Valentine's Day, 1979

With the arrival of February came a blizzard that assailed London with blustery wind and flurries. The fairytale blanket of snowfall quickly dirtied, and sidewalk traffic flattened it into an icy slush that matched the cold grey stone so well that it was not the first time Sirius had accidentally trod off the sidewalk into a pit of icy water and had to magic himself dry again.

"Shit," he hissed as it happened for the second time just that week on his way to cross the street for the Leaky Cauldron. He tightened his grip on the bouquet of roses he carried in the crook of one arm to keep it from slipping, and waited until he had made it inside, away from prying Muggle eyes, before withdrawing his wand and hissing a drying spell between curses, drying his pant leg, socks, and shoes, but not warming the skin beneath. Gripping his toes to fight off the numbness that had set in with the shock, he crossed the pub to the bar, ordered a Firewhiskey, and took it to a booth in the corner near the windows.

He sat with a view of the door, and placed his wand on the bench beside him, free from the confines of his robes should he need it in a hurry.

Safety assured, he took to his Firewhiskey, resisting the urge to down it in one and order another, his eyes shifting every few seconds from the front door to the back entrance that led to Diagon Alley.

The bar was fairly empty, as it was close to eleven in the morning, and lunchgoers had not begun to trickle in. A few bleary-eyed wizards sat at a far table playing a game of gobstones, and there was one chatty pair of middle aged witches surrounded by shopping bags in their booth.

Sirius sipped his drink as the minutes ticked by, glancing up every time anyone entered the pub or descended from the rooms to let upstairs. In his letter he had written that he would be in the pub at noon on Valentine's Day, but after a sleepless night he had grown too restless to wait at home, and arrived an hour early. There was always a chance, he had reasoned, that Mariah felt as anxious as he did, and would show up early as well. 'Or not at all,' he thought traitorously.

After his talk with Remus he had given Mariah space through the holidays following the wedding, but had spent January strategizing. After many rehearsal conversations with both Lily and James playing the part of Mariah, he had composed a letter – again, checked for empathy by Lily and James – where he had formally declared his intentions, promised to change, and set up a meeting. Valentine's Day, noon, he would wait for her in the Leaky Cauldron, and if she did not come, he would take it to mean their relationship was officially over for good, and leave her alone.

Pushing his doubts out of his mind, he tried to be patient.

After about an hour he ordered another drink, draining this one a little faster. It was after noon, and the pub was crowded. More than a few people shot him dirty looks when he refused to give up his booth. The crowd was thick with couples fawning over each other, surprising each other with gifts, holding hands, and kissing. Sirius felt suddenly as though his bold decision to meet on Valentine's Day may have cursed his chances. Of course she wouldn't leap back into a relationship with him just because it was Valentine's Day. She'd want to have a long conversation full of boundary-setting and short term goals. He should have invited her to meet him at home.

But then she would not have come to his home, he reasoned. It would have sounded as though he was just trying to get her into bed. No, it was better that they meet on neutral ground, with no promises, just to test the waters.

Another hour passed. Maybe her shift had run long, he reasoned. She was always working overtime when they were together. Sirius pictured her windswept harried expression when she had arrived home late. He had been frustrated. It had been another evening they planned to spend together, and her lateness had become a regular occurrence. But he wished for it now, along with her, 'Sorry, sorry' explanations, which almost always involved some grotesque malformation of a patient who had not been able to find the entrance and frightened several Muggles before they had admitted them.

At two he bought a sandwich, started his fourth drink, and began to think carefully. He had not been sure of his timing, but some cursory surveillance – he had quickly eschewed the word 'stalking' – had told him that Mariah's hours generally had her working late into the evening, which meant that she would need to stop home to eat in the early afternoon before heading back to work. He had sat outside St. Mungo's as a dog on the same day each week to make sure, but there was always a chance her schedule had destabilized since. She was still living at the Leaky Cauldron, part of why he had requested they meet there, and if he stayed long enough there would be no reason to worry. She would have to appear eventually.

The lunch rush ebbed, and the Leaky Cauldron sat nearly empty once more. Sirius grabbed an abandoned Daily Prophet from another table and a fifth drink and spent the next few hours reading. It was still strange to see the Prophet's trite ads for Sleekeazy's Hair Potion and Gladrags Wizardwear next to headlines increasingly full of deaths and disappearances. He read a short article about an anti-Muggle rally that had resulted in the hospitalization of several pro-Muggle witches and wizards, mostly Muggle-born. 'What if Mariah was at that rally?' he thought idly, a pang of anxiety gripping him. No, Mariah didn't go to rallies. She worked through her worries at St. Mungo's. The thought didn't make him feel much better, but he closed the paper and ordered another drink, eyeing the clock above the bar. It was well near dinner time.

So that was it.

Sirius felt his nervousness flush away with the sudden influx of pure, dark hopelessness. After all that– all of their time at Hogwarts growing closer, their all too brief relationship that had solidified their feelings for each other– all of that was over. Just like that. No matter how hard he was willing to try to fix it. He'd thought they had a chance still, but apparently Mariah saw no hope at all for them. It had all been for nothing.

