Chris woke Remus on his way out that night, as he usually did. Instead of going down the stairs, though, this time he went up to Athena's lab. Remus thought about ignoring it and going back to sleep, but pulled himself out of bed and followed. By the time he got upstairs, the lights were lit in the lab, and Chris was searching through a cupboard. He noticed Remus and said, "Hey. You afraid I'm nicking something from Athena?"

"If you're nicking something from Athena, you're the one who should be afraid," Remus said.

Chris chuckled. "I'll tell her you said that. Look, Selena already did the 'we all like you, Chris,' thing, so you can just skip that, OK?"

"Actually, I think you're a bit of a snotrag." Remus smiled. "But then again, all of my friends have been."

"I'm not really sure how to take that," Chris said, but he couldn't hide his grin. He searched through the cupboard a little longer, then pulled out a small, empty glass bottle that might have once held perfume. "This one should work." He cast a scouring charm on it and started across the room, but stopped beside Remus. "Hey, ya wanna see something?"

"All right."

Chris put the bottle down and pulled a small glass ball out of his pouch, holding it up in the light. "What do you think that is?"

"It looks like a marble," Remus said.

"Thanks, Officer Obvious. What else?" Remus shrugged. "Here, take a closer look."

As soon as he put it in Remus's palm, Remus knew that the house they were in was located at 01 Kelpie Creek and what it looked like: recently painted mint green, with two full stories and a dormered attic where Athena had her lab. "What is that?"

"It's called an Obfirmo Charm," Chris answered, taking it and putting it back into his pouch. "I found the spell in a book back at Flourish and Blotts, one of the really expensive ones no one ever actually reads. Basically, it wants to be a Fidelius Charm when it grows up. It hides a secret inside an object. That's how we protect the Den."

"Thank you, Chris."

"I'm just sick of dragging your arse in every day."

Chris went to a wall-mounted shelf that was filled with Muggle beverage bottles, each labeled with a strip of masking tape with a name, "brewed on" and a date written on it. He looked through them and pulled down one half filled with a clear liquid.

"Is that Veritaserum?" Remus asked as Chris checked the date on the label.

"Yeah. One of the goblin mafia's wolves wants to go straight, and a buddy of ours is thinking about taking him in, but, well, mafia wolf. He wants to be sure. Honestly, no pack is taking new members right now without this stuff. You did know we were on to you from the start, right?"

Remus went pale as Chris poured a portion of the Veritaserum into the perfume bottle and capped it. Realizing that Remus hadn't bantered back, Chris looked at him over his shoulder. The joking tone was gone from his voice as he asked again, "You did know we were on to you, right?"

Remus shook his head.

"Aw, man." Chris ran his hand through his hair. "I thought for sure you knew. I mean, yeah, Eddie Memory Charmed away the specifics, but I was thinking 'he's going to work it out. He's not a stupid guy.' —Wait, that came out wrong."

"No, I don't think it did," Remus said. He knew that Athena was a potioner. He knew Veritaserum wasn't that hard to make; it only required the equivalent of a N.E.W.T. in potions. His Moon Oath proved he wasn't with the Ministry, but they must have been suspicious about why a man in his 30s would be interested in a pack of teenagers. Of course they would give him Veritaserum. He should have expected that. "When was it? That first meal?"

"Before that. We gave it to you right after I dumped you in the creek."

The portkey landed perfectly, and a quick jerk on the chain pulled it out of Remus's hand as he fell into the water below. Chris laughed as he came to the surface.

"Chris, what the heck?" Athena asked as the rest of the pack walked towards the pier. "There is a kelpie in there!"

"He's supposed to be a Professor of Defense," Chris shot back as Remus swam to shore. "If he can't handle that little kelpie, he deserves to be eaten."

Remus reached the shore and summoned his suitcase. "It's fine. Actually, I'm impressed with his aim. Two feet off in any direction wouldn't have worked."

"Oh, Merlin!" Selena trotted up to Vinnie and bent over to brush his hair away from his face. "How are you feeling, Vinnie?"

"It hurts."

"Why don't you take him inside and put some of that salve I use for my arm on him," Athena said.

Chris pulled out the jar that Madam Pomfrey had given him and gave it to Selena. "Here, here's some more of it. The lady Healer said I could come back and get more when this runs out."

Selena took Vinnie's hand and led him into the house while Athena took a bottle out of her own Thief's Pouch and held it out to Remus. "Here, drink this."

"What is it?" Remus asked, taking it.

"Part of the protections on our Den. You have to eat or drink something I've made before you can come in." Remus considered the bottle long enough that Athena started tapping her foot. "It's just chocolate milk and house-magic. My grandmother used to do the same thing with fairy cakes. Now do you want to come in or not? I'm getting cold out here."

That kind of house-magic wasn't unusual among humans. Chris had run into it plenty of times as a thief. Nonetheless, when Remus opened the bottle and drank it, Chris laughed. "I can't believe he fell for that."

Veritaserum had been forced down Chris's throat once when he'd made Narshank really angry. What a warm, comfortable feeling it was, like nothing bad could possibly happen to him while he had a nice chat with friends—even when his wand arm was broken for the first time. So he could tell the exact moment it hit Remus by the stupid look on the man's face.

Eddie grabbed Remus's shoulder and pushed him to a seat on a stump near the creek, while the others created chairs for themselves. "Get comfy, Remus. We've got some questions for you. How did you know the Hunters were coming after Jake and Ellie's pack?"

