understanding, their lot in life and what distinguished them from mere human (half-blood, mudblood) servants.

No elf could be truly worthy until he knew his master and mistress better than they knew themselves.

Kreacher knew that Master Black rose early and retired late, and that any noise beyond a gentle knock upon his door would make Orion cross and snap at his wife. So, he had learned to keep the children a floor above or below the study after dinner, at the cost of pulled ears and tantrums from at least one of his charges. He knew his Mistress was near-sighted, and so he silently guided her as she did the daily ritual of lighting the lamps, leading with the lightest tug of the hem, using his magic to mould the warped wood to her feet and ensure she never fell.

He would never tell her this. Had she discovered that he did these things, his mistress's pride could not have born it. Mistress would probably give him clothes and send him away in disgrace, but he risked it for her and the family. He watched, he observed. He cared for them—he did all this quietly and obediently.

…Of course, an elf didn't watch every family member, day-after-day, year-after-year, observing and serving and knowing them so well that not a single spoken order need be made for an entire day—and not form opinions.

Kreacher had those, too.

The greatest secret an elf had to guard was his masters' weaknesses. This was a great burden, the weight of which was far more terrible to him than any punishment he had ever had to give himself for lapses in duty.

It pained him to admit it, but even Mistress Black had a weakness—a blindspot that made her lose all reason, and since the day that he had realized what it was the old elf had lived in terrible fear of her enemies discovering it as well.

He had thought they were rid of it three years before.

Kreacher had been wrong.

Now he had to be more watchful than ever, for her sake, guard her more covetously than ever, less she succumb to this weakness. He was bound to do this by his station, and the great responsibility he bore to her. They might know what they wanted—but the wizards could not always be trusted to know what they needed—their needs had to be anticipated. They had to be anticipated.

And, above all, never questioned.

It wasn't an elf's place to wonder why he'd been sent on an errand by his master or mistress—but what elevated a truly great elf from his inferior compatriots was that he could guess the true purpose behind a cryptic order.

"Don't let yourself be seen," Mistress Black had said, resolute. "It will be your job to prevent any…trouble." She had delicately stressed this final word. "If any happens, fetch me immediately."

Kreacher's mistress was clever. She trusted him to understand with no more than this.

Mistress had something in mind, Kreacher thought, as he crouched low in the snow at the outskirts of the village. His mistress always had something in mind.

He watched the solitary figure—the target of his investigation—from behind a rubbish bin.

Why, he couldn't guess. The ways of his mistress were often mysterious.

He was sure that he would come to understand his purpose in time. All he had to do was be watchful.

If he followed the first and second rules of an elf, the value of the third would follow.

The heavy winter cloak—lined with soft white fox fur, one of the many expensive insistences of Madame Battancourt for her trip—was very fashionable and warm, but Colette found the weight of it a bit oppressive ("I look as though my head is stuck in a snow drift, Maman!" she had exclaimed, after trying it on). She longed for a less frigid winter—one that would have allowed her to discard it in favor of a sensible wool gown, like the ones that she usually took out when she was walking about the farm in the snow.

At least with those she didn't trip over the hem and drag it in the sludge.

While the village was as charming as Mrs. Black had insisted it would be when they set out on the excursion this morning, Colette found the stillness in Hogsmeade eerie. There was hardly a soul about—even the pub where they lunched had been mostly empty.

It wasn't a peaceful stillness, either. Strange, so close to Christmas—and Diagon Alley had been much the same, with very few people out doing their shopping. There was an unsettled aspect to it all. Perhaps this was just how England was, she thought, unable to shake off the lingering thought—born from the natural common sense she had, for all her dreaminess, never been able to dislodge—that there was something not right about it. Her mother and father had warned her that England would be different from France, hadn't they?

"Don't they know there's a war on in this country?"

Even in Colette's head his voice was a warm breath tickling her ear. She tucked the thought away to ask her new—her—to ask him, if ever showed up.

