The last few weeks before
Christmas were busy, but pleasant for Amelia.
The world was snowier here than at home and she was often to be found sat in
the courtyard, contentedly watching the world around her whiten and the
students take full advantage of the opportunity to throw stuff at one another.

The week before the final
Hogsmeade visit before Christmas, her fifth-years held an impromptu concert as
part of their Muggle Studies assessment. Fred
and George, as Amelia
had expected, had very much been up to something, and their composition, ‘An
Epic Christmas Tale, part 1’* had many staff and students rolling around in
mirth. For most of the following week Filius could be heard humming it, and the
rumour among the staff was that he’d cornered the pair of them and forced them
to write it down for him.

The Friday before the Hogsmeade
visit, Amelia once again roped Argus into helping her show a film, this time
making it a double feature: The Nightmare Before Christmas and, for the older
students and staff ‘Love Actually’. Hermione accused her of soppiness, but
still complained at having to miss the second film.

She and Lupin had sat together,
as they often did (which also hadn’t escaped Hermione’s notice), and she’d
noticed Severus sitting alone a few seats away. She felt a
pang of sympathy for him before reminding herself that he was now The Enemy,
and she later allowed herself a quiet snigger when she overhead Sybill
comparing herself and Severus to one of the couples in the film.

Inside the castle, there was a buzz
of Christmas in the air. Filius, who was legendary for his enjoyment of the
holiday, had already decorated his classroom with shimmering lights that turned
out to be real, fluttering fairies. Amelia spent
a good few hours trying to figure out how he’d managed to coerce them into
staying put for so long… Remus, for his part, advised her to give them a wide
berth; he’d met fairies before. The students, meanwhile, were all happily
discussing their plans for the holidays.

Amelia,
enjoying herself, was engaged in a great deal of surreptitious knitting. She
was working on a pair of fingerless gloves for Pomona
when Remus nonchalantly enquired after her festive plans.

“Oh I suppose I’ll stay here,”
she’d replied, deftly working her DPNs; it seemed to Remus that she was knitting
on a small, angry hedgehog. “Hermione wants to stay and use the library, so
I’ll keep her company,” she continued. “You?”

“Me? Oh, I’m staying,” he said,
colouring slightly and glad that Amelia had been
concentrating on her knitting and had missed the brief expression of joy that
had escaped across his features. “There’s a warm bed, a library and hot meals
here, what more could I want?” he joked, hoping that she couldn’t tell how
lucky that made him.

Before she could respond they
were interrupted by a flutter of wings and a tawny owl dropped a letter into Amelia’s
knitting.

“Arse!” she swore, clearly
unimpressed.

Remus helped her untangle herself
(and the rather disgruntled owl) and watched as she packed her things.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” he
asked, curious; so far he’d not seen his friend receive much in the way of
post, except in the form of notes from Hermione. He was intrigued at the life
outside the castle that this letter hinted at.

“Nah, we’ll be late. Besides, you
were going to give me that tour.” She slung her bag over one shoulder, stuffed
the mysterious envelope into her pocket and took Lupin’s arm. Together (and
each privately quite happily) they set off for Hogsmeade.

0o0o0o0

The pair of them had a cheerful
day, enjoying butterbeer and drams of spiced whiskey, reminiscing about their
schooldays and generally avoiding the chattering hordes of students roaming
around the village. The memories of this place were painful for Remus, but
sharing them with Amelia was not only cathartic
but even enjoyable. His good humour, and the new-found warmth that his friend
had brought out in him, ebbed a little every time they caught sight of each new
‘Wanted’ poster they passed. Noticing this, Amelia
took it upon herself to distract him and dragged him off on a ramble about the
grounds, far from his old friend’s screaming face.

After a long walk and a pleasant
afternoon they headed back up to the castle to change into warmer clothes
before dinner.

