"No, Molly, please - I don't want to intrude-" I had only come to the Burrow to leave Moody my report and was now cursing myself that I hadn't just sent it by owl.

"Don't be silly, dear, it's Christmas Eve - I insist you stay!" Molly said as she pushed me into the living room. "Remus is here," she added as though that would somehow convince me.

Celestina Warbeck's voice was warbling out of a large wooden wireless and sitting around it was Fleur, who seemed to find Celestina very dull and was talking loudly to Bill. Ron sitting next to Bill, his eyes on Fleur and Ginny was playing exploding snap with the twins. My eyes fell on Harry who was sitting next to Arthur on the sofa.

This cosy scene was all so unnatural to me and I suddenly felt awkward and self conscious standing in the doorway as my brain helpfully dwelled on how far removed from this type of family life I was.

Molly took her seat and picked up some knitting scowling as she pointed her wand at the wireless to increase the volume.

I gave a small sigh and walked across the room, my long navy blue cloak trailing behind me, to the only empty chair available and sat down, looking at Remus, who I noticed was thinner and more ragged-looking than ever. He was sitting beside the fire and as he looked up he caught my eye.

"Are you alright?" He asked quietly, so that no one else could hear.

I bit my bottom lip and nodded slowly.

He looked at me sadly and opened his mouth as though to speak but closed it again swallowing hard.

"We danced to this when we were eighteen!" Molly's voice made us both look at her as she wiped her eyes on her knitting. "Do you remember, Arthur?"

"Mphf?' said Arthur, whose head had been nodding over the satsuma he was peeling. 'Oh yes … marvellous tune"

"Has it been busy at the Ministry?" I heard Harry ask Arthur.

"Very," replied Arthur then looking over at me he said "Hasn't it Meg?"

I turned to look at him, knowing that he was trying to include me purposely.

"Yes," I nodded, wishing more than ever that I was at home, drinking away my sorrows. I didn't want to think about the Ministry, let alone talk about it.

Arthur turned back to Harry "Wouldn't mind if we were getting anywhere, but of the three arrests we've made in the last couple of months, I doubt that one of them is a genuine Death Eater -"

I raised my eyebrows, not shocked that he would mention this to Harry, but more that he was admitting this when I was under the impression that he was happy with the so-called "progress". But then again, I hadn't really been paying much attention to anyone in the Order lately, or anyone to be completely honest.

"- only don't repeat that, Harry," he added quickly, looking at me as though I would reprimand him. Did he honestly think I give a shit about the Ministry anymore or what was said about it.

I chuckled darkly "It's fine Arthur. We all know we want to look as though we're making progress, and "three arrests" sounds better than "three mistaken arrests and releases" doesn't it? The Minister will try anything at this point to keep the public's trust in the Ministry."

Arthur looked at me with a look of shock on his face, perhaps shocked that I would speak ill of the Minister. He quickly rearranged his features as Harry looked from me to Arthur and said "They're not still holding Stan Shunpike, are they?"

"I'm afraid so," said Arthur. "I know Dumbledore tried appealing directly to Scrimgeour about Stan - I mean, anybody who has actually interviewed him agrees that he's about as much a Death Eater as this satsuma

… but again, this is all top secret …"

"I won't say anything," said Harry. He appeared to hesitate for a moment, before saying "Mr Weasley, you know what I told you at the station when we were setting off for school?"

"I checked, Harry," said Arthur at once. "I went and searched the Malfoys' house. There was nothing, either broken or whole, that shouldn't have been there."

"Yeah, I know, I saw in the Prophet that you'd looked …" Harry said "but Malfoy said to Borgin-"

"I went to Borgin and Burke's and questioned Borgin," I said as Harry trailed off. Arthur and Remus looked at me surprisingly "And he told me that Draco hadn't brought anything from the shop,"

"Well, of course he would say that," Harry said defensively "Malfoy told him not to tell anyone-"

"I am quite convinced that Borgin was not lying to me," I said looking at Harry.

"How-" Arthur started and I glanced at Remus who was frowning slightly.

"He's an old acquaintance of my dad's," I said quietly. "All I had to do was mention telling my father -"

"But you're not in contact with your dad," Remus said slowly, his frown deepening.