Sirius drank the new glass he was given in one, slamming it back on the bar. He tossed a few sickles the barman's way and headed for the door.

"Oy, your roses!" called the barman as he moved to leave the pub.

"Keep them. Happy Valentine's Day," said Sirius unenthusiastically, stepping out again into the cold, grey world.

Not knowing what to do with himself, he ducked into a nearby alley and Disapparated, reappearing in another alley across from a large, closed brick department store named Purge and Dowse Ltd, which he knew to be the entrance to St. Mungo's Hospital. He transformed behind a bin and curled up where he would be safe from the chilly gusts of wind, watching the entrance sullenly. If they were truly over, he wanted one last look at Mariah before he left her alone forever, as he had stupidly promised.

'What would that look like?' he wondered. A world without Mariah. A world on his own.

Well he had tried, for a moment anyway, to explore that world over the holidays. Christmas with Lily and James in their new home, work with the Order, drinks with Peter and Remus. He had even tried a blind date on James's suggestion, meeting up with a very sultry blonde witch in a pub on New Year's Eve who had him pressed against the wall of the ladies' room with her tongue down his throat within the hour. But it had left him with a bad taste in his mouth, and he'd left her to wander tipsily out of Diagon Alley into Muggle London alone, eventually dipping into a pub he and Mariah had once visited together.

One of the first things they had done together as a couple was visit the Muggle world. Mariah had wanted to make it as authentic as possible, but Sirius had insisted on bringing his wand for safety, which had led to some interesting questions when he had accidentally dropped it on the floor of the movie theater and shot sparks into a woman's hair. Although Mariah had managed to quickly extinguish her before she could notice by pouring the rest of her Coke onto her head, they'd still been booted from the theater before the end of the movie. But the rest of their date had been spent laughing about it, without resentment.

His only exposure to the Muggle world before then had been with James when they were younger, sneaking into London clubs and concerts, but he had felt like a tourist, an imposter. But Mariah was Muggle-born, and experiencing the world with her had felt different. It had been an adventure into an unknown world, still, but it had also felt like exploring a small, unknown piece of Mariah's inner world, at the same time.

He had found out pretty quickly that she was reluctant to talk about her home life in the wake of her father's funeral, which suited him because he had no desire to take any trips down his own memory lane into that dark, moldy house where he had been trapped for seventeen years being groomed against his will to take over one day. But he could not help being curious about her life in the Muggle world, and they had found a balance exploring together, Mariah explaining things Sirius had always wondered about, and Sirius listening to Mariah talk about things she had loved and missed. After so many years walking the same halls and living the same routine, it had been eye-opening to experience another life together, far different from the one they'd lived for the past seven years. Like meeting each other for the first time, or seeing each other again after a long time apart.

Sirius readjusted his position against the cold ground and laid his head on his paws, watching the entrance to St. Mungo's despondently. If he was truly honest with himself, he wasn't even sure he could stay away without closure. Even if Mariah didn't show up, he knew too much about her. He could sense her every hour of the day, where she was, where she was going to next. He didn't think he could just stop caring because she had missed their date. He needed to say goodbye.

Drawing himself up back into a man, Sirius crossed purposefully across the street, listing a little to the left as the daydrinking caught up to him. His foot slipped in another murky glacial puddle and he cursed, not bothering to dry his leg this time as he mounted the sidewalk and eyed one of the mannequins behind the large glass window.

"I'm here to see Mariah Jaeger," he said. The mannequin cocked its head to one side, then shook its head very slightly. Sirius balked, incredulous. "Let's try this again, I'm here to see Mediwizard Jaeger on a personal call." The mannequin shook its head again, and Sirius raised his eyebrows. "She's had me barred from the hospital? Are you kidding me?" The mannequin did not move.

Any solemnity Sirius had been feeling had vanished. With a half-formed idea in his mind, he walked to the brick part of the store and punched the wall as hard as he could, letting out a loud cry of pain as his knuckles split open on the stone and at least one of his fingers cracked. He walked back to the mannequin, holding his injured hand tightly in his other hand.

"I've been injured, let me in," he hissed between clenched teeth. The mannequin issued a small nod, and he stepped forward through the glass.

The reception area was crowded, and Sirius took in enough cases of bitten, trapped, or severed ring fingers – as well as a number of men, too, holding bags of unmelting ice and pillows over their groin areas – to realize that Valentine's Day was a busy day for the hospital. The queue to see the Welcome Witch was thankfully short, and he stood behind a very singed woman as she described the explosive cauldron mishap that had put an end to her attempts to brew Amortentia. Once she had been referred to the third floor, he stepped forward.

"I'm looking for Mariah Jaeger, she's a mediwizard here," he said, sucking his teeth against the throbbing pain in his knuckles.

"Mediwizard? Let me check the schedule," said the Welcome Witch, licking her finger and shuffling a stack of parchment. "Ah, Jaeger. She's not here, today."

"Well can you let me know when her next shift is? It's urgent," said Sirius.

"Looks like she's been out five days without leave, so I couldn't tell you. To be honest, I don't think she'll be here much longer if she keeps this up," said the Welcome Witch, muttering the last bit under her breath. Sirius frowned.

