Reflecting Light, Part 2

by katiebug5

Mairead O'Keefe made it through her final year at Hogwarts and is now a fully-qualified witch. But when the unthinkable happens, and an evil that has haunted Mairead all her life rises again, she will find herself thrust back into a war she believed had already been won - and back into the life of the man she has never been able to forget. COMPLETE

39. Peripeteia

Author's Note: Thank you to SeraphineWhist (twice on Part 1!), Wikked, and GraceMonroe for reviewing!

I'm sorry last chapter was so miserable! Sometimes Mairead, like Remus, also needs to have her nose rubbed in her mistakes. But there's a fun little reunion in this chapter that I hope makes up for last chapter! Enjoy!

---

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Peripeteia

The Greeks called it peripeteia. The Great Reversal. Sirius called it a pain in the arse.

Ever since Mairead had left, Remus had been moping like a teenager whose heart had just been broken for the very first time. Granted, Sirius was pretty sure Remus had never before felt quite as heartbroken as he did now, but still. In the back of his mind Sirius was aware that Remus had spent his fair share of free time hanging around Sirius whilst he had been acting like a wet rag, and he did not appreciate the nagging at his conscience that told him it was time to pay the fiddler.

One of the reasons Sirius hated trying to cheer Remus up was because Remus was so infuriatingly polite in his rebuffs of Sirius's efforts. As far as Sirius was concerned, if Moony wanted him to fuck off, he should just come out and say it, for Merlin's sake. It might do him some good not to be repressing his emotions all the time.

But the primary reason Sirius resented following Remus around, trying to get the sulky werewolf to buck up was because the solution to Remus's pain was so hair-pullingly obvious to Sirius. Remus and Mairead needed to reconcile. As far as Sirius was concerned, Remus needed to fall down on his knees, beg Mairead for forgiveness, and propose marriage while he was down there for good measure. It wasn't as though Mairead would say 'no.' She was so besotted with Moony it would be annoying, were it not for the fact that Mairead was actually pretty cute about it, and also that Sirius could not bring to mind anyone who deserved happiness more than his friend.

So when Mairead showed up at Grimmauld Place on Saturday morning, looking pale, drawn, stressed out of her mind, and thoroughly beaten, and asked Sirius if she could stay on through Sunday, Sirius rejoiced.

But he kept it inside, because Mairead looked like she was one false step away from having a complete breakdown.

"Yeah, of course," he said, putting a hand on her back and steering her out of the way so that he could redo the wards on the door.

"Thanks," she said gratefully, putting one foot on the stairs to the upper levels. "McGonagall brought me here early so I could work in my lab. Dumbledore still doesn't want anyone doing Order business outside of headquarters."

"You know this is your home whenever you want it, Gryffindor," said Sirius.

Mairead pulled her lips into her mouth, then offered him a strained smile and started up the stairs.

"Want some company?" Sirius asked, following her up the stairs. "Or did you have someone else in mind to hang out with?"

He saw her shoulders go up around her ears protectively. "I'd love it if you hung out," she said, ignoring the implication of his question.

Sirius followed Mairead to her potions lab, acutely aware of the fact that they walked right past Remus's bedroom, where Sirius knew Moony was sulking. He made a point of loudly saying, "It's really good to see you, Mairead," right as they were walking past the door. With any luck, Remus would come charging out, sweep Mairead into his arms, and Sirius could gracefully back away before clothes started to come off.

But the door remained closed, Mairead kept walking until she reached the lab, and she wasted no time pulling ingredients off the shelves and stacking them on a workbench.

"What are you working on?" Sirius asked, watching Mairead select a cauldron and place it on its holder over the unlit burner.

Mairead hesitated, her hand paused midway through pulling a book off a shelf. "You're going to make a big deal out of it," she said.

"Make a big deal out of what?"

"...I'm making the Wolfsbane Potion," Mairead said warily.

Sirius shoved off from the wall he was slouching against. "Gryffindor, that's excellent!" he enthused. "Are you reconciling, then?"

"No," she said emphatically. "You said you wouldn't make a big deal out of this!"

"I said no such thing," Sirius waved off her admonishments. "But you have forgiven him, haven't you?"

"No."

"But -" Sirius gestured at the cauldron. "You're making the potion for him, aren't you? Unless you've befriended some other werewolf?"

"I am making the potion for him because he needs it," said Mairead with dignity. "Not because I want to reconcile. One thing has nothing to do with the other."

"But you do want to reconcile," Sirius pressed, watching her closely. "Come on, Gryffindor, it's written all over you! You miss him! Admit it!"

Mairead closed her eyes and twitched her nose like she was trying to stop herself from crying. "Stop it."

"Mairead, why are you doing this? Just - for Godric's sake! He's sorry, okay?"

"Wow, that means so much coming from not him," Mairead drawled sarcastically.

Sirius scoffed. "Do you want me to go get him and have him say it to you?" he said, starting for the door. "He's in his room moping right now. I'll just go and -"

"NO!"

Sirius turned at the alarm in Mairead's voice, at the way she backed up until she was pressed against her work table. Unease settled into his joints when he saw fear in her eyes. "What happened?" he asked suspiciously. "Did something happen you're not telling me about?"

"You know what happened," Mairead said, recovering herself enough to return to her stubborn attitude. "He went behind my back. He lied to me. And when I confronted him about it, he tried to pass it off as some big, noble act of caring."

"It was an act of caring," Sirius said. "He loves you."

"That's not love!" said Mairead. Sirius was taken aback by the fierce look in her eyes. "That is not what that is, Sirius."

"Then what is it?" demanded Sirius.

"It's..." Mairead shook her head. "It's something else. I don't want to talk about this with you."

But Sirius wasn't ready to give up. "Look - call it what you want, but he was trying to protect you."

"I don't want him to protect me!" Mairead cried. "Why can't anyone understand that? I never asked him to protect me!"

"Yeah, but he did it anyway, because guess what? He loves you!" Sirius shot back. "He was afraid you'd get hurt. He was afraid you didn't know what you were getting yourself into, and that you were going to get hurt."

Mairead laughed, a short, harsh sound. "He was afraid I didn't know what I was getting myself into?" she repeated, sounding slightly hysterical now. "I didn't get myself into anything - I was born into this! I have been fighting this my whole life! None of you can say the same. If anyone knows what we're all getting ourselves into, it's me! But he thinks he can what? Just waltz into my life and take over? No! I made my choices. If he had concerns about them he should have brought them to me, not waited until the second I was out of the room to try to wrest control of my own life out of my hands."

"Yeah? And what would you have done if he'd done that?" Sirius challenged her. "If he had come to you and shared his concerns for your safety, what would you have done?"

"I would've listened to what he had to say!" said Mairead. "I would have heard him out and then taken his thoughts into consideration when making my decision."

"And what would your decision have been?" Sirius pressed. "Would you have backed out of the Order?"

"No," said Mairead readily. "I wouldn't have. Because being in the Order is the right thing to do. Fighting You-Know-Who is the right thing to do."

"Don't you see that you left him no choice? Don't you think he knew you wouldn't listen to him if he tried to talk to you first? What other choice did he have than what he did?"

"He could have respected my ability - my right! - to make my own decisions!" Mairead cried, her voice rising. "But instead he went behind my back and tried to make the choice for me when I wasn't there to represent myself. It was my choice to make! Not his! He had no right to make it for me. He had no right to take away my freedom like that."

"He was trying to protect you!"

"He was trying to control me!"

Sirius froze mid-retort. Mairead continued.

"He knew I wouldn't consent to what he wanted me to do, so he waited until I wasn't there to advocate for my wishes and he tried to force the issue. He knew what I wanted, and he actively worked to accomplish the opposite. He didn't care about what I wanted for myself. He only cared about what he wanted for me. He decided that he knew how to make decisions for me better than I did. So he tried to take the decision out of my hands. And he did it all under the guise of representing my best interests. Of trying to protect me."

Mairead was crying now, and by the time she concluded, Sirius had forgotten how to breathe.

"Protection without permission is controlling," she said, her voice shaking hard. "And controlling someone without their consent is abuse."

"Mairead," Sirius whispered. "You don't th- you can't think that he - that Remus would... he would never hurt you. Not intentionally. You know that, don't you?"

"I don't know anything anymore," Mairead said, her voice cracking under the strain. "A month ago, I never would have thought he'd do this, but I - I guess I don't know him as well as I thought I did. And I just - I c-can't - I - I can't take the risk. I can't go back! I can't go back to that kind of life! I - I -"

"Okay, okay, shhh." Sirius stepped forward and put his arms around Mairead just as the last reserves of her strength abandoned her. She leaned heavily on him, weeping helplessly. Sirius rocked her back and forth, shushing her softly. "I get it, Gryffindor," he murmured into her hair. "I get it. I'm sorry. I'll back off. I'm so sorry, baby."