"Yes, but he doesn't know that." I replied smiling slightly.

Remus looked at me for a beat, a smile playing around his lips as he chuckled softly, shaking his head.

Harry didn't look convinced and remained silent as though he was lost in thought.

"Well, I know something different … well, something more …" Harry said after a few moments and he launched into a conversation he had overheard between Draco and Severus.

When he had finished, there was silence, except for Celestina's singing.

"Has it occurred to you, Harry," said Arthur glancing at me, "that Snape was simply pretending -"

"Pretending to offer help, so that he could find out what Malfoy's up to?" said Harry quickly. "Yeah, I thought you'd say that. But how do we know?"

"It isn't our business to know," said Remus unexpectedly. I flicked my eyes to him. "It's Dumbledore's business. Dumbledore trusts Severus, and that ought to be good enough for all of us."

"But," said Harry, "just say - just say Dumbledore's wrong about Snape -"

"People have said it, many times." Remus said and I made a disagreeing noise and he looked at me.

"You disagree Meg?" He asked, looking at me, a slight frown appearing between his eyebrows.

"Not exactly," I said "but he never listens does he?"

"Well, it comes down to whether or not you trust Dumbledore's judgement. I do; therefore, I trust Severus." Remus said defensively.

"But Dumbledore can make mistakes,' argued Harry. "He says it himself. And you -" He looked Remus straight in the eye "- do you honestly like Snape?"

I looked at Remus who glanced at me before he answered.

"I neither like nor dislike Severus," Harry pulled a sceptical expression. "No, Harry, I am speaking the truth. We shall never be friends, perhaps; after all that happened between James and Sirius and Severus, there is too much bitterness there. But I do not forget that during the year I taught at Hogwarts, Severus made the Wolfsbane Potion for me every month, made it perfectly, so that I did not have to suffer as I usually do at the full moon."

"But he "accidentally" let it slip that you're a werewolf, so you had to leave!" said Harry angrily.

Remus shrugged.

"It would have leaked out eventually." I said as Remus nodded in agreement.

"And we both know he wanted my job, but he could have wreaked much worse damage on me by tampering with the Potion. He kept me healthy. I must be grateful." Remus said.

"I know Severus doesn't exactly walk around like an innocent person, but he isn't a monster, Harry." I said flatly, my head started to ache as it usually did nowadays.

"Maybe he didn't dare mess with the Potion with Dumbledore watching him!" said Harry, looking from Remus to me wearing an annoyed expression, "and you're only saying that because he's your friend."

"You are determined to hate him, Harry," said Remus with a faint smile. "And I understand; with James as your father, with Sirius as your godfather, you have inherited an old prejudice. By all means tell Dumbledore what you have told us, but do not expect him to share your view of the matter. It might have been on Dumbledore's orders that Severus questioned Draco."

Celestina ended her song on a long, high-pitched note and loud applause issued from the wireless, and Molly joined in enthusiastically.

"Eez eet over?" said Fleur loudly. "Thank goodness, what an 'orrible -" I turned my gaze to Fleur as Molly glared at her. I didn't know Fleur very well at all, but decided that I liked her ability to not give a shit about what people thought of her.

"Shall we have a nightcap, then?" asked Arthur loudly, leaping to his feet. "Who wants egg-nog?"

"What have you been up to lately?" Harry asked Remus, as Arthur bustled off to fetch the egg-nog and everybody else broke into conversation.

"Oh, I've been underground," said Remus. "Almost literally. That's why I haven't been able to write, Harry; sending letters to you would have been something of a give-away."

"What do you mean?"

"I've been living among my fellows, my equals,' said Remus. "Werewolves," he added, at Harry's look of incomprehension. "Nearly all of them are on Voldemort's side. Dumbledore wanted a spy and here I was … ready-made."

I looked at him, frowning slightly at his bitterness, not that I blamed him, but perhaps he realised it, for he smiled more warmly as he went on, "I am not complaining; it is necessary work and who can do it better than I? But, it has been difficult gaining their trust. I bear the unmistakable signs of having tried to live among wizards, you see, whereas they have shunned normal society and live on the margins, stealing - and sometimes killing - to eat."

"How come they like Voldemort?" Harry asked.

"They think that, under his rule, they will have a better life," said Remus. "And it is hard to argue with Greyback out there …"

"Who's Greyback?"