He will show up. This was his idea, remember?

Her stomach fluttered—still unsettled from whatever it was that Mrs. Black had given her to drink before they set out, she was sure. She certainly wasn't nervous about this meeting—and she wasn't looking forward to it at all.

A traitorous tendril of rosewater-scented hair brushed against her cheek.

A feeling crept over her—the prickling of the hairs on the back of her hand standing up, followed by the sound of rustling behind. She turned in the direction of the source of the noise.

Colette pulled out her wand slowly.

"Who is it?" The girl tried to keep the nervousness out of her voice. "Who goes there?"

It was silly to be afraid, Colette told herself, as she struggled to keep her fingers from trembling. It was the middle of the day in broad daylight in a village—a little remote, perhaps, but she had sneaked away from chaperones before. It wasn't as though she couldn't—handle herself.

Another rustle—the bin lid fell off, Colette started—and an enormous black dog stuck its head out from behind the trash bin.

Colette dropped her wand hand and sighed. She watched the creature shake the snow off its head, on the verge of laughing at herself. No more than a foolish posture of defense, for her experience of martial magic was so dismal she could scarcely have defended herself against this dog, let alone an actual threat.

"Hello—you startled me, you know."

The dog barked—a single, friendly yip of unmistakable greeting—then trotted over to her.

Colette crouched down low to the ground—but the animal, so friendly a moment before, made no move toward the outstretched hand, ready to pet it. Instead he plopped down in the snow a curiously formal foot away.

"Are you out here all by yourself?"

He blinked and tilted his head, as if to say that she was one to talk. She gave him a suspicious look.

"I am meeting something," Colette informed her canine companion, severely. "Well, I am supposed to be, anyway. Apparently he is often late."

Her furry companion made a whining noise and stood up on all four legs. He jabbed his head (Colette didn't know why she was so sure it was a he, except that there was a distinctly masculine quality of bold insolence—it was the sort of thought that her mother would have called one of her 'flights of fancy') in the direction of a narrow alley at the far end of the street.

The French girl stood up, laughter in her eyes.

"I am sorry, Monsieur Chien." He tugged at her skirt, which she pulled gently away, amused. "I cannot go off with a strange dog that I have not even been introduced to. What would ma mère say?"

The dog let out an unseemly snort and leaned on his back haunches. It was an oddly controlled creature, not at all like the ones they kept on the farm, forever jumping up and running every which way—and so Colette was taken completely off-guard when the beast abruptly sprung up, darted forward and snatched the handle of her purse right out from under her!

She let out an exclamation in French, but the animal was already yards away, sprinting headlong in the direction of the alley.

"Wait a—come back here!"

His head start and natural agility—to say nothing of his four long legs—meant that by the time Colette had realized what had happened, the thief had already run a longer distance than she could ever hope to overtake and disappeared from sight around the corner.

She raced after him, huffing, forgetting all pretense at ladylike behavior (her stockings would be drenched) and hoping that, should she not corner him in the alley and regain her reticule, the horrible creature would get his magnificent snout stuck in a milk bottle.

As she rounded the corner, Colette was overtaken with the fancy to shout this wish at her quarry.

"Get back here, you horrid little—"

Not taking into account the slickness of the ice and her need to correct her speed for it, Colette slipped and skidded and fell—or would have, if a pair of strong and very masculine arms had not been waiting to catch her.

"Easy there," a familiar voice laughed.

Her legs slid backwards, and Colette's cheek—flushed bright red—found itself pressed against a chest, warm through the damp cloak.

Sirius grabbed her arm to keep her from slipping, but she had lost her footing anyway—the only difference was that she had fallen onto him rather than on the ground. Which is only slightly less mortifying.

The French witch righted herself, and tried to smother the disappointing feeling of loss when he let go.

"In a hurry, Miss Battancourt?" Sirius lifted up the strap of her turquoise reticule like a carnival prize. "Or is it 'Miss Vanksdatter' today? It's so difficult to keep track of your different aliases."