Sirius left as soon as Mairead got herself under control. He figured the kindest thing he could do for her would be to leave her to focus on the potion in peace. He went downstairs with the idea of making her a snack, and walked into the kitchen to find Remus there, pacing back and forth, his hair mussed and standing on end in places like he had been pulling at it. Sirius stopped.

"How much did you overhear?"

"I just wanted to be near her," Remus said faintly. "I just - I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I just went to the door so I could be near her."

He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving up and down. There was a wild, desperate look in his eyes that Sirius did not like one little bit.

"I never meant to hurt her," said Remus hoarsely. "I'll never touch her again. I swear. Tell her: I'll never go near her again."

---

Mairead spent the night in her old bedroom, then returned to the potions lab first thing Sunday morning to continue to work on the Wolfsbane Potion. It had gotten much easier now that she had the hang of it, though it still required a lot of babysitting. She alternated between tending to it and studying divination, leaving the room only for the shortest of bathroom breaks.

When the potion was ready, Mairead fetched a glass of water from the kitchen, filled a goblet with the potion, and set off in search of Remus, praying he would not be in what had, until recently, been their shared bedroom.

She found him in the library. The door was ajar, but she lacked a free hand to knock, and so she cleared her throat awkwardly. Remus looked almost alarmed at the sight of her. He put down the book he was reading without taking note of the page - highly unusual for him - and stood.

"I have your potion," she said, hating how meek her voice sounded.

Remus's sharp eyes darted around the room, eventually resting on a table to her left. "You can set it down there," he said, pointing. "Thank you."

Mairead looked where he was pointing, then back at him dubiously. "Okay..." she said slowly. She tried not to be stung that he wanted her nowhere near him. She told herself he was being absurdly annoying, and that she should be irritated rather than hurt. She set the two cups down and turned back to him, giving a wimpy little gesture. "There you go."

"Thank you."

Mairead wasn't sure what she had expected from her first conversation with Remus since she had left, but it hadn't been this. She had wondered if he would feign indifference like he had back in November, when he had broken things off with her. She had wondered if he would start apologizing again. She had thought he might start back up fighting with her again. She had not expected him to treat her like she had dragon pox.

"Okay, then," she said, shuffling her feet. "'Bye."

"Mairead."

She looked at him silently. She hated the guarded expression on his face, hated the tension in his voice.

"You don't need to make the Wolfsbane Potion for me anymore," he said. "Thank you for doing it all these months, but it will no longer be necessary."

Mairead frowned. "Why?" she asked. "Is somebody else going to do it for you?"

"No," said Remus. "But you needn't waste your time brewing it. You've got other things to do."

Mairead's frown deepened. "But you need it," she said in confusion. "Dumbledore told me to make it for you."

"And I'm telling you to stop."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want you brewing it for me anymore," he said with finality.

He hates me that much? Anger curled around Mairead's limbs like a snake.

"Fine," Mairead said, waving a hand dismissively. "Do whatever you like, Remus. Pour the whole cauldron out if it pleases you. I only spent the entire past two days working on it. Who cares?"

"I didn't know you were going to come all the way back here just to brew it," said Remus. "I didn't ask you to do that."

Mairead opened her mouth and started to speak, but caught herself just before she retorted with something nasty and passive-aggressive. "I'm sorry," she said instead. "I didn't know you didn't want the potion anymore. I won't brew it again."

She turned on her heel then and left, and thus she did not see the way Remus buried his face in his hands as soon as her back was to him.

Mairead retreated to the drawing room and tried her best to concentrate on her studies. The rest of the week had gone just as poorly as the previous one. She had tried to keep her chin up, but Umbridge's inspection had done away with the very last of her self-esteem. She was a nervous wreck, and was sure it wouldn't be too long before she had a complete breakdown.

Professor McGonagall came for Mairead at four o'clock. She offered Mairead a thin smile as she followed her out onto the stoop.

"We'll go to the Hog's Head, then sit for a drink before heading back up to the castle in case anyone is watching," McGonagall said, doing up the locks from the outside. "Ready?" Mairead nodded. As one, they turned on their heels.

When they got to the Leaky Cauldron, they Floo'd to the Hog's Head one after the other, then took a seat together at one of the sticky tables.

"So," McGonagall said briskly when their drinks - a butterbeer for Mairead and a glass of sherry for McGonagall - had been delivered. "How have your first couple of weeks teaching gone?"

Mairead's mouth opened and closed twice before she managed to say, in a very squeaky voice, "Oh, you know, they've gone..."

And then she dissolved into tears.

McGonagall pursed her lips. "I thought as much," she said dryly. The older witch signaled for Aberforth and said, "Could we have a glass of wine here, please?" The surly innkeeper snapped his fingers and a glass of wine appeared in front of McGonagall, who handed it over to Mairead. "There you go, dear, drink up. It's never as bad as the first few weeks make it seem."

The older witch waited while Mairead pulled herself together.

"S-sorry," Mairead said quietly, looking down at her glass of wine in embarrassment.

"Never you mind," said McGonagall dismissively. "It'll get easier. Just you wait and see."

Mairead shook her head sadly. "I don't think so," she said tremulously. "I don't have the first idea what I'm doing. I don't know my own subject - I don't know how to teach -"

"Don't be preposterous," McGonagall replied. "You taught that workshop when you were only a student, and that was very well-received."

"That was different," said Mairead. "I knew what I was talking about. Plus I had R- help."

"I was sorry to hear that you and Remus are no longer seeing one another," McGonagall said, clearly having no trouble following along with Mairead's train of thought. "I thought the two of you made a lovely couple."

"Oh," said Mairead awkwardly. "Okay."

"I think you have the right idea, though, throwing yourself into work like you're doing," McGonagall added briskly. "Speaking of, if you are feeling overwhelmed, why don't you just follow along with the syllabus?"

Mairead's eyelids fluttered in confusion. "Syllabus?"

"That's what the course content plan you received is called."

Mairead frowned. "But I didn't receive a course content plan," she said.

McGonagall, who had been about to take a sip of her sherry, slowly lowered the glass back to the table. "You didn't receive a syllabus?" she asked.

"I'm sorry!" Mairead said anxiously, though about what, she couldn't be sure. If Umbridge's last words to her were any indicator, she was right on the verge of getting herself fired, which from where she was sitting looked like a pretty attractive alternative to her current situation.

"But Dumbledore told Sybill to hand all of her course materials over to you," McGonagall went on. "I was there when he said it."

Mairead shrank down in her seat apologetically.

"Sybill was supposed to -" McGonagall broke off, an annoyed look flashing across her face. "She really didn't leave you anything?"

Mairead shook her head.

"Syllabus? Curriculum? Lesson plans?"

"I'm sorry."

"Did you check in her desk?"

Mairead felt herself beginning to shiver with nerves. "The desk was empty," she said quietly. "The whole classroom is. All the divination tools are gone - there wasn't even chalk for the blackboard."

McGonagall let out a frustrated breath and shook her head. "That vindictive old - really!" she huffed. "I understand that she was upset with Umbridge, but that's absolutely no reason to sabotage you like this. I'll speak to Dumbledore."

"No, don't!" Mairead cried, reaching out and almost grabbing McGonagall by the sleeve of her robe, and stopping herself at the last second. "I mean... please don't bother him, Professor McGonagall. I've already caused so much trouble."

"Nonsense," said McGonagall brusquely. "Albus will be none too pleased when he hears about this, I daresay."

"I don't want him to be upset! Please, Professor! I'm sorry! I'll stop complaining; I'll just -"

"You'll just leave this to me," McGonagall cut in firmly. "I'll have the course materials in your hand by the end of the day tomorrow. You wait and see. Now drink up."

Mairead nodded and picked up the glass of wine. "Yes, Professor," she said meekly. "Thank you."

McGonagall arched a brow. "You may call me Minerva," she said. "We are colleagues now, after all."

Mairead gaped at McGonagall. "Oh, okay," she said softly. "Thanks, Pr- erm... M- Mi- erm."

McGonagall smiled thinly. "Remus never managed it when he was working here, either," she said wryly.

---

McGonagall was as good as her word. Mairead had just returned to her office at the end of another disastrous day of what could scarcely be called 'teaching' when there was a knock on her door.

"Come in," she called vaguely, tilting her head from side to side and sighing in disappointment when her neck was too tense to pop. A head of long, silvery hair poked through the door. "Professor Dumbledore!" she cried, sitting straight up in her chair, then thinking better of it and jumping to her feet. "Come in. What, er..."

"Good afternoon, Mairead," Dumbledore said pleasantly. "Minerva brought my attention to the fact that you had not received the course materials for the class you are teaching. Or, in fact, anything at all that would help you in your endeavor to teach. I just got through speaking with Sybill, who assures me it was a complete accident that she systematically emptied her classroom of every single implement that may have helped you take over for her."

Mairead blinked at Professor Dumbledore, unsure what to say in response to this.