"You haven't heard of him?" I saw Remus' hands close convulsively in his lap. I continued to watch him, knowing that talking about Greyback was as much fun for him as it was when I had to talk about my parents. "Fenrir Greyback is, perhaps, the most savage werewolf alive today. He bites and contaminates as many people as possible; he wants to create enough werewolves to overcome the wizards. Voldemort has promised him prey in return for his services. Voldemort has threatened to unleash him upon people's sons and daughters; it is a threat that usually produces good results."

Remus paused and then said, "It was Greyback who bit me."

"What?" said Harry, astonished. "When - when you were a kid, you mean?"

"Yes. My father had offended him. But I cannot pretend that my particular brand of reasoned argument is making much headway against Greyback's insistence that we werewolves deserve blood, that we ought to take revenge on normal people."

"But you are normal!" said Harry fiercely. "You've just got a - a problem -"

Remus burst out laughing and for the first time in months I smiled genuinely.

"Sometimes you remind me a lot of James. He called it my "furry little problem" when others were around. Many people were under the impression that I owned a badly behaved rabbit." Remus looked at me, smiling reminiscently as we shared the memory.

Arthur came around with cups of egg-nog and after a sip Harry turned to us again.

"Have you ever heard of someone called the Half-Blood Prince?"

"The Half-Blood what?" Remus said as I frowned.

"Prince," said Harry, watching him closely.

"There are no wizarding princes," I said as I looked at Remus who was now smiling.

"Is this a title you're thinking of adopting? I should have thought being the "Chosen One" would be enough," he said.

"It's nothing to do with me!" said Harry indignantly. "The Half-Blood Prince is someone who used to go to Hogwarts, I've got his old Potions book. He wrote spells all over it, spells he invented. One of them was Levicorpus -"

"Oh, that one had a great vogue during our time at Hogwarts,' said Remus, looking at me again as I took a sip of egg nog and met his gaze over the top of the glass.

"There were a few months in our fifth year when you couldn't move for being hoisted into the air by your ankle."

"My dad used it," said Harry. "I saw him in the Pensieve, he used it on Snape."

He tried to sound casual, but I looked from Harry to Remus and knew that he understood what Harry was getting at. Remus looked at Harry with a kind smile.

"Yes," he said, "but he wasn't the only one. As I said, it was very popular … you know how these spells come and go …"

"But it sounds like it was invented while you were at school," Harry persisted.

"Not necessarily," said Remus. "Jinxes go in and out of fashion like everything else."

I looked into Harry's face and then said quietly, "James was a pure-blood, Harry."

"And I promise you, he never asked us to call him "Prince"." Remus added softly.

"And it wasn't Sirius? Or you?" Harry said hurriedly looking at Remus.

"Definitely not."

"Oh." Harry stared into the fire looking thoroughly disappointed. "I just thought - well, he's helped me out a lot in Potions classes, the Prince has."

"How old is this book?" I asked, placing my glass on the small table next to my chair.

"I dunno, I've never checked."

"Well, perhaps that will give you some clue as to when this 'Prince' was at Hogwarts," I said, shrugging.

Shortly after this, Fleur decided to imitate Celestina singing 'A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love', which was taken by everyone, once they had glimpsed Molly's expression, to be the cue to go to bed and I took it as my cue to leave.

Molly was insistent that I stay, practically blocking the doorway as I tried to walk out of the front room.

"Meg, please we've hardly seen you for months!"

"It's very busy at the Ministry, as I'm sure you're aware-"

"Please stay for Christmas." Molly interrupted "The thought of you being alone on Christmas d-"

"Who said I would be alone?" I asked, getting quite irritated now even though this was plainly a lie. Of course I would be alone, what did she think; I would go visit my parents? Right now being alone was all I craved.

Molly gave me a very pitying look - Why did everyone keep looking at me that way? - and choked back what sounded like a dry sob. I felt my chest starting to get tight and I didn't think I could stand this much longer. I could see she was on the verge of wanting to talk about Sirius, but, I couldn't bear the thought of that.

I turned around to say goodbye to everyone else in the room, thanked Molly as I stepped around her and quickly made my way to the boundaries of the Burrow before she could corner me again.