As they paused to let a few
snow-fevered first years out of the clock tower, the wind brushed Amelia’s
hair across her face and she laughed. In that moment, with Amelia
smiling down at him, eyes sparkling, skin pinked from the cold, he came to a
sudden, glorious and terrifying realisation: he was falling for her, honestly
and completely. There wasn’t anywhere in the world that he’d rather be than
where he was now, right beside Amelia with her laughing and joking and dragging
him back out of his gloom. This revelation came as something of a shock to the
usually controlled professor, and it wasn’t until he had reached his rooms and
changed that he actually began to think about this new turn of events. He
caught his own eyes in the bathroom mirror; what was he thinking?

In the cold and wintry light of his
rooms, the hope that this vibrant young woman could ever want to be with him
seemed to vanish, fading along with the light. He surveyed himself sadly: scars
criss-crossing his torso, the shadows still under his eyes from his last
transformation, early silver flecks in his once brown hair. What could he offer
a woman like Amelia? She was young and beautiful
and smart and kind, while he was… decrepit. He sighed.

He’d never been a ‘looker’, even
when he was younger, being almost invisible next to his two handsome best
friends. He hadn’t even been talkative, or funny, or roguish, or any of those
other intangible qualities that appeared to enthral the fairer sex. He knew
that he couldn’t offer her protection either, having barely a penny to his
name; he’d faced years of being turned away from his work every time a new
employer had discovered his ‘condition’. Years of just barely scraping by had
left their mark. Frustrated, he ran a hand through his hair.

He’d no home to invite her into
since his last landlord had turfed him out, and no possessions save his
tattered clothes, worn books and battered suitcase. That was how Dumbledore had
found him, living out of the same case and trying to scrape a living as a
freelance writer in the darkest corner of a scummy city. He’d been so ashamed
that the Headmaster had seen him like that, a former prefect living in the
squalor of a cheap hotel room, but it hadn’t seemed to bother Dumbledore; he’d
taken the offer of work without a second thought, of course, and look where that
had gotten him…

As if she would want to
live with you, supplied his mind, accusingly.

Suddenly exhausted, he sat on the
sofa before the unlit fire in his living room and mourned his life. So it was
that half an hour later, having become curious as to the whereabouts of her
friend, Amelia found him still sat in the dark,
sulking.

“What’s up?” she asked, letting
the warm glow of candlelight filter through from the brightly lit corridor.

“It’s nothing,” he said, not wanting
her to see him wallow. “No really, I’m just tired,” he added on her snort of
disbelief.

“Well if that’s it…”

“Yeah, it is,” he responded,
possibly with more force than he’d intended.

She scrutinized him for a long
moment before turning and heading for the door; finding that he wasn’t following
her she moved back towards him and extended her hand.

“Oh, come on misery guts, or
we’ll miss dinner.”

Sighing, he stood and took her
hand, then her arm as she gasped and stumbled. In that moment she had felt the
depths of his sorrow, though she was unable to sense its cause. Concern crossed
his lupine** features as she stared, open mouthed, at the breadth of her
friend’s despair.

“Amelia,
wha-”

In one movement she wrapped her
arms around him and held him in a tight hug; surprised, he held her back, not
knowing the cause of her sudden closeness nor wanting it to cease. They stayed
that way for some minutes, Lupin’s head resting on hers, listening to one
another’s hearts beating. When they at last broke apart she kept a hold of his
hand, and was about to ask what on earth it was that had made him so sad when Pomona
burst into the room.

“Well come on you two!” clearly
already one sherry down, the older witch assessed the situation with remarkable
clarity. “Unless I’m interrupting anything?” she suggested, waggling her
eyebrows in a truly disturbing and far too accurate manner.

Remus, already flustered by his
friend’s behaviour, coloured up to his eyebrows, which promptly disappeared
into his fringe.

Amelia,
still able to feel the knot in Remus’s stomach, decided to rescue the
situation.

“Oh, come off it Pomona,
we’re not Sybill and Severus!”