"All of this is to say, by the time you return to your classroom tomorrow, I expect you will find that all of its supplies have been returned to their rightful places. In the meantime, I hope you will find these course materials somewhat helpful to you," Dumbledore went on, walking over to Mairead's desk and extending a thin stack of papers. "For my part, I did not find myself overly burdened by a sense of wonder and veneration at the contents, but I do most sincerely hope that they will do to be getting on with."

Mairead took the papers from the headmaster, her hands shaking, either from the amount of caffeine shooting through her veins or the thought of finally having some bedrock on which to build her coursework. "Thank you so much, Professor Dumbledore!" she exclaimed. "These are going to be s-" She broke off as she glanced down at the top paper, which read:

THIRD YEAR SYLLABUS

Tea Leaves

Fire Omens

Crystal Gazing

Mairead blinked at this. She lifted up the paper and regarded the one underneath.

FOURTH YEAR SYLLABUS

Review of Past Subjects

Astrology

Mairead felt her heart sink. There wasn't any information here that she had not already managed to glean for herself from talking to the students. Somehow, having the course materials, which appeared to be openly mocking her, seemed almost worse than going it completely empty-handed. Nevertheless, she forced a smile onto her face and said, "Thank you, Headmaster. These are great."

"You are an admirable liar," Dumbledore inclined his head. "If you will forgive the presumptuous suggestion, I should like to point out that you do know someone with whom you have presently been rather close who inherited a similarly disjointed situation when he was teaching. It might behoove you to see what wisdom you can glean from consulting with him. Of course, that would require you to be back on speaking terms..."

Mairead smiled wryly. "Is that your way of suggesting that I reconcile with him?" she asked.

Dumbledore shrugged. "Let us call it a multipurpose suggestion," he said delicately.

Mairead briefly pulled both lips into her mouth and bit down. "I..." she hesitated. "I didn't realize... that is, nobody told me... that Re- that he was the one who - who voted against me. Back in July, I mean." She looked up at Dumbledore, and it wasn't until she saw his impassive face that it clicked in her mind that she had been holding out some tiny, childish hope that Dumbledore would refute this, that there would be some explanation he, alone, could provide, and which would make everything better and allow her to run back into Remus's arms. When he said nothing, however, Mairead clarified, "He voted against me joining the Order. He never wanted me here. He only ever wanted to control me."

Dumbledore looked at her piercingly. "Is that what you truly believe?"

Mairead blinked. "Is - is that not what happened?" she asked hopefully. "Was it some misunderstanding?"

Dumbledore folded his hands. "That is what happened," he confirmed. "It was Remus who placed the Hold on you. I think the misunderstanding lies in your assumptions regarding his motive."

The knowledge that Remus had not only voted against her but had actually been the one to place the Hold on her in the first place hit her somewhere in the region of her solar plexus. That entire ordeal had been his doing. In her silence, Dumbledore continued.

"Remus has not had an easy life, Mairead," he said. "By the time he was scarcely older than you are now, he had already lost everything that was important to him, everything that had ever mattered to him. He spent his youth risking his life to fight the greatest threat that wizardkind had seen in half a century, and watching his friends die, one after the other, for the same cause. Far from thanking him for his sacrifice and bravery, though, the society he had fought so hard to save rejected him, and he spent the next decade and more completely alone.

"It is my belief that by the time he joined the faculty at Hogwarts, he had given up. He was living a life of utter isolation, putting all of his energy into making his exiguous resources stretch as far as he could, moving here and there, never staying anyplace long enough to put down the roots it is in his very nature to wish to put down. To put it quite simply, Remus had not a single source of happiness in his life..."

Here, Dumbledore's blue eyes glinted meaningfully. "And then he met you."

Mairead looked up.

Dumbledore chuckled softly to himself. "I doubt either of you fully knows how deeply you affected Remus, Mairead. He was so focused on Harry, on Sirius being on the loose, I doubt he was conscious at all of how he sought you out. How he came to crave your company. How his eyes searched for you at the Hufflepuff table. How he would deflate, just a touch, when you were not there, and how he lit up from within when you were. Your presence soothed him. You brought him a sense of peace the likes of which he had never known before, even when Lily and James were still alive. Of course, it is my job to notice these things, especially with new faculty. I monitored your interactions very closely, particularly when the two of you started working together privately. I would have been shocked had he done anything inappropriate; nevertheless, I felt it necessary, particularly given how smitten you were with him."

Mairead's mouth fell open, her eyes wide with horror.

"Don't worry," Dumbledore added with a small chuckle, "I doubt anyone noticed but me. For his part, Remus was totally unaware of your feelings for him - and he was, I think, equally unaware of his feelings for you. And, of course, it was my considered opinion that it was in everyone's best interests for it to stay that way at least until you had graduated. When I felt confident that you were safe with him, I must admit I took great pleasure in watching the love that grew between the two of you. You blossomed like a flower when he was in the room, and as for Remus? You were like pure sunshine to someone who had known nothing but darkness for many years."

Dumbledore paused here, a fond smile fading into a more serious expression. "I think one of the hardest things for Remus about leaving Hogwarts was leaving you. By the time he resigned, you had become one of the most important people in his life. When I saw the two of you together in Hagrid's cabin, the first night the Order met, I knew that your connection was as strong as it had ever been. And I suspected, now that you were outside the constraints and formalities of Hogwarts, that it was only a matter of time before Remus's love for you became romantic in nature. What I did not account for was how Remus would react when he became aware of the full extent of how he felt about you. You see, for Remus, love has always gone hand-in-hand with loss, and the greater the love he felt, the greater the loss he suffered."

Dumbledore looked straight into Mairead's eyes when he spoke his next words. "It is my belief that Remus has never in his life loved anyone the way he loves you. I don't think he has ever experienced the depth of adoration and passion he feels for you before in his life. But rather than allow himself to enjoy the joy and fulfillment a love like this can provide, all he felt was fear. From the moment Remus started to realize how very important you are to him, he has been terrified of losing you. He has done everything in his power to stop that from happening. I am not saying this to excuse his actions. I merely hope that by explaining what was behind his choices, perhaps you can find it in yourself to forgive him. Remus should have communicated his fears and doubts to you instead of blindly acting on them. But by cutting him off, are you not committing the same error? You fear being controlled, because you have had control wrested from you in the past. By holding Remus accountable for what others have inflicted on you, though, are you not also allowing the trauma from your past to impact your relationships in the present? Remus is not a perfect man. But his motivations were never so nefarious as you have come to believe."

Mairead's heart was beating a tattoo in her chest. She put the papers in her hands down on the desk and smoothed the palms of her hands over them for lack of anything better to do. Dumbledore smiled.

"And with that, I have reached my quota of putting my nose where, perhaps, it does not belong. I wish you a good day."

---

Mairead could not sleep that night. Try as she might, she could not take her mind off her conversation with Dumbledore. She paced her office, trying to work through the emotions spinning like plates in her mind.

She bit her fingernails down to the quick, then started gnawing on the skin around her nail beds as she considered her stance. Was she wrong to judge Remus so harshly for what he had done? There was still not a doubt in her mind that what Remus had done had been wrong. But was it a sign of something worse to come, or was it, as Dumbledore indicated, an isolated error committed out of desperation and fear?

Mairead cast her memory back, trying to find evidence that this was part of a pattern. She and Remus had fought viciously when she had returned from dinner with Gus. This, she told herself, could be seen as a sign of jealousy and possessiveness, and that was not to mention the way he had followed her without her knowledge. But he had humbled himself before her, and apologized sincerely for the way he had behaved. What was more, he hadn't actually tried to stop her from going on what he had believed was a date with another man.

She recalled when she had been assigned her first mission for the Order. Remus had been outraged and insulting when he had learned that Mairead had volunteered to go to the Minister's Ball, and had spent nearly the entire lead-up trying to talk her out of going. And it had been the same story with her second mission to Malfoy Manor. On both occasions, he had still been trying to convince her not to go even as she was walking out the door. But he hadn't actually prevented her from going either time, nor had he done anything to sabotage her ability to go. In fact, he had coached her on a London dialect to help give her a better chance of succeeding in her first mission, and for the second he had covered for her in front of Bill when she had forgotten to make the drawings of Malfoy's office. And when she had been at her most afraid, inside the lift on the way to the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic, he had pulled her close and spoken firmly and reassuringly to her until she had gotten her fear under control. And that was to say nothing of the way he had been there for her after the second mission, when she had fallen apart entirely.

Mairead tipped her head back and covered her eyes with her hands. What was it he had said in the drawing room afterwards?

"I was afraid. Haven't you ever done anything you shouldn't have when you were afraid?"

When they had been lovers, Remus had never been anything but gentle with her. The way he had kissed her, touched her, cradled her face in his hands, fitted their bodies together, had often given Mairead the impression that he was holding onto something precious that he was afraid of breaking. He had always been mindful of her desires and needs, and even months after they had taken up together, frequently asked her consent before undressing her or touching her intimately. The way he had treated her - so tenderly - had practically trumpeted his respect for her.