"What do you mean she's been out five days?" he asked. The witch shrugged.

"That's what the schedule says, love. Is that all?"

Sirius held up his bleeding hand. "Ward for this?"

The Welcome Witch sighed, pulled out her own wand, and rapped it hard across his broken knuckles. He cried out in protest, but his skin and bones sewed themselves back into place, leaving barely a mark behind.

"Cheers," he grunted, grimacing.

"Anytime, love. Next!" called the Welcome Witch, as Sirius left the queue and walked back out of the hospital.

The wind hit him outside like an icy fist, and he pulled his robes tighter, rummaging in his pockets for his wand as his leg went numb in his frozen pant leg. He muttered a drying spell, feeling the icy grip ease on his skin as his mind raced.

Five days.

Sirius walked back towards the alley across the street, thinking. He had not seen her since the wedding, but he had kept tabs on her as recently as January, to make sure of her schedule before mailing her the letter. And Lily had only just seen her for a girls' night a few weeks prior.

Maybe she was ill, he thought, with a small rush of hope. If she was ill that would explain why she had missed their meeting. Perhaps she had not meant to miss it at all, and was merely lying upstairs too sick to move.

Sirius drew his wand and Disapparated the moment he vanished from view inside the alleyway, reappearing in Diagon Alley behind the brick back-entrance to the Leaky Cauldron. He tapped the bricks in order and stepped back into the room in which he'd spent the entire day.

"Back already?" said Tom the bartender, raising an eyebrow. "Another whiskey?"

"Actually, Tom, I was wondering if I could possibly run up and check on a friend of mine staying here. I think she might be ill. Could you tell me which room she's in? Mariah Jaeger?" said Sirius, leaning on the bar. Tom frowned.

"If she's your friend how come you don't know what room she's in?" he asked. Sirius gave him a flat look.

"Could you check then?" he asked. Tom eyed him ruefully.

"I do owe my customers their privacy if they pay for it," he said. Sirius rummaged in his pocket and slapped a sickle on the bar.

"And what if I pay for it?" he asked. Tom regarded him evenly for a moment, then slipped the sickle neatly off of the bar into his pocket.

"No need to check, she's not here," he said.

"Not here?" repeated Sirius.

"Aye, stepped out a week ago to Diagon Alley and didn't come back. She's paid up the month so I didn't pay it mind, but I'll have to empty her room if she's not back come the 28th," said Tom.

"Did she say where she was going?" asked Sirius.

"No, but rarely do the boarders give me an excuse for their comings and goings. When they go out for long stretches like this'un, I usually chalk it up to business trips or elopements," said Tom. Sirius stared.

"Elopements?" he repeated. Tom shrugged. "Could you let me in her room?" asked Sirius quickly. Tom raised both of his eyebrows.

"And what kind of innkeeper would that make me, letting strangers into boarders' rooms?" he said. Sirius withdrew another sickle and slid it forward. Tom pocketed it without looking. "Right this way," he said, letting himself out from behind the bar and leading the way up the stairs.

Tom slid a small keyring out of one pocket and unlocked the third door down the hall, holding the door for Sirius.

"Five minutes," he said. Sirius glared at him, and Tom held out his hand expectantly. Sirius fingered the coins left in his pocket and mentally weighed the remainder of Alphard's money in his bank account that he had burned an increasingly large hole through since his disownment.

"Fine," said Sirius. Tom's grin vanished, and he dropped his hand, closing the door behind Sirius.

Sirius looked around the room. The bed was unmade, and there were robes and shoes lying haphazardly across the wooden floor. He spotted an envelope sitting open on the nighttable and flipped it over. His own handwriting stared back at him. So she'd read it.

'And not thrown it in the fire,' he thought, looking around at the fireplace where a small cauldron hung. He walked over to it. The wood had burnt to ash and gone out, and a ginger touch told him the cauldron was stone cold. Sirius peered over its rim and saw a thick blue potion motionless inside.

The potion bothered him the most. A layer of dust had settled on the surface of the thick mixture. Mariah never left her potions unfinished, or her cauldrons dirty. 'Any cross contamination could cause it to become unstable, or poisonous,' she had told him once when she'd been washing her cauldron in between batches of Dreamless Sleep potion and Draught of Peace. They'd needed both on a regular basis after their Graduation.

A thought occurred to him and he returned to the hallway immediately, nearly hitting Tom with the door on his way out.

"Where's your fireplace?" he barked, heading down the stairs ahead of the barman, who was quickly locking the door to Mariah's room again, indignant at being ordered around.

Directed to a large roaring fire in the middle of the pub, Sirius grabbed a handful of Floo powder and threw it into the flames. He stepped inside as they turned an acid green, shouting an address against the smoke and ash that swirled around him, and was pulled away from the Leaky Cauldron.

He emerged on hands and knees from a very small fireplace into a small, shabby apartment, stamping off the majority of the ash onto a small mat laid before the hearth. The kitchen was not more than a sink, an icebox, and a small oven stove set into the wall next to a bar and some stools. A bed lay on the far side of the bar, completing the apartment.