Pomona
was rather enjoying her former student’s discomfort, but she gracefully decided
not to prolong it and ushered the two of them out of the gloom and into the
cheery light of the corridor.

0o0o0o0

The feast was every bit as
delicious as it always was and as the majority of the students and staff were
heading home for Christmas Amelia spent most of her evening chatting to her
colleagues. She kept an eye on Remus though, when the opportunity arose; she’d
only come across the depth of despair she’d felt from him once before, among
the rubble and dust of her uncle’s former home. Worryingly, when she cast her
gaze across the Gryffindor table her cousin and her two friends were missing.
Choosing to brush this off for the time being she instead caught up with Remus
as pudding was being cleared away.

“You were just so sad… it just
took me by surprise,” she told him quietly, in response to his unasked
question.

“Oh,” he said, helpfully. Then:
“I guess I was remembering old friends… it always comes back to you at this
time of year.” She could tell he was lying, but had no idea why so she nodded,
a little dubiously; she was about to question her friend further when she
caught sight of Ron and Hermione who had just entered the Great Hall. They
surveyed the lack of food with dismay and made to leave once more.

Amelia
bid a hasty goodnight to her colleagues and followed the pair out of the Hall,
catching up with them by the entrance to the Dungeons.

“Miss dinner?” she asked, adding:
“Where’s Harry?” on their nod of assent.

The look that the pair of them
exchanged told her that whatever they were going to say next would not be true;
if she didn’t know her cousin as well as she did she might have thought that
they’d been sneaking around, kissing behind statues.

“He wasn’t feeling very well…” Ron
began.

“…long day in the library…”

“…all that book dust, it’s bad
for the head…”

“…he went for an early night,”
finished Hermione, lamely. It did not escape Amelia’s
notice that Hermione was refusing to meet her eyes. Her expression must have
indicated her disbelief as both students cringed slightly.

Amelia
sighed; she wondered whether her excuses had ever seemed this transparent to
her Mum and teachers. Some things just never changed, she guessed.

“Ron,
as you’ve not eaten head down to the kitchens (it’s behind the portrait of
fruit – you have to tickle the giant pear) and have the elves deliver the three
of you some food – better be to an empty classroom, I know what your brothers
are like. If anyone gives you any bother tell them that you have my say so,”
she smiled a little at the look of incredulity that had crossed the boy’s
features. “Go on – I want a word with Hermione.”

Simultaneously, their faces fell,
but Ron hurried off with one last helpless look
at Hermione.

“Mel
–”

“Look, whatever it is that’s
happened, you clearly don’t want me to know – I’m sure you can handle it; I
trust you.”

Hermione looked at her cousin for
a moment before relaxing a little and letting out the breath she’d been
holding.

“Thanks,” she said.

Amelia
shrugged, “This of course goes together with the assumption that if you needed
to you’d come to me.”

Hermione nodded.

“Good. Now that we’ve got that
out of the way –” she saw Hermione’s focus shift to somewhere behind her. Remus
and Severus had apparently left the Great Hall together and
were proceeding in uncomfortable silence. Lupin forced a smile at Amelia
and her cousin before heading up the stairs. Severus stood for
a moment watching the pair before continuing; he paused by the entrance to the
dungeons and reluctantly turned to face Amelia’s
glare.

“Goodnight Amelia.”

“Severus,” she
nodded, perturbed.

“Er – and you, Miss
Granger…” he added.

“Sir,” she responded, bewildered.

They watched him turn and swoosh
away, mouths agape.

“Fair enough,” Amelia
said, turning back to the younger witch.

“I was just going to say that you
can all come up tomorrow or Christmas if you’d like – I think I’ve figured out
how to get the laptop to co-operate with the magic levels in my rooms. We could
watch crappy movies and throw popcorn at the screen like we used to.”

Hermione grinned, “That sounds
great, I’ll ask the boys.”