And yet... Mairead could not help but bring to mind what Edgar had said, without even a full understanding of the circumstances.

"I hate to say this, I really do... but it doesn't sound like he respects you. And it sure as hell doesn't sound like he trusts you. And... based on the fact that you have all of these questions? He's not communicating with you."

Mairead felt her nose beginning to twinge, a sure sign that tears were coming. She collapsed into the comfortable chair before her fireplace, staring into the flames as if hoping to find the answer therein. Her breath hitched and she felt the first tears building in her eyes. She missed Remus so much it felt like a physical pain in her chest. She wanted nothing more than to curl up in his arms and have him soothe her now, tell her it had all been a misunderstanding and it would never happen again.

But the nagging truth that kept nudging her, that she couldn't ignore, no matter how much she wanted to shut it out, was that in the end, Remus had not promised never to repeat his mistake. Rather, he had insisted that if he could go back, he would go person to person until they, too, turned against her. What he had done was to firmly, repeatedly, stand by his decision.

And so Mairead stood by hers.

---

Remus was never very far from Mairead's mind, but by midweek her thoughts of the man she loved had to compete for space with the growing anxiety she felt as she drew nearer to the day when she would receive the results of her inspection.

Classes continued to go horribly, and Mairead continued to struggle to make sense of the way Trelawney had structured the course. While at first the students had seemed split between those who had revered Trelawney and those who seemed to have been frustrated with her teaching methods, by the time Mairead was approaching the end of her third week of teaching, they all seemed to be settling into one cohesive group. Namely: those who thought Mairead was a horrible replacement.

It didn't help that Mairead now had not only one, but two teachers the students could compare her to. All the Fifth Years - but most especially the girls - seemed to love Firenze's classes. Mairead wanted to go to him and ask his advice, but she could never seem to find him.

By Mairead's count, Umbridge's assessment was due to arrive on Wednesday, if the Monday when Umbridge had inspected her class counted as Day One. But the tenth day came and went, and Mairead received nothing. She then thought that perhaps last Tuesday had been Day One, and she would receive her results on Thursday. But nothing came. By Friday, Mairead was convinced that Umbridge was messing with her the same way she had messed with her by not giving her advance notice of the inspection.

On Friday evening, she was roused from her advanced state of anxiety by a knock on her office door. Professor Flitwick entered and closed the door behind him. He told Mairead that he would be escorting her to and from London the next day for the Order meeting, and had come calling to ask if she would mind leaving for London earlier in the day. Ansel was back in the country for a long weekend, and the two were going to have lunch together. Mairead's heart twinged with longing to see her friend, but she knew that this would not be allowed while the Death Eaters were searching for her.

"Yeah, that's fine with me," she said. "I can hang out at Grimmauld Place."

"Excellent!" squeaked Professor Flitwick. "I was hoping you wouldn't mind."

"Would you - that is, can you tell him I say hi?" Mairead asked.

Flitwick smiled warmly at her. "I would be pleased and proud to send your regards."

Mairead smiled shyly. "Thank you, Professor," she said. Flitwick was turning to leave when she burst out, "Professor Flitwick!"

The wizened professor turned. "Yes?"

Mairead twisted her fingers around themselves. "Erm... d'you... I just... erm..." She drummed her fingers nervously on her desk. "Do you remember how long it took you to get the results of your inspection? Of your class, that is?"

Professor Flitwick seldom looked annoyed, even when classroom experiments were going awry, but at the mention of the Hogwarts High Inquisitor, he definitely looked irked. "I received them in ten days," he said.

"Like... like ten business days, or...?"

"I believe it was ten calendar days," he clarified.

Mairead's mouth twitched unhappily. "Oh, okay," she said softly. "Thanks."

She's absolutely fucking with me.

Mairead paced around her office in agitation until she made herself dizzy. At nine o'clock, she told herself that she needed to get Umbridge off her mind before she went mad. She had just resolved to push her inspection out of her mind until Monday when there was a tap on the window of her office.

Mairead's mouth went dry. Maybe it's a letter from Ansel, she thought without much hope. She walked over to the window and let the owl inside. It was one of the school owls. The owl dropped the envelope he was carrying in his beak onto Mairead's desk, shook his feathers, then took off back out the window into the night.

Mairead's hands were shaking so badly it took her several tries to break the seal on the envelope, and even then she gave herself a nasty paper cut. Stuffing her bleeding finger into her mouth, Mairead struggled to pull the letter out of the envelope one-handed, then shook it open.

Dear Ms. O'Keefe:

This letter is to inform you of the results of your inspection on Monday, March Fifteenth, by Professor Dolores Umbridge (hereinafter: the Hogwarts High Inquisitor).

Pursuant to Educational Decree Number Twenty-three, you are hereby placed on Academic Probation. The Hogwarts High Inquisitor will continue to observe your classes at regular intervals to monitor your progress. At the end of an interval not to exceed three (3) months, a decision shall be reached regarding your continued employment at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. If satisfactory improvement is not observed within the set timeframe, you will be dismissed from your position, effective immediately.

Additionally, concerns have been brought to the attention of the Ministry of Magic regarding your qualifications to practise magic. At intervals to be determined by the Hogwarts High Inquisitor, you shall be required to perform a magical feat, the specifics of which will be determined by the aforementioned Inquisitor. If at any point you are incapable of performing the task set, you will be subject to dismissal, effective immediately, and the results of your failed test will be reported to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for consideration of the seizure and destruction of your wand.

Best Wishes,

Professor Dolores Jane Umbridge

Hogwarts High Inquisitor

Mairead felt dizzy. She read the letter three times to make sure she understood its contents, then collapsed into her chair behind her desk and read it twice more. She wasn't aware that her heart was racing until a wave of heat and nausea swept over her and she had to put her head between her knees.

Probation she had been expecting, but this? Having her wand seized and destroyed?

Instinctively, Mairead put her hand inside the pocket of her robes and felt for the reassuring warmth of her wand. She wrapped her fingers around the smooth wood and held on for dear life. What was she going to do? What was there for her to do? Surely Umbridge understood perfectly well the constraints of Mairead's disability. It had certainly been explained to her often and thoroughly enough years ago when Umbridge had crusaded against Mairead's presence at Hogwarts. It was mere sadism on the part of the old toad that she pretended not to understand that Mairead could still perform most magic. There wasn't a doubt in Mairead's mind that the very first "magical feat" would be producing a Patronus, or putting up a protective ward, or something else she was equally incapable of doing. And then...

What hope did she have of fending off her father? It wasn't enough for her to be tossed out into the world with no protection. But her only hope of defending herself would be taken from her, as well. She would be dead within twenty-four hours of her dismissal.

Mairead wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth, shivering and crying. She wished she had never asked to come back to Hogwarts. She wished she could be anywhere but here. She wished she could pick up and run, just disappear into the night, never to be seen or heard from again.

Most of all, though, she wished Remus were there.

---

Remus hated his bedroom.

He was grateful for it, of course, and to Sirius for providing him with a free place to live, as his own house had a certain... walls falling down quality to it. But it had not occurred to him until recently how absurdly enormous his room was.

The bed was too big, there was too much space in the closet, and his books looked ludicrous, lined up one-deep as they were.

Normally, Remus craved a bit of extra elbow room around this time of month. He was one night away from transforming, and the wolf tended towards the claustrophobic, but in a stunning display of uncharacteristic unity, both Remus and the wolf that got to come out to play once a month hated their current circumstances. Her things were gone, her scent was gone, and, thanks to last week's mostly unintentional eavesdropping, Remus now knew just how little a chance he stood of getting them back.

In a particularly low moment of martyrdom and self-flagellation Remus had wanted to pour out the Wolfsbane Potion, just as she had suggested. Sirius had stopped him, arguing that it was an insult to the days of hard work she had put into the potion, and that doing so would be "cutting off your snout to spite your wolf."

Remus had not appreciated that comment.

He did, however, appreciate Sirius's intervention. He did not care to imagine just how rough the full moon would be if he did not have the potion to help him get through his first transformation without Mairead to come home to. He feared the punishment that would be coming his way once the wolf was back in control.

He couldn't stop thinking of Mairead, no matter what he did. He had taken on more spy missions, more guard duty at the Ministry, more shifts monitoring the receivers, all in an attempt to distract himself from the full magnitude of what he had lost - what he had destroyed.

As he made himself a cup of tea and headed for the library, his preferred place to sulk, he wondered whether he ought to skip the meeting tonight. Mairead would be there, and his impulse control this close to the full moon was iffy, at best. He dreamed of Mairead. He woke up in the mornings to find he had balled up her pillow and the bedclothes into roughly the shape of her body. He thought up ten thousand ways he could apologize. Hell, he even thought he could smell her, when she wouldn't be arriving for hours.