Colette snatched the purse out of his hand with rather less grace than she might've done had her rescuer been less smugly self-satisfied.

"You are one to talk!" She harrumphed. "Does—does that dog belong to you?"

She brushed some snow off her cloak, annoyed at how carefree he seemed. He wasn't the least bit ashamed of himself, the rascal!

Though, by the same token, he certainly wasn't making fun of her for her almost-tumble, the way her cousins would have in the same situation.

Sirius grinned, good-naturedly.

"He doesn't belong to anyone. He's a free agent." Today he was wearing robes—or at least, she assumed he was, under his plain black winter cloak. Hadn't he replaced it when he left school? It was two inches too short for him. It gave him a rakish quality, emphasizing how much he still seemed the overgrown schoolboy.

"You're welcome for retrieving your, erm—lost reticule, by the way."

She sniffed.

"Why should I thank you, when I know you are the one who is behind it being pilfered?" Colette shot back, annoyed. "That creature must be a friend of your Mister Fletcher."

"He is, come to think of it." He raised an eyebrow. "Oh, come now. He's not all that bad. Quite the gentleman, in my experience. I'm sure the pilfering was a fluke. He didn't harm you, did he?"

"Non, but—well, I think it is an awful trick," Colette informed him, primly. "To teach an otherwise nice animal to steal from respectable people."

He leaned on the wall of the alley and flexed his hand against the brick, the other languidly dangling his wand above his head. It was at that moment she noticed his gloves—leather and fingerless.

So that had been where that warm feeling on the back of her wrists when he had grabbed her hand had come from.

"'Respectable people' who sneak away from their chaperones?" Sirius asked, as the corner of his mouth turned up. "You should have followed him when he asked."

"Tugging my cloak is hardly asking."

He shrugged, carelessly.

"Sorry you've been waiting around. I couldn't risk showing myself until I was certain your merry party was away."

At the allusion to his mother, however vague, a shadow passed over Sirius's face. It quickly passed, and he pushed up from the wall, looking cheerful. He is prone to changeable moods, then.

She snapped the bag open, making a point of showing she was making sure that his friend the thieving dog hadn't stolen anything out of her purse.

"Did they…see you?"

"Of course not." He pulled something silvery out of the satchel he wore slung on his shoulder—the invisibility cloak. "I know better than that." Sirius looked up from the cloak. "How did you manage to pull off getting away?"

Colette bit the inside of her cheek.

"I—I had to pretend to be ill. That is, I was ill," Colette amended. "But then I…got better."

He frowned—and Colette blushed, for concern suited him better than boyish merriment.

"I don't understand—are you feeling alright?"

"I—I took something—" The confession, once begun, went quickly. "An infusion of bladderwrack and eyebright. During lunch, with the food."

His eyes widened with incredulity as realization dawned.

"That's a fainting draught. You took that? Willingly?" He took a step towards her, obviously concerned. Colette shrank back. "That stuff will put you to sleep for days."

"Not if you take an antidote very quickly," she told him, with the embarrassment of someone more concerned that they've done wrong than by any risk to their health. "They all believed me quite ill, though. I nearly fell over on the table—the patroness of the bar was very kind, and when she gave me a bit of brandy with which to recover myself, I slipped it in, and feel…quite myself again."

Apart from the churning in the stomach, which had less to do with the after effects of the concoction than her fear that he would see through her story.

She could practically see the cogs turning behind his eyes, into the clever workings of his mind. Colette tried to remember what it was her mother had told her about distracting men—something about fluttering the eyelashes?

If I blink too much he will think I have an infection.

Luckily, there was no need for further deception on that score.

"As far as escape plans go, that's…bloody ingenious." Sirius smacked himself in the forehead. "I can't believe I've never thought of doing that—is that a trick you've used before, to play ill?"

