Lily marched through Diagon Alley, arms aching from carrying Matilda and dragging Harry alongside her, cold and soggy from the rain, entirely fed up with the morning. Nobody was sleeping well in their draughty new house. Harry and Matilda had vocalised their irritable moods from the moment they woke up, and the respite Lily had been expecting in the form of a childless visit to St Mungo's never materialised. Remus had not shown up to babysit.

She was too flustered to cringe away from the staring witches and wizards. Sirius would hopefully be able to shed some light on Remus' whereabouts. Better still, he might be able to take the children for her. As soon as she reached his shop, she ducked inside.

It was busy and bright in Black's Muggle Emporium and, crucially, warmer. Lily weaved through a queue of weary customers to the till, intent on finding Sirius. Instead, she found Remus himself at the helm of the ship looking frazzled, feebly attempting to gift-wrap a blender.

Lily stomped towards the desk. "Remus, why are you here? You said you'd be at ours for ten o'clock, it is nearly eleven."

"Mummy..." Matilda grasped towards a rack of teddy bears beside the till desk. "Teddy?"

"Not today, darling."

"Good question, Lily, why am I here? I only meant to drop by to say hello, and now I'm... how do you wrap this?!"

"Mummy?" Harry tugged Lily's hand and pointed towards the pick 'n' mix stall, his favourite part of the shop. "Can we get sweets?"

Lily flicked her wand in the blender's direction and shiny green paper sucked onto its sides, a white bow threading itself neatly around it. The customer buying the blender, a dour-looking witch, scowled at Lily. "That's not really in the spirit of the Muggle Emporium, is it."

"A thousand apologies, madam, have a lovely day," Remus thrust the wrapped blender into the witch's arms and gestured to the door. He leaned closer to Lily as the next customer unloaded their items onto his desk. "The proprietor of this establishment is experiencing some sort of malady."

"Mummy, please can we buy some sweets?"

"Mummy's talking to Uncle Remus, darling." She turned to Remus. "Is this to do with Isabelle?"

"Whatever it is, it's rendered him entirely incapable of serving customers."

"Mummy! Please can we-"

"Harry, enough!" Lily snapped. Harry looked up at her in surprise. Matilda squirmed in her arms. Lily shifted, stressed. "I need to go to St Mungo's, Remus, and I need a break from..." with a pang of guilt, she glanced between her two children. Harry was still staring longingly at the pick 'n' mix sweets while Matilda grizzled, on the verge of tears.

"I'm really sorry, Lily, I was going to come and help but I have been stuck here for over an hour and I haven't had a moment to send you a message." He sent the next customer off with a model motorbike. "Aren't you banned from St Mungos anyway?"

"Nobody's banned from St Mungo's, it's a hospital," reasoned Lily. "Besides, I'm not paying anyone a visit. It's an important appointment regarding my pregnancy. And it started half an hour ago."

Remus winced. "I'm sorry, Lily. Sirius is upstairs, perhaps you can bring him back to life."

"I really don't have time, Remus, can't you-"

"The Weasleys? Why don't you try them?"

"They have a million children as it is."

"So what's two more?"

Lily rolled her eyes and dragged her children towards the spiral staircase behind the till. The warmth of the shop was starting to make her clothes itch and her face sweat. Harry moaned as he ascended the stairs.

On the upper level, Lily found the door to Sirius' office. She knocked.

Matilda continued to squirm in her arms and Harry continued to pull. Lily was beyond fed up with wrestling with the two of them but could not face the chaos that would ensue if she let them both roam. She knocked again.

"Sirius?" she called. "Sirius, I've brought the children to see you."

Nothing.

Lily placed her hand on the old brass push plate on the door. It felt rude to use Sirius' own security charms to unlock a door he hadn't expressly said she could open, but eliciting no response from Sirius when his godson was mentioned was unusual.