All of this was to say that Remus was exceedingly surprised when he walked into the library, heard a tiny, "Oh!" of surprise, and found Mairead twisting around on the couch to see who had come in.

Remus skidded to a halt, slopping tea out of his mug in a rare moment of clumsiness. "I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I'll go."

"No, I'm sorry," said Mairead, turning back to the table in front of the couch and starting to shuffle together parchment, books, quills, and inkwells. "This is your spot. I shouldn't have -"

"It's fine," Remus rushed to reassure her. "I was just leaving."

"...You just got here."

"I -"

It was then that Remus noticed the unmistakable signs that Mairead had been crying. She had hastily wiped her face when she had looked away, but Remus could hear the thickness in her voice, could still spot the glassiness to her eyes, the feverish look she got when she had been crying hard, and for a while.

Leave. Go away. She doesn't want you here. You're probably the reason she's crying.

"Are you all right?"

You just can't leave well enough alone, can you?

Mairead swallowed. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said, dropping her eyes.

Remus watched her, trying to convince himself to leave. But she's crying...

"I'll - I'll go," said Mairead. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you."

"You're not disturbing me," said Remus. "I was just... er, coming for a book."

"What book?" Mairead jumped to her feet and headed for the shelves. "I organized the books in here a while ago; I might be able to help you find it. I sorted them by subject, and then by author within the subject, and then by title within author if necessary."

Remus couldn't help the fond chuckle that escaped him. "Of course you did," he murmured, looking at the ground. When he looked back up, Mairead was watching him uncertainly. "Er, please don't trouble yourself. I'll just get it and leave."

He started for one of the bookshelves, figuring he would take the first book he saw. As he passed Mairead, he heard her sniffle quietly. Before he could stop himself, he looked around at her and saw her wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her jumper. It was one of his favorite jumpers of hers. It was a warm brown color that he had privately thought complimented her dark green eyes. He hadn't noticed he had stopped in his tracks to look at her until it caught her attention. She looked up at him, then quickly away, clearly embarrassed to be caught drying her tears.

Remus turned back to the bookcase, grabbed a book at random, and turned back for the door. "Thanks very much, Mairead. I'll leave you now."

"Oh, okay."

Was it just him, or did she sound... unhappy about that?

Call it the wolf, call it poor impulse control on his own part, but when Mairead returned to her seat on the couch, Remus reached into his pocket, pulled out a clean handkerchief, and dropped it on the table on top of her notes. He was almost to the door when he heard what sounded disturbingly like a yip from behind him. Unable to resist, Remus looked back at Mairead.

She was positively sobbing now. She had wrapped her arms around herself and was rocking back and forth in a self-soothing move he had only seen her use once or twice. She was obviously doing her best to be quiet, but Remus could see her shoulders heaving mightily with emotion.

Remus's eyes darted back and forth between the door and the couch where the woman he loved sat crying.

I blame you, he growled internally at the wolf as he strode across the room and sat down beside Mairead.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, sitting near her but not daring to touch her. "I'm sorry, Mairead. I didn't mean to barge in -"

"It's not you!"

Remus's eyebrows went up hopefully. "It's not?"

Mairead shook her head, then leaned forward and buried her face in her knees. Remus could hear her gasping for air.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It's - it's -" But Mairead was crying too hard to speak.

Remus did not know what to do. He had sworn he would never go near her again, had sworn that he would never let her past his walls again. Yet here he was, sitting beside her, feeling every one of her cries hammering directly on his unguarded heart.

He knew her well enough by now - knew the shape and contours of her mind - to know that she was well on her way to working herself up into a fine frenzy. Soon the guilt would set in and she would run away. Sure enough, within seconds she sat up with a gasp and shifted herself away from him.

"I'm sorry," she panted, out of breath from the exertion. "I didn't mean to - I'm just going to -"

"Here," interrupted Remus, shoving the mug of tea he still held towards her. "Have some tea."

Mairead shook her head. "No, I don't want to take your -"

"Drink the tea, Mairead."

"It's yours! I didn't - I'm sorry -"

"For God's sake, can you please not be so stubborn for once in your entire life?" Remus snapped. Mairead blinked, caught off-balance by his short temper. Remus winced. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "The full moon... I'm..."

"Oh, yes, it's tomorrow," breathed Mairead. "I'm sorry."

"No, no, I'm not upset with you," said Remus vaguely, massaging his eyes. "I just get... like this."

Mairead nodded, understanding at once. "I know; I'm sorry."

Wordlessly, his forehead still in his hand, Remus extended the cup of tea towards her again without looking at her. Mairead accepted it obediently. All at once, uncertainty crashed into Remus. Was he being controlling? "I'm sorry," he said, sitting up straight. "You don't have to - if you don't want the tea obviously you don't have to... I wasn't trying to -"

"No," said Mairead, looking awkward. "Erm, this is great. Thanks." She raised the mug to her mouth and took a sip, then immediately pulled a disgusted face.

"It's not as good as yours," Remus admitted abashedly.

"No, erm, it's grand. Thank you," she said, valiantly taking another sip before delicately setting the mug down on the coffee table. Remus did not miss how long she held the tea in her mouth before she managed to force it down her throat, nor the shudder of revulsion that followed.

They sat together in uncomfortable silence for nearly a minute, Mairead twisting Remus's handkerchief around in her fingers and sniffling softly. Finally, Remus could not stay silent any longer.

"Would you like me to leave?" he asked quietly. "I didn't mean to intrude..."

"No, no," said Mairead, dabbing at her nose with the handkerchief and swallowing. "I mean - if you want to you can go. I mean. You can go anytime, you don't need my permission. Obviously. I wasn't sa- I wasn't trying to say -"

"Would you like to tell me what's going on?"

Misery suffused Mairead's face. "I don't want to trouble you," she said in a miniscule voice.

"It's no trouble."

Good Lord, please just give me a reason to stay here beside you and I'll stay until the end of time.

Mairead was silent for a long while. Remus held perfectly still while she gathered her thoughts. He watched emotions flit over her face, saw her pull her lip in between her teeth and release it. She raised her thumb to her mouth and nibbled on the edge. Remus noticed then how she had bitten her nails all the way down, saw the red rawness along the nail beds where she had picked and pulled at her own skin to alleviate her anxiety.

"D'you - do you know that I'm t- that Dumbledore has me teaching? At Hogwarts?" she asked meekly.

Remus nodded. "Divination, right?"

Just the word seemed enough to set Mairead to crying again. "Mm-hmm," she squeaked, her eyes filling. She blinked rapidly and sniffled again, then said, "It's not, erm... well, it's not going very well."

Remus nodded again. "What's been going on?" he asked gently.

Mairead's mouth trembled. "Erm," she said, her voice trembling. She pressed the handkerchief hard to her mouth and turned her face away from Remus. He wanted to hold her in his arms so badly he had to sit on his hands to stop himself from reaching for her. She couldn't seem to bring herself to say what was on her mind.

"Please just tell me what's wrong," Remus breathed.

"Everything is wrong!" she burst out. She shook the handkerchief open and buried her face in it. "Me! I'm what's wrong! I'm a horrible teacher and I don't know what I'm doing and all the students hate me and Umbridge is out to destroy me and it's working!" Her voice grew shrill and panicked as she continued."She's not going to stop! She is never going to stop! She's going to keep after me and after me until I wind up dead and scattered around the countryside like Benji Fenwyck."

"Mairead, that's enough," said Remus. He wished he could take her by the shoulders, but she had withdrawn her permission for him to touch her, and so he settled for speaking firmly to try to get her to snap out of her panic. "You're just nervous about teaching. It's going to be all right. I know Umbridge is horrible but she is not going to kill you. Dumbledore is not going to let anything happen to you."

"Dumbledore won't have any say in it!" Mairead cried. "She's going around him, straight to the Ministry - to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement!" She looked up at Remus at last and he could see at once that this was not an attack of low self-esteem like he had thought. There was real fear in her eyes that made his heart plummet.

"Mairead, what is happening?" he said urgently. "I need you to tell me right now -"

"She's after my wand!"

Remus's heart thumped heavily in his chest. "What do you mean?"

"Just look." Mairead leaned forward and shuffled through her papers on the coffee table. "I got this letter yesterday evening. I've been put on Academic Probation, which I was expecting, but look."

She handed Remus a letter. Remus scanned it once, then read it thoroughly a second time, hoping he had misunderstood. He shook his head slowly. "She can't do this," he said with no conviction.

"She's doing it," Mairead replied hopelessly.

"You are a fully qualified witch, Mairead," said Remus. "You graduated from Hogwarts."

"Yeah, well, the Ministry doesn't seem to have that much faith in Hogwarts at the moment."