Colette wrinkled her nose and shuffled her feet—she felt a little snow seep into her stockings.

"Non…"

It hadn't even been her idea.

"Chew on some of this the second we're out the door." Mrs. Black shoved the mugwort into her reticule without ceremony. "Very slowly, so the juices seep in slowly. You'll have an upset stomach for a little while, but you'll be clear-headed."

She couldn't stop herself from staring up at the matron, star-struck. She was less amazed at Mrs. Black's skills as an apothecary than the matter-of-fact way in which she was describing how Colette should contrive to separate herself from her chaperone—in this case, herself.

"Madame Black, have you…have you done this before?"

The scornful look she got at this impertinent question was its own sort of answer.

"Who taught you that trick?"

"Just a…friend," Colette replied, mysteriously. "She's used it herself. At least, I think so. I do not think she liked it very much when I asked."

Perhaps it was because of their limited history that Sirius let the matter go so easily. He tilted his head to one side.

"Well, whoever she is, she sure knew what she was doing," He said, beckoning her deeper into the alley. Colette followed him, a few steps behind. "Wish I'd known you could play fainting by mixing up as simple a potion as that. I'd have used it to get out of a lot of my mother's boring parties."

He was so busy scaling the boarded up fence they found at the end of the lane Sirius missed the private smile on his companion's face.

"I'm not so sure you'd be able to fool her."

He glanced over his shoulder from his perch at the top of the gate.

"I told you, her catching us night before last was a fluke."

He hopped down and unlatched it from the other side to let her through. Colette wisely refrained from arguing—perhaps the realization that he was not the first member of his family to have the cunning and desire to sneak away from a family excursion was too much for him at present.

"Alright—" He poked his head through the door. Somehow, the gesture looked familiar. "Shall we?"

He waved the silvery cloak in front of himself, like a bullfighter, then in a flash disappeared beneath it.

"Just to be safe," Sirius's disembodied voice said. "Follow me, eh?"

"How am I supposed to—"

A hand, gently wrapped in fine cloth, invisible to the touch—grasped her wrist.

"Like this."

She nodded, slowly—trusting that he could see her, at least.

The young Monsieur Black—for, however often he might tell her to call him by his given name, she could not yet bring herself to use the familiarity, at least out loud—chattered softly as he lead her through the village, with only the invisible and gentle tug on her wrist to guide her. There was scarcely a spot in Hogsmeade not associated with an amusing anecdote ("The woman who runs that coffee house is an utter twat!" "I do know that word." "Probably for the best.") His colorful commentary about each spot they passed was very different from his mother and cousin's relation of the history of the village—but it was far more interesting.

"This is the joke shop I was once given a lifetime ban from. Some people have a very different idea of what constitutes 'disorderly conduct.'"

"It would appear Gambol and Japes gave you what the Orpheum never would," she observed, dryly, as they passed the shuttered windows. Yet another shop closed for the holidays. She was about to ask him about it, when he continued—

"Fair point. I suppose I should have tried to incite a riot in the theatre, that would have done the trick. It's what the shop assistant in there accused me of. And all because they'd run out of frogspawn tablets. Did I mention I was thirteen when this all took place?"

"It must've slipped your mind."

Colette was so distracted by his engaging stories that she forgot her self-consciousness—she was not worried about the few passerbys they met thinking she was touched in the head for talking to herself—and she lost track of where they were going—so much so that when they reached the evident final destination and Sirius released her hand and removed the invisibility cloak, she scarcely knew where they were.

"They warned you about this place, didn't they?"

She stared up at the building, situated on a lonely knoll in the outskirts of the town. A shabby outfit, from the outside—architecturally speaking it was what her grandmother would describe as a 'slap-dash job'—and all boarded up.

"Where are we? What is this?"

"The secret to how we're getting into the castle—without running into—you-know-who." Sirius grimaced. "They call it the 'Shrieking Shack'."

Her face lit up.