The door opened (there were five people in the world it would do it for) and Lily pulled the children inside, eager to close the door on the bright colours of muggle wonders that ensnared her children's attention. But no sooner had the door closed behind her, they were assaulted by the grating noise of more crying infants.

Sirius' office stood at the end of a long narrow corridor plastered with muggle advertisements, posters, notices and contemporary art. Musicians, movies, the latest cars or coats, the occasional political campaign. Sirius' love of muggles was fascinating and sad. He'd grown up yearning to explore a forbidden world. What he'd created in the few years preceding the loss of his family and a deadly war was nothing short of remarkable.

They inched down the corridor, the crying getting louder. Sirius suddenly stumbled into view carrying both wailing twins. He stared at Lily pleadingly.

"Now isn't a good time, I'm afraid," he said, barely audible over the cries of the infants.

"Padfoot!" Harry let go of his mother's hand and raced towards him, attacking his legs in a tight hug. Sirius smiled weakly at him.

Lily let out a sigh of pity, put Matilda down and strode over to him. She scooped a baby up from his arms, which only caused the child to scream louder, but was half the weight of Matilda and therefore a bit of a break.

Sirius was visibly relieved. "I'm not very good at this, am I?" he looked to the corner of the room. Elvina, his angelic oldest child, was pulling the ribbons off scrolls she'd found in an unlocked drawer, her face moody and pouting from a recent tantrum. Matilda walked over to join her campaign.

Lily aimed her wand. Colourful sparks sputtered from the tip and began dancing around the room, distracting the toddlers from their destruction and delighting them. The infant in Sirius arms also stopped screaming to watch the colourful display.

"I'm so blessed-" Sirius began, "-to have beautiful children and a big house and a wife who works hard, but..." he trailed off. The emotions of parenthood were beyond articulation, and Lily would be hard pressed to find a more devoted father in the entire wizarding world. With one exception.

"Isabelle is trying," he said suddenly, looking at her. "I know what you must be thinking. But she does love them."

She put her free hand on his shoulder. "I know."

He watched the two young girls holding hands, dancing around each other in a ring and giggling, colours popping and sparking around them. He smiled. "Sometimes I think they don't even like me."

Lily rolled her eyes and smiled. "Parenting is a war. To win a war, you need to know your opponent and think tactically." Sirius gave a weak smile. "I lose a lot of the battles," Lily reminded him. "It's not easy."

They both looked at the crying baby in Lily's arms.

"He's growing some teeth," Sirius explained. "I've bled the apothecaries dry. No charm nor potion can ease his pain."

Lily smiled. "Have you tried a carrot?"

Sirius raised his eyebrows in bemusement.

Randolph and Ravinia Black didn't have the wispy blonde hair of their elder sister. They both had neat, twisting brown curls and stormy grey eyes. Lily stroked Randolph's soft hair, soothing the poor child.

"If there are two more people in the world who are to be as loyal, caring and brave as you, Sirius, the world is better for it."

He smiled affectionately at her. The daughter he held in his arms patted his cheek and grinned.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

James couldn't have left the Auror office any quicker at lunch time. He and his colleagues had spent hours poring the strange bric-a-brac from the home of an arrested wizard, inspecting each bizarre artefact for signs of malicious use. It was rumoured this particular wizard had been experimenting with time. The ministry were nervous about any magic which had the ability to alter past events at the best of times. For this magic to be in the hands of a rumoured Death Eater... it was worth tearing his house apart to stop it. Unfortunately, what James and his team soon came to realise was that A) This was a particularly thick wizard whose experiments were imposed solely on cuckoo clocks, and B) The Ministry would not accept a report of safe release until every cog, pin, lever, wire and splinter and been through rigorous testing and declared safe.

James breezed through the dining halls, looking for a spare table at which to eat his sandwiches, relishing being somewhere, anywhere, that wasn't an office full of clock parts. Something caught his eye at the back of the hall.