“Might try to convince Remus to
join us,” Amelia added, thoughtfully. “He seems
a bit down at the minute.”

Hermione gave her an altogether
too knowing look for a fourteen year old.

“You like him.”

“Oh, come on Hermione.”

“No really,” she said, beaming,
“you like him!”

“…”

“You smile more when he’s
around.”

“…”

“And it’s really good to see you
smile again.”

“…”

“It’s quite sweet really.”

“Hermione…”

“And he spends a lot of time at
dinner looking at you for someone who isn’t interested…”

“Hermione – wait, what? Does he?”

Hermione grinned in triumph.

“See! You do like him!”

Amelia
sagged in defeat.

“Does he really, you know, watch
me at dinner?”

Hermione nodded, “I think he was
a little jealous of your friendship with Severus…”

“Oh.”

“It really is good to see you
happy again.”

“It’s been a rough couple of
years for the pair of us,” Amelia said.

Hermione nodded, a little sadly.

“And so what if I like him? Remus
is a peach!”

The cousins grinned at one
another.

“Anyway, you little rotter, I’ll
see you tomorrow. Evening-ish?”

“Yeah,” Hermione nodded happily,
“night Mel.”

0o0

On the stairs above them Remus,
who had (let’s be honest) paused to eavesdrop found himself smiling, his
earlier pessimism diminishing. As he hurried back to his rooms lest he be
caught, he allowed this new feeling of hope to buoy him up once more.

He uncorked a fresh bottle of
butterbeer in celebration and reached a book down from the shelf before
settling down to read.

As he began, a worn photograph
fell out of the pages and onto his lap. Sadly, he surveyed the smiling faces of
four young boys and their fiery, red-headed friend – it must have been taken
near to the end of their sixth-year as Lily
didn’t appear to be angry with James or Sirius.
He went to replace it, but reconsidered and propped it up on the shelf where he
could still see them fooling around in their frame.

The children in the picture waved
out at him as they jostled one another and laughed at some private joke.

If only I’d known then, he
thought, forlornly.

0o0

Somewhere above him, Amelia
plugged her headphones in and hit ‘shuffle’ on her iPod for the first time in
months; she smiled a little at her earlier conversation. She did like
Remus, there was no disguising that from herself (or, apparently, Hermione),
and if he liked her too… but things were so complicated. She hummed along to a
song as she bustled around her room.

The dawn is breaking

A light shining through

You’re barely waking

And I’m tangled up in you…

Yeah

She stopped by her mantelpiece,
bottle of butterbeer in hand and gazed at an old family photo, taken a few
years previously; she and Hermione were kneeling in front (her hair was still
green from a recent trip to Sweden, she recalled), Hermione’s Dad was at the
back with his arms around his wife and sister. Amelia’s
Mum, not usually comfortable in photos, was grinning along with the rest.

Wiping the tears from her eyes
she continued into her room and replaced the thoughts of her lost family with
those that remained; Aunty Beatrice
and Hermione.

She’s such a tough girl, Amelia
thought, but still worryingly quiet about her parents deaths… and stubborn in
her insistence on keeping that from the school and her friends. It was as if
saying it out loud would somehow make it more real. She was glad that she’d
been offered a place here, if only to keep an eye on her young cousin.

Well I’m open, you’re closed

Where I follow, you’ll go

I worry I won’t see your face

Light up again

Amelia
put down her book, reached for a cushion and held it tightly as she thought
about her bright young cousin. She appeared to be able to entirely separate the
events of the past few summers from her life in the school; it was certainly
better here than in Amelia’s draughty old house.
It had seemed so warm in her youth, but now it was cold, empty. She shook her
head, trying to dislodge her tears…

Christmas had always been her
family’s favourite time of year.

Even the best fall down
sometimes

Even the wrong words seem to
rhyme

Out of the darkness of my mind

I somehow find you and I
collide

At least she and Hermione could
spend this one in the same building, and Aunty Bea
would be at her church group outing… Amelia
thought that the worst thing in the world would be to be completely alone at
Christmas.