"Remus!" barked Sirius, and he heard a groan from the closed door to his right. A faucet ran, then stopped, and Remus emerged a second later, face and hair wet, looking irritated.

"Couldn't you have knocked?" he said.

"Came through the Floo. I have to ask you something," said Sirius. "Were you sleeping in the bathtub?" he added, eyeing the still-made bed.

"What is it?" asked Remus, ignoring the bait. Sirius glanced behind him and took note of a number of bottles on the floor of the bathroom.

"Have you gotten your potion from Mariah this month?" he asked. Remus pursed his lips a little but shook his head.

"Not yet," he said. "Why?"

"Well when was the last time you saw her?"

"Last week," said Remus, his flat expression sinking into a frown. "Why? What's going on?" Sirius ran his hands down his face.

"So I've just been to meet with her for, like trying to talk things out, right? And she didn't show. I waited hours. So I go to her work – I know, I know, I said I'd leave her alone, I'm weak, whatever, forget it," he interjected, seeing Remus's eyebrow arch. "Anyway, they said she hasn't been in for five days without leave. So I go to the Leaky Cauldron – she told me that one at the wedding, calm down! I'm not stalking her," interjected Sirius again as Remus rolled his eyes. "Point is, Tom said she hasn't been there in a week either! And he's banging on about elopements, so I bribe him to let me in –"

"Sirius," said Remus, scoffing. "Leave her alone! If she didn't show up it means she doesn't want to see you! You promised to respect that!"

"I knooow! Just hear me out, please!" said Sirius loudly. "Her stuff's all still there, no one's made the bed, and she has half a potion collecting dust in the fireplace. I have never seen Mariah abandon a potion halfway through."

"Well maybe she went on holiday and just forgot to tell anyone, you know how she can be all over the place sometimes," said Remus. Sirius did not believe this option at all, but shrugged to appease Remus enough to get to his next point.

"Okay, maybe, but remind me, what color is that potion she gives you?"

"Blue," said Remus slowly. Sirius raised his eyebrows.

"So was this one. That's a really precise potion, right? Takes a few weeks to brew it correctly? She wouldn't just leave it sitting out, especially if she knew you were counting on it. She might hate me right now, but you two are thick as thieves, still, right?" Remus said nothing. Sirius was pacing now. "And the witch at St. Mungo's said she might be sacked for missing so much time. Does that sound like Mariah to you?"

"I don't know, maybe she…" started Remus, but he broke off in a sigh. "No, it doesn't." Sirius clenched his fist triumphantly.

"I think something's happened to her," he said. "Look, you were the last person to see her. Did she say anything like...was she meeting with anyone...was she seeing anyone?" he asked, his heart leaping a little bit into his throat. Remus moved to the bed and sat down with a sigh, resting his forearms on his knees.

"No, nothing like that," he said. Sirius felt a small rush of elation. His heart was pounding. He hadn't been stood up after all. He continued to pace, working the problem as he moved.

"Did she let on at all if she was going to those protests?" he asked.

"She never said anything about going, but I know she was worried about them," said Remus. "Look, Sirius, we need to tell Dumbledore about this, if you really think she's...been taken, or something."

"No," said Sirius sharply.

"Why not?" said Remus, frowning.

"Because what's he going to do? He's going to tell us to stay put while he does his own investigation. He'll put Mad-Eye on it and we'll have a hell of a time getting information out of him once he's started. And you were the one who said I shouldn't take Dumbledore's shit anymore being his puppet, anyway."

"Yeah, but I didn't mean it like this," said Remus, but Sirius had moved on.

"Did she say anything unusual? Did anything seem like she was about to deviate from her routine?"

"No, but–"

"Well, then what did you talk about?" pressed Sirius, a little frenzied. He was at a level of energy Remus was not rising to match, and it was maddening.

"Calm down, Sirius, please," said Remus, putting a hand over his eyes. Sirius frowned. Was he hungover? Remus blew out his breath, thinking before he spoke. "We talked about the registration, job stuff, we talked about the potion, and how it was working out. She'd tried to get a few ingredients from St. Mungo's to save money, but they're pretty strict on their stock. Some of the ingredients are pretty pricey, but she said she could cover it. I was planning to sell some of Dad's old things to try to help pay." Remus was speaking more to himself now, mulling over the details like a verbal to-do list. Sirius felt a surge as an idea sparked.

"Where do you buy these ingredients?" he asked. Remus was drawn out of his thought process.

"Oh...Apothecary, Slug & Jiggers, maybe Knockturn Alley if neither of them have the right ingredients."

"Knockturn Alley?" repeated Sirius.

"Yeah she mentioned once that there was a pharmacy in Knockturn that without fail had the ingredients in stock, but that the owner was shifty," said Remus. "So she tried not to go if she could help it."

"So when you saw her she hadn't bought all of the ingredients yet?" asked Sirius. Remus nodded. Sirius felt a leap of hope. "Tom said she stepped into Diagon Alley when she left the last time. Maybe someone there saw her."