Remus shook his head. "That doesn't matter," he insisted. "You passed your exams - exams that were administered by the Wizarding Examinations Authority. That's a branch of the Ministry, not Hogwarts. The Ministry is hardly going to start eating itself from the inside just to go after one witch. She's bluffing. She's trying to scare you into resigning."

"Well, it's working!" Mairead nearly shouted. "Honestly, I should just quit anyway. I'm total crap at teaching."

"I have a hard time believing that," said Remus. "You taught -"

"Seriously, if one more person brings up that fecking First Year workshop I did, like six thousand years ago -"

"Two years ago," Remus corrected her with a slight smile. "But it sounds like you've had enough pep talks. So how about some practical advice?"

"Quit and never go back?" said Mairead sourly.

"Not quite," Remus said delicately. "Why don't you tell me what's going wrong with your classes? Maybe another point of view will help."

Mairead scrubbed a hand over her face. "I wouldn't know where to begin," she mumbled distractedly.

"Well, what are you working on right now?" Remus pointed to the papers strewn across the table.

"Oh, you know," said Mairead bitterly. "Just trying to figure out how I'm supposed to teach a class when I don't know the subject matter and I have nothing to work with."

"Hmm. I think for now we should table your assertion that you don't know the subject matter, because I think you and I both know that's not true." He held up a hand as Mairead opened her mouth to argue. "We can circle back to it later. Now: did you get any materials from Sybill? A syllabus, for example?"

"Yes. But I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it."

"May I take a look at it, please?"

With a heavy sigh, Mairead searched the mess on the table and eventually pulled out three pieces of parchment paper and handed them over.

Remus frowned as he examined them. "Sorry," he said, turning the papers over to see if anything was written on the back. "This isn't what I meant. Do you have the syllabus?"

Mairead pointed at the papers in his hand. "That's what I got," she said.

"This... isn't a syllabus."

"What is it?" asked Mairead.

"Honestly? A joke." At Mairead's blank stare, he clarified. "A syllabus is supposed to be a comprehensive guide to everything you plan to teach over the course of the Academic Year. It should include a curriculum - which is a general overview of the course content - class-by-class lesson plans for what you will cover every time your class meets, homework assignments, a rubric for how the students will be graded -" Remus broke off at the ragged gasp that tore out of Mairead. "What's the matter?"

Mairead's eyes were wide. "I just realized," she whispered. "I haven't assigned any homework. It's been three weeks and I haven't assigned any homework. I forgot to."

Remus couldn't stop the surprised laugh that escaped him. Mairead looked at him in dismay. "Well, I don't know what you're so worried about," he said lightly, trying not to smile. "By now you should be the student body's favorite teacher in all of Hogwarts."

Mairead made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "I'm such a failure," she muttered, burying her face in her hands again.

"No, Mairead, you're not. You've been set up to fail, but that is not the same thing as being a failure."

"It feels pretty similar," she said bleakly.

Remus chuckled sympathetically. "I'm sure it does." He looked over at her, staring despondently at the pile of papers and books in front of her, and tossed the pathetic excuse for a syllabus onto the table. "All right," he said briskly. "Those are completely useless, so we're going to have to start from scratch and build the entire curriculum ourselves."

"What's the point?" said Mairead dejectedly. "I'm just going to be sacked anyway."

"Oh, come on, Mairead," said Remus. "You're a Hufflepuff. You can't fool me into believing you can't handle the challenge. You bagged an Exceeds Expectations on your Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. and you can't even use defensive magic! You'll not convince me you're not up for this."

"That was different," Mairead said. "You helped me with that... you helped me limp through."

Remus remembered these were the words that Snape had used long ago. He should have known she would have taken them to heart. "And just what do you think I'm going to do now?" he said bracingly. "Clap you on the back and wish you luck?"

Mairead looked over at him, then quickly looked away. "You can't want to help me now," she said quietly. "You shouldn't have to help me now."

"I would love to help you now," Remus said, but swiftly back-tracked. "Unless you don't want my help. I would understand if you didn't. You could ask one of the other teachers for help. Professor Sprout, or I know you were close with Professor Burbage."

Mairead was quiet for a long time. Remus felt like she was weighing his fate in her hands. After what felt like hours, she said so quietly he could barely hear her, "Would you really want to help me?"

"Nothing would make me happier," he said sincerely. Mairead was silent, but he knew she was processing her feelings. "Would it help if I went and fetched my old curriculum from when I was teaching?" he asked her. "So that you can see what a real one is supposed to look like?"

Mairead looked up. "You still have it?" she asked hopefully.

Remus smiled humorlessly. "I held onto it with the naïve hope that it would help me land a job post-Hogwarts," he said wryly.

Mairead pinched her bottom lip between her fingers. "I'm sorry it didn't," she said sorrowfully.

"Thank you."

He excused himself to go dig out his old papers. By the time he returned to the library with a stack of folders in his hands Mairead appeared to have pulled herself together. She had straightened up the papers on the coffee table and had neatly folded his handkerchief, although she still clutched it in her hands.

"All right," he said, returning to his seat beside her, sternly telling himself he had to keep his distance. "Here was my syllabus for the First Years." He handed it over and watched Mairead's mouth fall open.

"This is... really comprehensive," she said. Remus saw her eyes dart over to the pathetic outline lying on the table. He reached over, careful not to let his fingers so much as brush up against hers, and pulled out a piece of parchment paper that was covered in writing on both sides.

"This is the curriculum for the First Years," he said. "Do you see how it provides an outline for the course? This is where I started. Your class starts with Third Years, so the question you must ask yourself is: what knowledge, skills, and abilities should a student have by the end of their Third Year?"

Mairead chewed on her lip while she considered this. "Well, Professor Trelawney had them start with reading tea leaves," she said. "And then they did fire omens, and now they're supposed to move onto crystal gazing. Is that what you mean?"

"Maybe," Remus hedged. "Does that sound like a reasonable course load to you?"

"Erm... I mean... the year's already two-thirds over, so..." she trailed off.

Remus raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't answer the question."

Mairead shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I - I originally thought it would make more sense to start with easier stuff, like I Ching, but I talked to the students and they didn't like the idea. They said they were looking forward to crystal gazing."

"I see. And are they teaching the class, or are you?"

He saw Mairead's cheeks flush. "Me," she muttered, looking down at her knees.

"And do you feel they're ready for crystal gazing with the knowledge they have obtained so far?"

Mairead let out a little whimper. "Well," she said, then sighed. "No, but they didn't want to go back. But they also didn't really seem to understand fire omens. Plus, fire omens isn't even a real area of divination! I think Trelawney just made that up!"

"Mairead, Trelawney isn't the teacher anymore; you are," Remus reminded her. "If you don't think fire omens or crystal gazing should be on the curriculum, then take them off."

"But they're already on there!"

"Not on yours."

"But the students wanted to study it! Not that we've had much success, mind, as it looks like Trelawney ransacked her classroom and took away everything that was in there."

Remus blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, yeah," Mairead said in an offhand manner. "The classroom was totally emptied out. No parchment in the desk, no chalk for the blackboard, and she took all of her teaching supplies. The tea things are gone, so no tasseography, no crystal balls, no tarot cards - I didn't even get that syllabus until last Sunday and from the way it appeared, Dumbledore practically had to pry it out of her bejeweled hands."

"Oh, my God," Remus whispered, massaging his forehead again.

"I'm sorry," said Mairead quickly. "I didn't mean to complain. I really appreciate your help. I'll just -"

"It's not you, Mairead," said Remus emphatically. "Don't you see? This is what I meant when I said you were set up to fail. It's not your fault that you didn't know what to do. It sounds like Professor Trelawney threw you to the wolves."

"Sounds like one of her predictions," Mairead said darkly. "That's the other thing! All of the stuff she covers is about omens and augurs of death! It's preposterous!"

"Then why are you so committed to carrying out her curriculum?"

"Because -" Mairead broke off, mouth open. "Oh," she said in a minute voice.

Remus nodded. "You said it yourself back in December: Trelawney was a terrible teacher. I thought so too when I was there! You are allowed to feel sympathy for her being persecuted by Umbridge and still hold your own opinions about her methods of teaching. They are two separate concepts."

He waited for a few moments to let this sink in, and then went on. "When I was teaching at Hogwarts, Trelawney had this... strange relationship with her students. It seemed as though most of the students thought she was a complete hack, while the rest... they were less like her students and more like her disciples. I think she enjoyed the influence she had over them, the way they made her feel powerful and revered. It was bizarre, and rather cult-like. I'm sure you're going to get resistance from these students, but you've got to remember: you are the teacher now. Not Trelawney. And I would be willing to hazard a guess that your methods of teaching are going to be much better suited to the vast majority of the students sitting in your class than hers were. What is more: trying to take your knowledge and everything you have to offer and shrink it down to fit a vague, sparse, and thoroughly amateur syllabus is not going to work for anyone, especially yourself."

Mairead went back to twisting the handkerchief around her fingers. "You really think I have something to offer them?"