"Oh yes—yes, I heard the stories." Colette turned back, more eagerly. "It is supposed to be a very haunted building, non?"

"Emphatically non." He grinned one of his secret grins. She was fast becoming used to them, and rather than being annoyed, Colette only found herself wanting in on the joke. "Alas—it's not haunted at all. People only think it is."

"Narcissa told me about it." She frowned. "Your mother didn't seem to put much stock in the rumors. Nor did Professor Slughorn."

"Yes, well—he knows better." He changed the subject, abruptly. "Want to see inside?"

She looked back up at the ramshackle building, more uneasy now.

"If it is not haunted, I cannot see what would be of interest in such a drafty place."

He laughed.

"Well, I suppose you'll just have to find out, won't you?" He lifted up one arm in a theatrical pose, gesturing towards the roughly-hewn steps that lead up to the Shack.

Colette hesitated.

"What's the matter—don't you trust me?"

He had been in his element all afternoon, ever since he stepped out of the fireplace of the Hog's Head. It had bolstered the natural confidence—the confidence flagging of late, to meet her here, and he was sure she was charmed and disarmed by his stories—as all girls must be, in the end. Sirius leaned back on his heels, fully expecting a quip—the usual line birds gave him about Sirius being shifty, who could trust a face like that, a tongue as fast as he was—

"With my life."

When Colette Battancourt spoke, with that clear-eyed, simple frankness he had still not gotten used to—an honesty that bordered on painful—Sirius felt the impact of her words like a sharp blow to the stomach. He was sure they were not intended that way—that the solemness with which Colette pronounced them was natural, for they were followed by a puzzled look, as if she couldn't quite understand why he'd asked the question.

It doesn't occur to her not to.

Sirius realized, in that moment, what he'd found—a completely guileless, trusting soul.

The revelation was not a comforting one.

"So, when you say—'very pressing need for cover', Sirius—am I to always assume you've got a date?" Remus watched him with the world-weariness of a man at least fifteen years his senior. "Just checking."

"For the last time, this is official Order business," Sirius said, stuffing his cloak in his bag. It wouldn't do to get his new leather jacket wet with snow—anyway, Scotland would be freezing. If the cloak was a bit small, well—it was better than wearing one of Orion's dusty cast-offs. "I have an appointment with Albus Dumbledore."

"Yes—in four hours." Sirius blew air through his lips, dismissively. "He asked me to come here and cover for you, first. Does he know you've been avoiding this flat like the plague for days?"

Sirius snapped the bag shut and looked up.

"Listen, Moony." He stuffed a brightly-colored crisp packet in his pockets. "You didn't have to come. You've could've ignored the owl, and then I'd have called Lily and been spared this rather tedious lecture."

"The only reason you didn't is you know James will have realized the cloak is gone by now, and he'll want to know why you've taken it."

Sirius dropped his bag and cloak in one rather dramatic heap on floor. Remus, long inured to the effects of his friend's temper tantrums, watched the display impassively.

"Remus—I don't know if you've noticed this, but I'm having a bit of a crap week."

Lupin sighed.

"I've noticed." His smile was thin and forced. "You're not exactly good at hiding that sort of thing."

Sirius pulled a cigarette out from his sleeve and stuck it, unlit, into the corner of his mouth.

"Understanding that—and knowing many of the unfortunate circumstances surrounding said crap week—I was thinking maybe you could work your way around to cutting me a bit of slack."

Sirius raised his wand and singed the tip of the fag, inhaled and exhaling a curling ring of smoke. He had shown the trick to Lupin when they were fifteen.

Remus was less impressed with it now.

"Sirius—"

"I need this, alright?" He snapped, losing his temper. "I need to get out of here. I need to—blow off some steam."

"I'm…sympathetic." Lupin carefully chose his next words. "It's just—how you've decided to achieve that which gives me…pause."

"Just spit it out."

Remus paused.

"I don't think you going to meet this girl is a very good idea."