"That's two down," said Sirius, as the door to the Apothecary closed behind them with a small jingle of the shop bell. It was late, and the shopkeeper had been eager to get them out so he could close up, but he had admitted to having seen Mariah the previous Friday.

"Aconite was out of stock, and she was a bit put out," he'd said, eyeing Remus's many scars with some suspicion.

"Are you sure she didn't just pack up and leave?" asked Peter as they headed in the direction of Knockturn Alley. Sirius rolled his eyes for the eighth time.

"If she'd left she wouldn't have left all her things behind," he said. "Trust me, she's very adept at packing."

"So why are we trying so hard to find her if you're broken up, anyway?" asked Peter.

"How's the new job, Wormtail?" asked Remus quickly, as Sirius quickened his pace to walk a few steps ahead of them. They'd run into Peter as he left the Owl Post job he'd gotten the previous week through a family connection, and Remus had asked him to come to divert some of Sirius's manic energy, saying that more eyes wouldn't hurt the search, but he was already starting to regret his decision. His hangover had grown increasingly aggravated ever since Sirius had dragged him through the Floo network, and Peter's questions were making it worse. Peter sighed.

"Well Mum said it'd be easy for me to pick up, and it is, but the problem's the owls. They've had it out for me since day one. I can't go near 'em without a treat or they'll peck the shit out of my fingers." He held up a bandaged hand for emphasis. "And I'd always thought the Owl Post owls were supposed to be good with people."

"I suppose," said Remus absently, watching Sirius forge ahead through the evening traffic of late shoppers heading back the way they'd come for dinner. Peter was watching them with some wistfulness.

"D'you suppose we should grab a bite before we go to Knockturn Alley?" he asked, eyeing a food stall selling candied nuts.

"You're always thinking about your stomach," said Remus. "Where are all your watch snacks?"

"Ate 'em already," said Peter dully. "It's thrown off my whole schedule, being put on watch so often, and now I'm just hungry all the time. Watch is so boring. I mean what's so important about the big old empty houses, anyway? You all get real missions and I'm always stuck watching someone's vacation home. I'd like to do something really important, for once, you know?"

"Don't worry, Pete, someday you'll be important," said Sirius, rounding into Knockturn Alley. Remus caught his eye for a split second and gave him a look. He clapped Peter on the back reassuringly.

"Just remember, you can do something nobody else can do," he said.

"What?" asked Peter.

"Be truly stealthy," said Remus, raising an eyebrow. Peter looked a little happier.

"Wish we could tell Dumbledore that we're Anim–" Remus and Sirius both shushed him and he cut off. "I just mean, maybe then he'd assign me the good missions," he finished.

"But then the Ministry would have tabs on you. Not very good for a spy," said Remus. Peter nodded absently, acquiescing the point.

"Here it is," said Sirius, ducking into a shop on the left named Mr. Mulpepper's Apothecary. Remus and Peter followed him inside.

There was no bell on the door, but the hinges creaked so badly that any arrival would be announced just as well. Mulpepper's was smaller than the Apothecary in Diagon Alley, but as Remus glanced at the labels on a few of the potions lining the windows he was mildly impressed. Mulpepper's sold ready-made anti-venoms and other healing potions, as well as ingredients normally out of stock at the other apothecary. Initially, he had been a little surprised to hear Mariah shopped here, but their stock made him see the appeal.

Mr. Mulpepper himself emerged from a back room a few moments after the door had shut, and Sirius withdrew the photo he had been using from his pocket.

"Sorry to bother you so late, but have you seen this witch?" he asked with the same phrasing he had used at the other apothecaries.

"Maybe so," said Mulpepper, scratching at his scraggly chin as he squinted at the photo. "What's it to you?" Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Just have you seen her or not, please," he said. Mulpepper took the photo and held it up closer to his face.

"Yeah, she comes in here every once in a while. Pretty routine shopping list." His eyes drifted over the scratches and scars on Sirius's exposed forearm, then over at Remus, who averted his eyes and tried to peruse the other ingredients with his back turned. He knew the purchase of aconite – wolfsbane, or monkshood – was telling, as it was mainly used in conjunction with lycanthropy. It had been easier to explain the numerous scars and scratches on his body when he'd been a child, but now that he was older he often found himself under shrewder analysis.

"When was the last time you saw her?" asked Sirius. Mulpepper blew through his lips, thinking.

"Must've been...Friday last?" he said. "She came in, bought her usual, and left."

"Thank you," said Sirius, taking the photo back. "Did she seem...okay? Like did she say anything out of the ordinary or…"

"This may shock you, but I don't make a habit of chatting up my customers," said Mulpepper.

"Sod you, then," muttered Sirius, shoving the photo back in his pocket and heading for the door.

"Thanks very much," said Remus, nodding at the shopkeeper, who ignored him. Unsurprised, Remus moved to follow Sirius out, but couldn't help but hear Mulpepper mutter behind him.

"Werewolf scum."

Remus's heart stopped. Apparently Sirius had heard it, too, because he stopped dead in the doorway and Peter crashed into him.

"The fuck did you just say?" asked Sirius, turning around.

"Let's just go," said Remus, his heart sinking, headache throbbing.