"I'm sure of it," Remus said. "Now, I'll ask again: what do you think the Third Years should be studying?"

"I Ching," said Mairead at once. "It's one of the simplest forms of divination. But actually - before that, they need to understand how to get into the right mindset. So... would it be really weird if we started with meditation?"

Remus raised his eyebrows. "You're the teacher, Mairead, not me. Do you think it would be really weird if you started with meditation?"

Mairead opened her mouth to argue. Remus tilted his head in a silent challenge. "I think we should start with meditation," she said quietly.

"Excellent!" said Remus, writing it down. "What's next?"

---

On Monday morning, Mairead got to class before anyone else arrived. She set down the box she was carrying, opened the trapdoor, jumped out of the way of the falling stepladder, then pointed her wand at the box on the ground and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

She watched the box float into the air, and guided it up the ladder and into the classroom overhead. She followed the box up the stepladder and got to work.

By the time the first of the Fifth Year Gryffindor class began to arrive, she had transformed the classroom. The red and orange scarves were gone from the lamps, which were now no longer needed as she had also pulled back the heavy drapes covering the windows. The windows had been thrown wide, letting the cool, gusty April air wash out the cloying smell of incense, perfume, and scented candles. Sunlight streamed into all corners of the classroom, shining merrily on the Rider Waite tarot decks that had been removed from the box and lain at each student's usual place at the tables.

Lavender and Parvati (Remus had spent nearly an hour quizzing Mairead on student names and now she felt far more confident in her ability to identify them) arrived first. They pulled their heads apart just long enough to give her identical scornful looks, then took their seats.

"What are these?" demanded Lavender.

"Those are your new tarot decks," answered Mairead. "One for each of you."

Lavender grabbed the boxed deck and held it up pointedly. "We already told you," she said. "We use the Mystical Unknown deck. It's the deck Professor Trelawney assigned us."

"Yeah, well, I'm Mrs. de Winter now," said Mairead impassively.

She did her best to ignore the overt hostility coming from the girls and smiled widely at the next two students to arrive. "Hello, Harry and Ron!" she called.

Harry smiled at her. "Hey, Mair- ow! I mean, Professor O'Keefe," he said, rubbing his side.

Ron retracted his elbow from Harry's ribs and said, "Hi, Professor O'Keefe."

Mairead checked that the girls were not looking at them and then pulled a silly face. She busied herself until the last student arrived, a few seconds after the bell.

"Sorry, Professor!" Neville gasped, heaving his bag into the classroom and clambering up after it. "I forgot my bag in my dorm."

"That's okay, Neville," said Mairead. "I forgot to assign homework for the past three weeks, so let's call it even, shall we?" Everyone laughed, although Mairead detected a nasty tone to the laughter coming from Lavender and Parvati. "Okay, let's get started, yeah? I hope you all had a restful weekend, but being that the O.W.L.s are rapidly approaching, I doubt that very much."

There were a few more appreciative chuckles at this, which bolstered Mairead's confidence as she plunged forward. "I did some thinking over the weekend, and I'm going to be doing some restructuring of this class. I know you were doing things a certain way with Professor Trelawney, but I've got a different way of doing things, so I ask your patience, as we are going to be going backwards for a bit."

Now here come the grumbles, she thought to herself. She forced a brave smile onto her face and continued. "Here's the thing: the simple fact of the matter is that most people are not Seers. The gift of True Sight is exceedingly rare; it comes along once in a generation, if that. So if this class were only open to those who were born with the gift, most years, this classroom would be completely empty. What is more, most Seers would have very little need for this class, because they don't need to learn how to See. They just... See."

Mairead began walking back and forth in front of her students, like Remus used to do when he was lecturing. "Seers are born, not made, and no amount of practice will make someone into a Seer who isn't one. Now, you may be asking yourselves, 'then what's the point of taking this class?' And the point is this:" Mairead stopped walking then and faced the class. "Because even though there may not be any Seers in this room, I'm going to teach you how to utilize something that every single person has: intuition. Everybody has intuition," she repeated, starting to walk more slowly now. "It's that little, nagging voice in your head that says, 'Maybe I should take a different route to the Great Hall this morning,' and then when you get to breakfast you find out that Fred and George Weasley set off a massive load of Dungbombs along your usual route."

All of the boys laughed, and Mairead paused until it tapered off. "It's that gut feeling that wakes you up in the middle of the night with the sudden urge to write to your big sister, and then when you hear back from her you find out that, at the exact moment you woke up, her boyfriend was dumping her. Our intuition speaks to us in lots of different ways - sometimes it's that gut feeling, sometimes it's dreams, sometimes it's just the hairs on the back of your neck going up when you pass someone in the street. Our intuition talks to us, whether we're listening or not. All divination does is make it a two-way conversation."

She had everyone's attention now, she could see it. "We notice so much more than what floats to our conscious minds," she went on. "Divination allows us to ask our intuition questions, and it provides a common language so we can understand what it's saying in response. Because here's the thing: sometimes your intuition taps you on the shoulder and says, 'write to your sister,' and sometimes you're nervous about finals and you have a dream that you're playing Quidditch in front of the whole school completely starkers. Our intuition often speaks in symbols and metaphors - and what you can get from studying divination are tools that help you decode those symbols and understand what your intuition is trying to tell you."

Mairead paused to catch her breath, then plunged onwards. "Which brings me to my next point: you're going to have your favorites when it comes to divination. And that's totally fine! If you talk to anyone who's well-versed in the world of divination, you'll find that, while that person may be familiar with many types of divination, there'll be one or two or maybe three methods that are their fallback methods. Some people like reading tea leaves, or tasseography. Some people prefer pyromancy, which is looking into a flame for symbols. Other people like crystal gazing, or scrying, which is staring into a mirror or another shiny surface. There's also astrology, which is obviously Firenze's preferred method. Some people like to interpret their dreams; some people like to crack eggs and look for symbols and shapes in the resulting mess; some people like palmistry; some people like I Ching, which involves casting sticks or coins and reading the patterns. Personally, my favorite method is tarot. There are even some people who look for symbols in the scat of wild animals." She waited until this sank in and the students began to make disgusted faces before adding, "Don't worry: I think it's gross, too, and I promise we won't be exploring that method."

This time the entire class laughed, even Lavender and Parvati. Mairead smiled genuinely now. "Everyone'll have their favorites, and your favorite may not be your best friend's favorite. I'm not going to ask you to force yourself to like every method we explore here in class. All I ask is that you try them with an open mind. Because again: these are all just tools. All methods of divination work towards the same goal: to help you tap into what you already know. As we get closer to the end of the year, we'll focus in on the methods that are most likely to come up when you sit for your practical O.W.L. Most commonly you'll be asked to crystal gaze, do some palmistry, maybe interpret some dreams. But something you might not know is that you do have the option of requesting tarot cards, or of scrying, or of doing something else."

"Just as long as you don't ask them to take a shit for you," said Ron.

There was a great shout of laughter at this, and Mairead joined in. When everyone settled down, she leveled with them. "Look, I know I'm not Trelawney, and I know some of you in here really loved her. I'm not trying to take away from that. I'm just asking you to bear with me and give this a shot. And if you really don't like it, well, between you and me, I don't think Professor High Inquisitor is going to let me stick around very long, so maybe just wait it out and see what happens?"

Several people let out shocked laughs at Mairead's audacity, but she could see she had won herself some favor.

"Okay," she said, "now that that's out of the way, here's the part that's really going to piss all of you off: we're starting over on tarot."

She paused for the collective groan she was anticipating, but there was nothing. She raised her eyebrows in surprise. After a few seconds, Dean raised his hand. "Yeah?" she said.

"Honestly, miss," he said. "I don't think most of us understood it to begin with."

All the boys nodded vigorously, though Parvati snapped, "That's because you weren't paying attention!"

Mairead nodded in acknowledgement. "Well, good news: you've all got a whole new opportunity to pay attention. Or to draw naked girls in the margins of your parchment, Seamus Finnigan that is so gross."

Seamus jumped and turned bright red, slamming his hand down flat on top of his lewd doodle. Mairead decided not to linger on his embarrassment.

"In front of you, you will find one of the Rider Waite tarot decks that Professor Dumbledore was kind enough to acquire for me," she said, pulling her own deck out of her pocket. "This is the deck we will be learning from. If you get really comfortable with tarot and you want to go back to the Mystical Unknown, be my guest. But for now, this is the deck we will be using in this class. But these are not just to be used in class. I'd like you to take them back to your dorms and look through them. Your homework for the next two weeks is to draw a card every single day. You can do it morning, afternoon, or night, and you can ask any question you'd like. Some examples might include: what will my day look like today? What can I do to succeed with my homework this week? What will my love life look like over the next month? I honestly don't care what you ask. What I do care about is that you make note of what card you get.