"If it makes you feel better, she agrees with you."

Oddly enough, if it didn't seem to comfort Sirius's friend.

"If you want to let off some steam—" He collapsed on the sofa. "Just…make up with James, take the night off and get blasted."

The look Sirius fixed his friend with was rather cool.

"This is a change!" Sirius took another long drag, savoring the taste of cheap tobacco and the smell that would surely stir his mother's ire the next time she was in here. Hopefully it would reek of the stuff by then. "You must think I'm in a bad way, to suggest always say I drink too much and am very unpleasant when I do."

The difficult thing about their friendship—that friendship that was, in many ways, the most difficult of any of them—was that Remus only ever worked up the nerve to stand up to Sirius when a hard truth needed to be said, and his friend had such a natural gift for cut-downs that it only made Lupin less likely to do it in future.

The law of diminishing friendship.

"Better that than corrupting some poor witch staying with your parents."

Sirius let out an ungentlemanly snort.

"'Corrupting'? Merlin, you sound like my mother." Sirius rolled his eyes. "I'm not corrupting her. For your information, I'm rescuing her from a loveless marriage with a Death Eater."

"Well—ex-Death Eater, in one case." Lupin winced a little at the glare Sirius gave him. "You did say it was Rabastan or Regulus she was told to go for."

Sirius was beginning to regret telling him anything—except information had been all he had in return for the myriad of favors Remus had done him in the last few days, and when push came to shove, Moony was a good listener.

And so, Remus now knew—if not everything, most everything. Sirius had made a point of keeping out all details that concerned him, at any rate.

It was better Moony not know what he suspected his father did.

"An arranged marriage with either a Death Eater or a git," Sirius amended, briskly. "Six of one, half dozen of the—"

"—You know very well squiring her around behind your Mum's back is a bad idea." Lupin stood up.

"Since when has that ever stopped me before?"

"She was staying with Malfoy as his wife's personal guest before she was staying with your parents." He sighed. "Even James would agree with me you're playing with dire."

His mouth twisted up—the smile strained.

"You're taking this all too seriously," Sirius informed him, breezily. "The whole thing is just a—lark. A harmless bit of fun."

"If it were a harmless bit of fun, you wouldn't be so keen to do it."

The observation stung. Sirius turned around—expression sharpened. It was a look his friend knew well—a sign of his lightning temper, barely controlled.

"Why are you so defensive of this bird, anyway? You don't even know her."

"I know you." Remus cleared his throat. "A lot better than she does. I know what you're like around women—and I know how they are around you."

"Jealous, Remus?"

"Who wouldn't be?" Lupin's face was pale beneath his fringe—the dark circles around his eyes aged him. "For once I'm more worried about you, than her. Don't you have enough on your plate without managing a fling—never mind the company she's been keeping?"

"I told you, it's not like that." He adjusted his hair in the mirror. "It's not…personal. She's not my type. "

"You're every girl's type." He cleared his throat, significantly. "And you know what I meant. "

The flat had already been stifling—Regulus had shut himself up in the bath an hour ago (theoretically he was going to run one, though Sirius hadn't heard it. Was this a new and creative way for his younger brother to express displeasure with him—staging a toilet sit-in?)

Sirius let out a long and turned around to face his friend. Better to throw Remus a bone—rare though it was, when something was on Moony's mind, he could be annoyingly tenacious about it.

He didn't miss the fish-wife lectures from their dormitory days.

"You want to know the truth—the real reason I'm doing this?" He stubbed his cigarette against the ash tray. "I feel sorry for her. She's about to her throw her life away, and I'm the only one who's bollocksed to show her she's got another choice. Anyone in my position would do the same."

"Yeah, we've got budding knight errant out our ears, these days."

"So cynical, Moony." Sirius tutted. "Doesn't suit you."

Remus watched him toss the cigarette carelessly on the floor and stamp it—an elegant gesture—effective, in its way.