"Why don't you ask him where your friend's got to if she's gone missing?" said Mulpepper, staring at Remus. "Maybe he developed a taste for the hand that feeds."

"Fuck you, you cocksucking–" cried Sirius, reaching into his robes. Remus shoved him through the door.

"Peter, help me!" he grunted through clenched teeth as he fought Sirius. Peter scrambled to his aid. The two of them managed to get him into the street, where his expletives echoed down the alleyway, ricocheting off of the stone walls.

"Fuck that massive tit! Why'd you stop me? Stop pushing me – ow!" Sirius tripped over his feet and fell into a cluster of bins on the far side of the road.

"Because he's not worth it, Sirius," said Remus, pushing his hair back out of his face as his head throbbed harder from the effort of pushing Sirius outside.

"Well if you won't stand up for yourself, someone has to," panted Sirius as he sat up, rubbing the back of his head.

"Sirius, for the love of Merlin, please stop making this about you," said Remus sharply. His heart was beating quickly, and he could feel his blood pumping in his ears. He was shaking, but held a hand out to Sirius all the same, and helped him to his feet. Sirius was staring at him, jaw clenched tight. Remus met his eyes for a long moment, but shook his head, and released his hand. "Let's keep looking," he said finally.

"Where are we supposed to look?" protested Peter. "You said she disappeared while she was shopping, the trail's gone dead if this asshole didn't see her."

"Let's check the Wyvern," said Sirius hoarsely. Remus nodded.

The three of them wound silently through the alley to The White Wyvern and stepped inside. It wasn't the first time the Marauders had visited The White Wyvern, the central pub of Knockturn Alley. Their first visit had been in their fifth year, to explore, but they hadn't felt the need to visit again once they had secured the bragging rights. The pub was dark, and dirty, and full of shifty sorts and purveyors of Dark Magic paraphernalia making dark deals. Sirius and James, on their first visit, had had plenty of plans to use it to their advantage, but had quickly decided that the sorts of business that happened at the Wyvern were the sorts they would rather avoid. Remus remembered James describing it as the delicate line between mischief and conspiracy to murder.

But Remus had found in his own experience post-graduation that the Wyvern was a welcome respite from the paranoia that increasingly came with frequenting family-friendly wizarding watering holes. Nobody asked questions at the Wyvern, not because they were afraid of the answers, but because they had their own secrets to hide. It was one of the few places Remus had not had to worry about wandering eyes analyzing his scars.

Sirius edged through the crowd to interrogate the bartender while Remus and Peter lingered near the door. Peter was eyeing a plate of odd, mushy food that a cloaked, hooded figure was eating loudly at a nearby table, his expression somewhere between longing and disgust. Remus let his eyes rove over the patrons, most of whom were equally cloaked or hooded, but his eyes stopped on a handsome, unshaven red-headed man in his late twenties whose hood had fallen as he tipped back a tankard. Remus recognized him, but was still trying to decide whether or not to approach him when Sirius suddenly reappeared, looking flustered.

"I've lost the photo," he said, pushing his way outside as he spoke. Remus and Peter followed him, their eyes raking the ground as they retraced their steps. Remus felt his own stomach yawn wide and empty, aching along with his head. It was already making him irritable.

They arrived at the bins Sirius had fallen into and he combed the area on his knees, pushing packaging and rubbish aside with increasing desperation.

"Are you sure it's not in your pockets?" asked Remus, leaning against a wall.

"Yes! I checked them!" said Sirius.

"Look, it's getting late. Maybe we should head back," said Peter. "We can try again tomorrow with another photo."

"I'm not leaving until we find her," grunted Sirius, shoving a bin aside to feel behind a drainpipe. "You two can go if you want."

"That's ridiculous. If she's missing it could take days," said Remus. "You have to eat sometime."

Sirius sat back on his heels, looking at Remus with a new expression, disbelief.

"Am I missing something here?" he asked, incredulous. "Because I seem to be the only one taking this seriously. She's been missing five days, Remus, something is wrong."

"Come on, the only reason you're taking it seriously at all is because you want to know if she's rejected you or not," snapped Remus. "Maybe she just left."

"We've been over this!" said Sirius, angrily. "Everything is still in her room, she's missing work, she wouldn't have done that, she wouldn't have left your potion unfinished–"

"She would if I told her to," said Remus quietly. Sirius stared at him.

"What?" he asked, looking at Remus steadily.

"If I told her to forget about the potion this month, that her feelings were more important, and that she should do whatever felt right," said Remus. Sirius stared at him.

"And why would you have said something like that?" he asked.

"Because she looked like she needed some time to process after I told her what really happened last year," said Remus. Sirius stared at him, nonplussed. Remus didn't think he had ever seen Sirius at a loss for words, and it scared him a little, but he held his ground. Sirius pushed himself to his feet

"You told her?" he asked, hoarsely. "Everything?" Remus nodded.

"Turns out, the Fidelius Charm is not as tricky as it seems," he said. "Makes me wonder if you even tried." That snapped Sirius back into action.

"Why the fuck would you tell her, Remus?" he demanded, his arms wrapping back over his head as he processed.