Isabelle Black, Sirius' phantom wife, was waving madly in his direction.

He was shocked by her appearance. Her sleek blonde hair was untidy and almost white. She wore no make-up to hide how pallid she had become. He knew she was having a tough time of it, but hardly expected her to become so undone. He weaved through the maze of tables towards her. She had a curiously wide-eyed expression on her face as though strapped to a bomb.

"Isabelle?"

"James, will you join us? Mr Weasley here is the most engaging storyteller."

Sat down on the bench where Isabelle was stationed sat Arthur Weasley, scoffing lightheartedly at her compliment. He smiled up at James.

"Good to see you looking so well, James! How're the kids?"

"Er... they're well. Yours?"

As Arthur monologued about his small army of children, Isabelle kept her intense gaze on James. He bore into her, questioning. What did she want? She looked afraid, determined, ready for battle.

What do you know that I don't?

"Please, James, sit," Isabelle and James joined Arthur at the table. "Mr Weasley, you must tell James the hilarious story you told me this morning about your new friend."

James sat up and stared at her. His pulse quickened. She held his gaze.

"My new friend? Ah! Yes! Remarkable story, really..." Arthur leaned into the table as though imparting a great secret. His companions copied. "There I was, in Diagon Alley doing a report on Black's Muggle Emporium..."

James tensed.

"...what a place, Sirius' shop! I could die there. The most fascinating wares I have ever seen. I can't say I was disappointed to receive the task of surveying the place! Anyway... I was taking notes on the product advertisements in the windows when Eyelop's caught my eye. Well, I hate to admit that I got distracted from the task at hand and wondered over to have a look at the creatures he's got in at the moment. The boys are desperate for a school pet and Molly and I have been talking about getting something to send the boys something but we just can't afford an owl, their food alone is astronomical! And smelly. Anyway... there were some owls and a few bats and some frogs, but nothing was calling to me. Then all of a sudden, can you believe it, a rat scurried out of the shop, runs up my leg and into the pocket of my cloak!"

Isabelle bit her lip and looked at James.

"Well, I'm not scared of rodents but I did think it odd that one should crawl into my pocket so I pulled him out and set him back on the ground. And what do you know, he leaps up at me and scrambles into my pocket again!"

"I told Mr Weasley earlier that I thought this rat seemed mighty keen to have a home with the Weasleys," Isabelle said darkly.

James could scarecely believe what Isabelle was thinking.

"I'd say!" laughed Arthur. "Have you ever known such behaviour from a rat? And such a bedraggled creature. He was even missing a toe on one paw! Poor thing..."

Shock made James' head spin.

"What a remarkable story, don't you think, James?" Isabelle asked pointedly. "I said to Mr Weasley not to mention this to my husband, or he'll get ideas about seeking out a lost rat for himself."

James gave her the most subtle of nods. Isabelle swallowed, reassured.

"Incredible, Arthur!" said James. "And this rat has joined the Weasley clan?"

"Fits right in," said Arthur proudly. "He'll be heading to Hogwarts when my boys go back! What a life he'll lead..."

So. He hoped to hide as a family pet. Did he know Voldemort was gone? Or was it vengeful old friends he was hiding from?

He couldn't let Wormtail reach Hogwarts. Nor could he leave him with the Weasleys. His betrayal had been incomprehensible. What else was Peter capable of?

And Isabelle was right. Sirius, whom since Peter's treachery seemed to be teetering on madness, could not be told.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Later, after Lily had sent a grovelling apology by owl to the doctor at St Mungo's (Cadwal did begrudgingly forgive the Potters for the porridge fiasco that morning), the evening was mercifully pleasant. She sat on the kitchen door step, watching her children hunt for natterslugs in the garden, which stretched upwards towards a hilly apple orchard which also now belonged to them. Beyond the orchard, cows belonging to their muggle farmer neighbour dozed in the warm sunset.