"Kingsley told me," Remus said. "He thought if I warned them, they'd let me join them."

"You don't mean Kingsley Shacklebolt, do you?" Remus nodded brightly. "Crap, guys, that's an Auror."

"I thought you said he wasn't Ministry," Chris said.

"Oh, Kingsley didn't do it as an Auror," Remus said. "It was for the Order of the Phoenix."

"What is the Order of the Phoenix?" Eddie asked.

"It's a group of us who are fighting Lord Voldemort."

A shudder went through the young werewolves at the name. "What did this Order want with Jake and Ellie?"

"It wasn't them in particular. Dumbledore asked me to join a werewolf pack and find out if the ferals are on Voldemort's side. If you are, he wants me to learn as much as I can about Voldemort's plans. If not, he wants me to convince you to fight against him."

Athena steepled her hands in front of her mouth. "Oh Merlin, what did I get us pulled in to?"

"We can pull right back out of it." Eddie took out his wand. "I'll just erase this whole day from his memory."

Athena grabbed Eddie's arm before he cast the spell. "Wait. I think this is bigger than that."

"What do you mean?"

"Did you hear how this lapdog talked about us? 'The ferals,' like there's just one big pack. That's how most humans think: all werewolves are the same. And what do you think would happen if You-Know-Who thought for a second that 'the werewolves' were fighting against him?"

"Better or worse than what the Ministry would do if they thought we were on You-Know-Who's side?" Chris asked. "That's just the chance Scrimgeour's been waiting for, isn't it? We'd all end up like…"

"Like Jake and Ellie," Athena finished. "Remus, what if you go tell Dumbledore we're out of it entirely? We don't want anything to do with the whole mess."

"He'll keep trying to convince you," Remus said. "He'll keep trying until he succeeds, because if he doesn't, Voldemort will."

"I can still just take this whole day out of his memory," Eddie said. "So what if he was told to join a pack? Who's going to take him?"

"Narshank's packs!" Athena said. "Lupin's the one who spent a year lurking around human children at Hogwarts and then disappeared when he got busted. Narshank'll take him for his reputation alone."

"Narshank likes you," Chris said. "You could warn him."

"He won't care. This is a werewolf problem, not a goblin one, and he'll make sure it never comes back to him. He likes me, but not as much as he likes money."

"Maybe I can wipe him back further," Eddie said. "Take this whole mission out of his memory."

"Then his Order will know we're on to them, and who knows what they'll do."

"Eddie, don't get mad," Chris said, "but we are in way over our heads. Maybe we should get hold of Fenrir and see what he thinks."

"Maybe you should go back to Fenrir if you want to run to Daddy every time we have a problem."

"I told you not to get mad!"

"Could you two save it, please?" Athena shouted before Eddie could yell back. "I am trying to work out how to keep us from getting killed because of this dumbass!"

A long moment passed, then Chris murmured, "we could feed him to the kelpie. I mean, she's always hungry."

"Remus, does anyone know you went with Chris?" Athena asked.

"Madam Pomfrey," he said. "And Nymphadora doesn't know who, but she knows I was going to join a pack."

Athena shook her head. "No good. Kelpies leave the entrails."

Eddie sighed. "I hate to say it, but maybe Chris is right. Maybe we do need to call in Fenrir."

"And risk taking him and the pups down with us?" Athena asked.

"You got any ideas?"

"Maybe, but you're not going to like it. This guy's been a lapdog his whole life. If we let him join our pack, sooner or later he'll give us an excuse to kick him back out. When he does, we make sure that news gets around. Everyone'll say we were idiots to take him in to start with, but no one else will touch him after that, not even the mafia's packs. To the humans, though, it'll just look like he's bad at undercover work." She gestured to Remus. "Which, if they've been paying any attention to him at all, should be completely believable."

"I'd rather lose my pride than my life," Eddie said. "Let's do it."

"I think we can scare him off," Chris agreed with a positively evil grin.

"Eddie Memory Charmed all that away," Chris said.

"But you let me know where the Den is, knowing that," Remus said.

Chris shrugged. "You saved Athena. And it seems like this place is as much your home as anywhere."

It was, wasn't it? "That's why I want to fight to protect it."

"You can take it up with Athena and Eddie if you really want, but it's not going to happen."

"If we don't face this war, sooner or later it'll come to us. Do you think Voldemort will have a place for werewolves in his pureblooded society?"

"Will the Ministry? Because last I checked, they'd murdered five of my best friends and sank a few hundred silver shards into a seven-year-old. If the war comes to us, what does it matter which side we pick? They both hate us just the same. We might as well go with whoever offers us the best deal—and I don't mean promises. I mean on contract parchment."

Remus wanted to argue. He wanted to say that things would get better if the Order won. But how could he? The last time the Order of the Phoenix won a war, he'd lost every friend he'd ever had, and he'd spent the next 12 years alone, selling Dark Creatures and his research on them for Sickles on the Galleon because he couldn't get any other job.

"I could talk to Dumbledore. Maybe he can make an offer that'll make it worthwhile." Remus couldn't imagine it. He couldn't see Dumbledore buying loyalty like that. But then again, something was keeping Mundungus Fletcher around, and it wasn't good character.

Chris shrugged and put the little bottle of Veritaserum into his pouch. "Good luck with that, but I'm not going to hold my breath."