"Does this really have nothing to do with pissing off your mum?"

"For fuck's sake, why can't it be both?"

Sirius slung his bag on his shoulder and crossed the room to the door. All he wanted was to put as much distance between himself and Remus as possible, to leave before Moony got a chance to change his mind again. He felt penned in, shut up—constrained, but all he could think was that this was yet another person in his life he'd managed to piss off.

He could count the number he hadn't on a thumb.

"It's good to know you think so little of me." He wrenched the door open. "Since you seem to share my dad's opinions, why don't you go have a chat with him? You were keen yesterday. I give you permission to skive off. You can pay him a visit in his lair."

"Siri—!"

He'd slammed the door shut before Remus could even finish the word.

The glimpse he'd gotten of Moony's face told all the story he needed. His friend would probably offer to watch the flat for a week, after that—Remus collapsed like a house of cards, when push came to shove. Sirius couldn't bring himself to regret what he'd said, all the same.

"You shouldn't hold yourself so cheaply, Ms. Battancourt."

The seriousness of an oath when he had been expecting light flirtation had taken him aback, and he felt himself drawing away—consciously. The whole idea of it—what he had told Remus less two hours before he needed—the hand held out, the mock-courtly mannerisms, the play-game they were engaged in all seemed colossally stupid in that moment. He had an immediate sense of displacement, of not understanding how he'd gotten there, what he thought he was doing.

Then she smiled at him, and he remembered.

"I don't." The shocking blue eyes widened. "I think no harm will come to me when I am with you, that is all. What's odd about that?"

I lied to you about who I was, Colette. I've been lying to you the entire time we've known each other.

"Only that you have more faith in me than my closest friends."

The crease between her eyes furrowed, and Sirius felt a stab of guilt for being the cause of that distortion. It made her look older—somewhere along the way to world-weary, and the last thing he wanted to take from her was her innocence.

"I doubt that is true, Monsieur Black."

"I—" He ran his hand through his hair. "Maybe not. I only meant…" He forced a smile. "Well, you said it yourself—since we've known each other, all I've done is deceive you. And yet, you still showed up today…"

She pursed her lips, accentuating that puzzled expression which suited her delicate features.

"Well, you had your reasons…" Colette twisted a tendril of hair around her finger. "And—I believe you truly wish to make amends for your abominable fibs."

Sirius laughed.

"Has anyone ever told you you're too trusting, Miss Battancourt?"

She crinkled her nose.

"Only all my family." Her eyes sparkled mischievously. "If you ask me, there is no such thing."

"That does it." Sirius grasped Colette's hand and pulled her along up the path. "We're going through with this—if for no other reason than a week spent in my company should be just enough time to teach you not to believe a word I say."

"Do you expect me to lose faith in you, the longer I know you?"

"Everyone does."

Colette laughed—a high, tinkling sound, like a clear bell at the break of dawn.

Sirius liked the sound. It was fresh, unaffected—and he intuitively understood that she would not have laughed like that for anyone.

"Perhaps you should consider whether or not you are encouraging them in that."

He stifled a laugh and increased the pressure on her hand.

A pure soul, as untouched as the snow that surrounded the rickety building she was following him into.

"What do your friends call you, Colette?"

"By my name—which I have not yet given you permission to use," she reminded him, saucily.

"Oh, that's right." A pause. "Well—how about nicknames? What do you think of 'Lettie'?"

"It's very impertinent."

He winked.

"We'll work on it. Can't give an authoress a name she doesn't like."

Heart lightened, Sirius pulled the door open with another laugh—relishing in how far outside of the village they were, and the feeling of freedom—however illusory it might be.

He was so engrossed, he didn't notice the rustle in the bushes, or the familiar pair of tufted ears peaking out of the bushes near the shack as they entered.

Happy Halloween! Sorry there's not spookier content in this chapter (unless House Elf as chaperone is considered spooky.) As always, comments appreciated.