James might've kept the temper of the morning ignited with his news had he not immediately spotted the signs of exhaustion in his wife. He made them each a cup of tea and calmly told his wife what Arthur and, by proxy Isabelle, had told him. It soured the beautiful scene in front of them, worrying about being found. Worrying about such a wizard being in the house of their close friends.

James had slipped to Etta Gamble, his Senior Auror. Nothing could be heavily trod these days. The Potters had been on thin ice way too long.

"I will write to Isabelle," Lily told James. "This melancholy cannot go on. She might need a kick up the arse or she might need help."

"We've tried everything," said James softly. "She's disconnected."

Lily shrugged. "Perhaps we need to figure out a way to work with that disconnection, not against it."

James frowned. It pained him to see his best friend flounder in parenthood without her. Where had the headstrong, bright, brilliant witch they'd first met gone?

"I do believe she loves Sirius," Lily said. "And the children. But I wonder that her type of love is different. It's..."

"Slower," James smirked. He expected Lily to roll her eyes and chastise him, but she nodded.

"Perhaps it is."

Despite battling two growing young children, Lily's exhausting pregnancy and two demanding careers, their work on the cottage had made great progress. They had cleared the house of debris and insects and broken furniture, replacing it with anything cosy and colourful. James had transformed the fireplace, which now healthily warmed the living room. Even Harry helped with scrubbing floors and windows. Hot water filled their claw-foot bath. Books filled the shelves in the small study. They could fill the pantry with food without worrying about mice or weevils. Cushions, rugs, flowers and funny little ornaments brightened the place and made it feel as though they had lived there for years. Not even Peter Pettigrew could extinguish the peace they felt in their new home.

They heard the whoosh of the fireplace inside declaring a visitor. Moments later, Remus stepped into the kitchen. Harry sprinted across the garden and crashed through his parents to get to Uncle Remus. He gave the boy a warm hug. He looked to James. "Shall we?"

James and Lily had met the owners of their local pub a couple of weeks ago. Wilbur and Jocasta Reed had been exceptionally warm to the Potters, bringing baskets of homemade treats and bottles of home-brewed ale to welcome them to their new town. Their pub was small and dilapidated, and rarely visited by muggles, but the Potters had a wonderful time drinking wine on the outside tables overlooking the stream and the local muggle children splashing within. Harry had watched the children longingly. His secret-keeping had so far gone untested. Wilbur Reed seemed to catch on to Harry's train of thought and brought out his own daughter, a scruffy and awkward eight-year-old named Beulah, whom at her father's instruction had shyly introduced Harry to the fundamentals of snakes and ladders.

The Half Moon pub quickly became their regular watering hole.

And today, The Reeds were throwing a party. A specific sort of party. And their invitation extended to Remus Lupin the moment they heard of his lycanthropy.

"We host every month," Jocasta had explained. "There are maybe five that come regularly, but ten or so more drop in every now and then. It does them good. It does us good."

Such was the good nature of the Reeds. They brought werewolves together once a month for a night of drinking, card games, good food, laughter and friendship. All organised and funded by the Reeds. All because there was no such place for them anywhere else.

James accompanied Remus to his first meeting at the behest of the hosts. They strolled down the hill to the town, enjoying the pleasant evening sun. Too pleasant, in fact, to tell Remus about Peter. Remus was quiet on the walk down, almost buzzing with nervous excitement. He was not a shy man, but there was something momentous in his walk. James had seen this look before, when walking into battle.

"Nervous?"

Remus smiled at him. "Imagine you've been trapped in a dungeon all alone for twenty years, only to discover the door was unlocked the whole time."

James raised his eyebrows and nodded. "Fair enough."

"Not that I've been alone all these years, of course, but-"

"I know," James assured him. "I understand."

They reached the pub. Remus surprised James by speeding up, and leading the way to the door. A couple of men in muggle clothing sat together on a bench outside the pub, enjoying the evening as James and Remus had been. Were they werewolves? Was there a secret signal? Did Remus have a whole culture to unpack?