"Because I'm tired of lying to her, Sirius," said Remus. "I never wanted to lie to her, but because you chose to, you roped the rest of us into keeping up the façade. I was tired of having to make excuses for you, and keep her at arm's length when we were all together. Like the rest of us know her personal details, and she's the fool. She doesn't deserve that. I don't care what Dumbledore says, at graduation she had the chance to run, and she stood by me, and I will never forget that. I figured if you weren't going to tell her, I would."

"You didn't even give me a chance to tell her myself!" exclaimed Sirius.

"You had thousands of chances!" said Remus sharply. "And would you even have told her everything? Or were you going to tailor it to leave out your indiscretions? Conveniently leave out the fact that when she started to go back to Kurt, you turned her in to Dumbledore and he Obliviated her."

"It was more complicated than that, and you know it, Remus, fuck, is that what you told her?" asked Sirius.

"I told her as much as I could," said Remus. "And I left it to her to decide how to feel about it."

"And I'm left to look like the asshole," said Sirius, nodding.

"If the shoe fits," said Remus. Sirius raised his eyebrows, scoffing. Peter was looking between the two of them, terrified.

"Maybe we should go…" he said, trying to put his hand around Sirius's arm, but Sirius shook him off, his eyes fixed on Remus.

"Right. Was this your plan all along?" he asked. "Get in close with those monthly meetings, and then throw me under the bus so she would want you? You think I don't see that you have a thing for her? Is that what all of that drinking and darkness has been about lately? So you decided to screw me over for the win." Remus glared at him, his head throbbing, stomach growling, his anxieties still spiked by Mulpepper's gaze, which haunted him through the marbled windows just behind them.

"Sirius, this isn't about you," he said angrily.

"Like hell it's not," said Sirius, shoving Remus. Remus tried to shove him back, but Sirius caught his arms and overpowered him backwards. Remus tripped into the bins and fell against the wall of the building behind, scraping his hand on the rough stones as he attempted to catch his balance. Something grabbed the front of his sweater and pulled him up, and he looked up in time to see Sirius close in on him, eyes burning, fist raised.

"Stop it!" yelled Peter, running over, but not attempting to touch Sirius lest he round on him. Sirius held very still, breathing hard, but relinquished Remus's sweater with a small shove that knocked Remus back against the wall again. Silently, he resumed his search on the ground for the photo.

"Come on," said Remus after a minute. "Let's go."

Sirius didn't respond. Remus looked at Peter.

"Um...I think I'd better make sure…" he gestured at Sirius limply. Remus shrugged.

"Whatever, yeah. Better take him to James's, make sure he doesn't drown himself in his sorrows. I'll see you."

"Where are you going?" asked Peter.

"To get some dinner," said Remus, heading the other way down the alley. He heard the crack of Peter Disapparating soon after he turned the corner.

Remus headed back to the Wyvern alone, feeling a grim satisfaction. Despite the pain of his scraped hand, he had enjoyed taking Sirius down a notch. He loved him, but sometimes he felt like he could smack him. Ten minutes later he was set up at a corner table with a drink and a hot plate of food he was making quick work of, with great relief. Another ten, and he sat comfortably full, nursing a butterbeer, and it was only then, when he had finally settled, that the guilt of his actions began to set in, and he remembered the look of disbelief and betrayal on Sirius's face. Maybe he had gone too far...

He didn't have long to mull over it, however, because it was at that moment that he noticed the red-headed wizard he had recognized earlier approaching his table.

"Liam!" he said, leaning forward. The red-headed man grinned.

"Long time no see, mate, how's tricks?" said the red-headed man. Remus shook his hand, and motioned for him to sit down.

"Oh, you know. Had a job, lost the job a month later," he said. "Good to see you. Have a seat."

"Ah, that's a mood," said Liam. "Don't mind if I do." He sat himself in the booth, drank deeply, and sighed. "So, how is life since you graduated?"

"Ah, well," said Remus, tilting his bottle between his fingers. "You know...it's been pretty isolating."

"I know what you mean, mate," said Liam. "Before I started going to the meetings with the others, I didn't know what to do with myself. Turned down from half the jobs, fired from the rest for missing days once it got to be that time of the month. A few found out what I was through the registration and didn't even let me back in the building for me to find out I was fired. Threatened to hex me on the doorstep."

Remus grunted empathetically.

"But ever since I met the pack, well," Liam continued, "it's been like I have a purpose suddenly. Like I have a reason to go out, you know? I don't feel like a freak anymore. Did I tell you they have me actively recruiting now? You wouldn't believe how many of us there are."

"That's really great, Liam," said Remus truthfully. Liam grinned.

"You sure you don't want to come to a meeting?" he asked. Remus considered, playing with the neck of his bottle. The truth was, while it had been a small blessing meeting Liam just out of school, and a welcome break from feeling like the sole afflicted freak in a group of otherwise normal wizards, Remus was cautious about joining a pack. After all, the only reason he had been tame the past year was because of Mariah's potions. And he knew the others liked to transform in groups.

"Still not totally comfortable with it," he said. Liam nodded.