"Every day, I want you to note what question you asked, which card you drew, whether it was right side up or upside-down, and I also want you to spend two to five minutes looking at the card and noting down any impressions you get from it. What immediately springs to mind when you see the card? Does it look like a positive card or a negative card? Do the people on the card remind you of anyone? What is the weather like in the background of the card? How are the people dressed? What are the facial expressions on the people in the card? Are there any animals on the card, and do you associate those animals with anything? I want to be very clear about something: this is an O.W.L. year and the homework assignment I am giving you will take, at most, five minutes out of your precious day. I'm being super magnanimous, here, so I don't want to hear any excuses for why you didn't do this assignment. Next Monday I want you to hand in your first week's journals. Any questions?"

No one raised their hands.

"Great," said Mairead. "Now, I'd like to use the rest of our class today to get started going through the Major Arcana. We're going to go card-by-card, and we're going to do it together. Please open up your decks. The first card in the Major Arcana is called The Fool."

---

Mairead was flying high by the end of the day. Shaking off the constraints of Professor Trelawney's style of teaching had been unimaginably freeing for her. The day had not been without its challenges - not all of her students had been enthusiastic about the concept of changing course so close to the end of the year - but she had held strong like Remus had advised her to and gotten through it.

She was feeling so inflated she even decided to go to the Great Hall for dinner.

She gathered her things, dropped them in her office, and set off for the first floor, looking forward to spending her evening of triumph dining with her fellow faculty members.

She paused at the entrance to the Great Hall and looked inside. It was already full of students, and many of the faculty seats were full, too. She automatically looked over at the Hufflepuff table, and her gait stuttered when her eyes caught on a familiar head of brown hair. Mairead froze, her mouth open and breath caught in her lungs. The boy's face was turned away, but she would know that form anywhere. Tall, athletic build; neatly put-together Hufflepuff robes; Prefect badge pinned to his chest.

Mairead's heart was fluttering in her throat. She drank in the sight of the boy and felt filled with love and warmth and disbelief. The boy turned then, and Mairead caught sight of his face.

It was all wrong. There was a bump partway down his nose, and Cedric's had been perfectly straight. His eyes were set too far apart, and he had acne on his forehead and around his mouth that Cedric had never suffered from. His teeth were too crooked and his lips were too thick and his smile was all wrong and everything was horrible and nothing would ever be right again and the world was surely seconds from crumbling into boulders and dust that would crush Mairead beneath them, and she would spread her arms and close her eyes and readily await the bliss of oblivion, because he would surely be waiting there in the dark for her.

Mairead turned tail and ran. She did not make a conscious decision of where she was going; her eyes were too blurry with tears to be able to see. It was dumb luck that she reached up to rub her eyes and noticed, before she could knock on the door she had stopped in front of, that her feet had defaulted to taking her to the one place in the entire castle where she had ever found comfort and understanding.

Mairead gasped and jerked away from the office just before her fist made contact with the door. Remus did not live there anymore. The only person who could possibly be waiting for her behind that door would surely delight in the pain Mairead was experiencing now.

Cedric was gone. And now, thanks to her own actions, Remus was gone, too. She was all alone and it was entirely her fault.

And that was how Mairead came to be crammed into a second floor broom cupboard, sitting on an upturned bucket and crying so hard she thought her stomach was going to come out of her mouth.

Mairead lost track of how long she sat in the cupboard. Her knees and back had gone past the aching, cramped phase and were now numb, as were her feet, which were ice cold. She scrubbed her hands over her face and stiffly rose to standing. Taking a fortifying breath, she reached for the handle and stepped out onto the second floor corridor. She started for the staircase but stumbled to a halt when she noticed that Umbridge's office door was now ajar, and there were soft voices coming from inside. Mairead stared at the door, hovering on the brink of indecision, but eventually curiosity about what Umbridge might be talking about in a hushed voice won out over her fears of what would happen if Umbridge caught her eavesdropping.

She eased as close to the door as she dared, and strained her ears to hear the conversation. It appeared to be between Umbridge and a female, most probably a student. The student sounded nervous, and was hemming and hawing as they spoke.

"Just - I think - if you - erm..." the girl sputtered.

After a few moments, Mairead heard an impatient outburst from Umbridge.

"For pity's sake, Miss Edgecombe, I haven't got all night! If you have something to tell me, then spit it out!"

Edgecombe? That name sounded awfully familiar to Mairead.

"I think you should go to the seventh floor!" the student said.

"And just why should I do that?" asked Umbridge in her poisonously sweet voice.

"There - there's something there," the girl faltered. "Something that you should see."

Umbridge was silent for a moment. She seemed to be weighing the student's words. "Where on the seventh floor is this thing that I should see?" she asked suspiciously.

"It's, erm, well... i-it's a secret room," said the student. "Called the Room of Requirement."

Mairead's mouth fell open in dread. Wasn't that where Harry had been holding his illicit defense meetings? Sure enough, the girl's next words confirmed Mairead's fears.

"If you go there, you'll see. Th-there's going to be a meeting there."

Mairead had heard enough. She had to get to the Room of Requirement before Umbridge did and tell Harry he needed to get out of there. But she would only be a few steps ahead of Umbridge. She couldn't possibly get there in time. It wasn't like she could Apparate inside of Hogwarts. The only beings she knew of who could instantly appear and disappear within Hogwarts were -

An ear-piercing shriek rent the air, startling Mairead.

"MY FACE! WHAT'S HAPPENED TO MY FACE?!"

"Don't worry about that right now, Marietta," Umbridge said. "Go on and tell me more."

Umbridge was distracted. Perhaps it would buy her a few extra minutes. Without giving it another thought, Mairead took off at a breakneck pace for the stairs. She dashed down flight after flight of stairs, jumping trick steps and gasping for air through clenched teeth. She didn't stop until she reached the basement level, then threw herself along the familiar corridors until she passed the pile of wine barrels that hid her old Common Room and skidded to a stop in front of the still-life portrait of a bowl of fruit.

She reached up and tickled the pear, which giggled and transformed into a doorknob. Mairead grasped the doorknob and hurried into the kitchens, where dozens of house-elves were cleaning up from dinner and dessert.

Mairead frantically looked around, trying to catch the attention of one of the elves. Before she could, however, one of the elves caught her attention. Primarily, she suspected, because he was wearing eight hats.

"Erm, excuse me!" she called uncertainly. The elf with the many hats turned towards her, and Mairead caught sight of a pair of large green eyes that she hadn't seen in more than ten years. "Dobby?!"

"Miss Mairead!" Dobby squeaked, looking overjoyed. "Dobby has been hearing you are being back at Hogwarts, miss, and he has been so wanting to come and remember himself to you!" He hurried towards Mairead, smiling widely. "He knew you would be remembering Dobby!"

As shocked and delighted as she was to see Dobby alive and well - when he had not been at Malfoy Manor, she had feared the worst - Mairead pushed her surprise aside, reached down, and took the house-elf's hands. "Dobby - I need your help!" she said urgently. Dobby's smile seemed only to grow.

"What can Dobby do for you, Miss?" he asked. "Or, he should say, Professor Mairead?"

Mairead shook her head. "I need you to go to the seventh floor as fast as you can," she said. "Do you know the Room of Requirement?"

"Do you mean the Come and Go Room, miss?" asked Dobby, great ears flopping as he nodded. "Yes, Dobby knows it!"

"I need you to go there as fast as you can!" said Mairead. "Harry Potter is in there with some... friends. I need you to warn him that Umbridge knows about the meeting! She's going to come there and catch them!"

Dobby's ears went rigid and his eyes somehow grew even wider. "Dobby is going now, Professor Miss!" he cried. "Don't you be worrying - Dobby will warn the great Harry Potter!"

Without another word, Dobby disappeared with a crack! and Mairead found herself clutching the thin air where his hands had been moments before.

---

Mairead took deep breaths and tried to be calm. After leaving the kitchens, Mairead had headed straight to Professor McGonagall's office, but had found it to be empty of its owner. She had thought it too risky to try Professor Dumbledore's office, and so she had returned to her own, where she had paced around and hyperventilated until she had made herself dizzy. Now she was sitting on the floor, eyes closed and counting her breaths. She focused on the solidness of the ground beneath her, on the air going into her lungs, on the sounds of the wood crackling in the fireplace. She was calm. She was placid. She was the picture of serenity.

She jumped and shrieked when a sudden knock on her door startled her.

"Come in," she called in an unnaturally shrill voice, scrambling to her feet and trying to straighten her robes.

Professor Flitwick walked in, checking the corridor behind him before closing the door. Mairead felt the blood drain from her face at Flitwick's grim expression. "What is it?" she asked tensely.

Flitwick shook his head gravely. "Professor Dumbledore has been removed from Hogwarts."

---

Author's Note: Dun, dun, dunnnnn! What did you think? Did Dobby's little cameo make up for any of the angst? And are McGonagall and Dumbledore going head-to-head for MVP yet again? Let me know! 3