Inside the pub, the atmosphere was no less welcoming than it always was, except fizzing with activity. Four people sat around a table playing cards, slapping them down and cheering jubilantly. Two witches sat knitting in the corner of the room, laughing together. Three wizards of varying ages sat on barstools with mugs of beer, in deep philosophical discussion. Everyone was in muggle clothing and drinking muggle alcohol, but the magic was so tangible in the room that James would've known anyway.

Jocasta emerged with a foil-covered platter and beamed at the pair. "It's a busy one tonight!" she said excitedly. "Welcome, both of you."

Several of the guests looked up in astonishment. The card game became quiet.

A young, extremely tall and slender wizard with floppy brown hair approached them and took a deep breath.

"Mister Lupin, I, er- wow, it's an honour to meet you," he thrust a hand towards him. "William Plummly. You might have seen my rather sad-looking cake stall in Diagon Alley. No charge for you, of course, Mister Lupin! Not that they're worth paying for most of the time."

"Plummly takes modesty to a new level," a short, round witch with short, choppy, dark green hair and a plethora of deep red scars on her neck stood behind him, beaming. "Amelia Nettles, Mister Lupin. I run a greenhouse on the Welsh coast. It's not big, but it stocks a couple of apothecaries. Anything you need, any ingredient or potion, come straight to me."

Remus blinked, taken aback.

She looked at James. "You too, Mister Potter. Anyone who champions the rights of our kind is a part of our community,".

Jocasta returned, placing a hand on Remus' shoulder. "That's what we are, you know. A community." she pointed to a wizard at the bar. "Linus Malik is a carpenter. Has been for thirty years. His work is beautiful. Beats anything you can do with a wand." she pointed to one of the knitting witches in the corner. "Mabel Thistlewood tutors Andrew and Livia's boys and my Beulah." she points to the Andrew in question, engaged in the now-resumed game of cards. "Andrew Vane works with a friend of Dumbledore's in Scotland studying magical marine creatures. He rescues them."

"Yeah, and rescues Julius from them!" an in-joke from an older wizard at the bar, eliciting chuckles from around the room.

Jocasta returned her attention to Remus and James. "Get yourselves some drinks. They're on us tonight."

Remus approached the bar in a daze. Pulling pints with a tea towel slung over her shoulder was a pretty, pale young woman with messy dark hair. She smirked at Remus.

"It can be quite overwhelming at first. Crowded, even. But everyone here is lovely."

"I don't believe I've seen you at The Half Moon before," James commented. "Do you work here?"

The girl shook her head. "I work for Amelia in the greenhouse. I just mind the bar to help out when I'm here."

"How long have you been coming to these meetings?" Remus asked her.

The girl thought for a moment. "A couple of years. I lived in Germany for a long time. Lots of forests to hide in," she looked at him and gave a knowing smile. "But I was missing out on things I loved. Family and stuff. A very kind man taught me not to fear myself..." she went quiet, and put a golden pint of ale on the bar for one of them. She shook her hair out. "Sorry. Rambling."

James looked at her curiously. Did he know her?

"Don't apologise," said Remus. "I've never met a werewolf who wasn't hell-bent on making my life a misery. Let alone..." he glanced around the room, where business had resumed. "Everyone's so kind. They've made me feel like a guest of honour."

"You are." Her eyes were hazel and delightful. "Every werewolf in the country knows you fought Death Eaters. My mother made sure it was known throughout our kind. She's not one for minding her own business, but she knows we need every bit of good news we can get. You made a great impression on her, you know."

"Your mother? Do I know her?"

She handed them a second pint. "Milicent Bagnold," she revealed. She gave Remus another confident smile. "I'm Rena."

James knew then that if he quietly slipped away, not only would Remus be fine, he probably wouldn't notice.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

A/N: Got my groove back.

N x