"You still see those pals of yours from school?" he asked, and Remus thought he detected a small note of derision in his voice. Liam had been bitten as a child, as Remus had, but his parents had kept him homeschooled as a result. He had never had properly close friends as Remus had.

"I see them here and there," said Remus carefully, ignoring the mental image of Sirius sitting defeated in the alley. "One just got married, and they're in the midst of finding a new home, one keeps getting fired for incompetence on the job, and Sirius is...well. Sirius is Sirius. Impossible to get ahold of one moment, the next in your living room without notice, demanding you follow him on some crazy adventure."

"That's Black, right?" asked Liam, and Remus nodded. Liam raised an eyebrow, but took a drink silently. Remus read his expression clearly, nonetheless. Sirius's family had been responsible for a particularly harsh law that had banned werewolves from public forests on full moons, limiting the areas safe for them to run. He mentioned Sirius's estrangement from his family to Liam in the past, but he'd found Liam liked to hold onto his grudges, and so he had given up any further defense.

"What about that girl you were seeing?" asked Liam. "That sounded promising." Remus felt his stomach drop.

"We weren't exactly seeing each other," he said quickly. Liam raised an eyebrow again in the same knowing manner.

"Ehh you sounded pretty excited to see her last I heard," he said. "Besides, didn't you say she already knew about your...status?"

"It's not going to happen," said Remus, feeling a mix of emotions he didn't care to decipher. Liam shrugged.

"I forget that you still have the shame," he said. He leaned forward conspiratorially, raising an eyebrow. "Look, I know you have this worry about transforming with us, but what if I told you we had someone to make us the Wolfsbane potion, now?"

"What?" said Remus sharply. "Who?" Liam mistook his shock for excitement, and leaned closer.

"I know right? A potioneer. We can transform safely together next full moon, and we have premises."

"Wait," Remus pushed aside his bottle, his mind racing. The mental image he had held all day of Mariah taking off to get some space following their talk briefly gave way to the image Sirius had woven all day– the abandoned hotel room, MIA at work. Looking at Liam sitting in front of him, robes draped over skinny limbs, he had a hard time picturing him grabbing Mariah from behind in an alley and kidnapping her. When Liam had first approached Remus about the pack a year ago, he had made it sound like a social group, but the fact that they had premises painted a whole different picture of what kind of scene Liam was involved with. Liam's comment about actively recruiting floated back to him, and he felt the comfortable afterglow of his meal vanish, replaced with a cold creeping suspicion at the level of organization he had achieved. He decided to poke at the most recent information first. "You got land to run on? How did you get that?"

"Well it's not ours, per se, but we can use it. Fenrir has an arrangement with the owners."

"Greyback?" repeated Remus, feeling suddenly hollow.

"Yeah. Look, I know, he's a little extreme, but he's been really making it happen for us lately," said Liam. "And we could really use your help. We're trying to get our numbers up this year, really get the community going. Fenrir figures if we've got the numbers, You-Know-Who would have to give us our own station, you know? Maybe even land. Our own hunting grounds, no more getting locked up in basements and old shacks out of sight, left to bite ourselves." He pulled at his collar as he spoke, and Remus saw long scars that warped the flesh around his neck. "Think about it, all of us running free under the full moon."

Remus had a fleeting mental image of himself, the wolf, running in the cold air and the moonlight, the sound of thundering paws and howls around him boiling his blood, his heart pounding as he ran faster than his human legs could ever manage. It was quickly replaced with a second mental image– a pack of wolves, an unsuspecting passerby, a child shaken awake from his bed as something moved outside his window…

"It sounds like a dream," said Remus, his stomach turning.

"It could be a reality," said Liam, reaching out a hand to cover Remus's fingers where they lay flat on the table. Remus felt two conflicting emotions churn his stomach. One was a thrill at the familiar warmth of Liam's touch, which he had not felt since just after graduation when they had first met. Liam was a good person, a werewolf, like him, who only wanted to improve the situation for their kind. On the other hand, a very real fear was gripping Remus's insides so hard he felt he might throw up. The Order had enough information on Fenrir Greyback's activity to know that he was deeply involved with Death Eater activity, and Liam was well aware and even optimistic about the association. Even more chilling was the mention of a potioneer who could make the Wolfsbane potion, when Mariah was nowhere to be found.

"What if Sirius was right?" he thought to himself with a lurch, and the guilt he had felt before amplified.

"Are you alright?" asked Liam, looking at his face. Remus swallowed his guilt. There was no proof of anything yet.

"When is the next meeting?" he asked. Liam's eyes lit up.

"Tomorrow evening. You'll come?" he asked, excited.

"I'd like to check it out," said Remus grimly, turning his hand over and gripping Liam's fingers. Liam grinned widely.

"You won't regret it, mate! Perfect timing, too, we've got something really special planned for this week's meeting."

"Oh yeah?" asked Remus, his heart beating faster, but Liam shook his head.

"I don't want to say here. Come tomorrow, you'll see. I'll meet you here and take you."

"Can't wait," said Remus, forcing a smile as Liam held his hand softly, and he felt the bile from his own lies burn the back of his throat all the way to the pit of his stomach.