…and then there was Remus. He was
such a lonely man for someone with such warmth. Once more, she remembered her
earlier conversation with her cousin and, in the privacy of her own room,
allowed herself to colour slightly.

He was certainly handsome despite
his scars, albeit in a bookish kind of way; and kind, if a little quiet. But
then it always seemed that somewhere just below the surface there was this
bright, wicked sense of humour… he was certainly interesting. And she was
pretty quiet and bookish, when she came to think about it, under all her
bluster. The more she thought about it, the more it dawned upon her that she
might be persuaded to fall for her wolfish companion…

Companion? Her mind
quizzed, suddenly amused, would that he were!

She smiled at the thought of him
before blowing out her candle.

I’m quiet you know

You make a first impression

I’ve found I’m scared to know

I’m always on your mind

0o0

In the Gryffindor Common Room,
Hermione stood by the fire, oblivious to the throng of people who were enjoying
the Weasley twins’ end of term exuberance. Staring into the flames, she
recalled a Christmas not too long before, when she and Amelia
had been with their families at Aunty Bea’s
farm, playing card games in front of a different hearth while their relative
roared with laughter at some thing or another. It had snowed that day, for the
first time in ages, and Hermione had found herself missing her new school
friends.

Amelia
had read through her essays and declared her homework to be ‘Much more fun than
ours ever was!’ and they’d laughed, oblivious to the fragility of the scene,
which had seemed that it would come around every year without interruption.
She’d been missing school and longing for the holiday to end, just so she could
get back and solve the mystery of Nicholas
Flamel and Professor
Snape’s odd behaviour.

She snorted, softly.

Not that his behaviour’s that
normal now, she thought. But then, Amelia
had that sort of effect on people.

What she wouldn’t give to be back
at the farm now, eating gingerbread and ignoring her relatives argue about
education as she listened to one of Amelia’s ‘Well there was this guy…****’
stories.

Even the best fall down
sometimes

Even the stars refuse to shine

Out of the back you fall in
time

I somehow find you and I
collide

 “‘Mione?”

Lost in her thoughts, she’d
completely forgotten about her concern for Harry
and Ron’s mission to extract him from the
dormitories.

“Any luck?” she asked, though she
hadn’t really needed to; his expression said it all.

Ron
shook his head, “I think he’s pretending to sleep.” He looked at her downcast
expression. “Come on ‘Mione,” he said, suddenly full of gallantry. “Your supper
awaits!” he announced, holding the Portrait of Sir Cadogan open for his friend
(‘Stand and fight, you scurvy cur!’) so flamboyantly that Hermione had to
laugh.

Smiling, she allowed herself to
be led to a nearby empty classroom. As Ron
pulled a seat out for her and the house elves brought in their private feast
she reflected that perhaps she also had a family to treasure here at Hogwarts.

0o0

In the third-year boy’s
dormitory, Harry Potter opened his cabinet, pushed his books aside and quickly
found what he was looking for – the leather bound photograph album that Hagrid
had given him two years ago, which was full of wizard pictures of his mother
and father. He sat down on his bead, drew the hangings around him, and started turning
the pages, searching, until…

He stopped on a picture of his
parents’ wedding day. There was his father waving up at him, beaming, the
untidy black hair Harry had inherited standing
up in all directions. There was his mother, alight with happiness, arm in arm
with his Dad. And there… that must be him. Their best man… Harry
had never given him a thought before.

If he hadn’t known it was the
same person, he would never have guessed it was Black in this
old photograph. His face wasn’t sunken and waxy, but handsome, full of
laughter. Had he already been working for Voldemort when this picture had been
taken? Was he already planning the deaths of the two people next to him? Did he
realise he was facing twelve years in Azkaban, twelve years that would make him
unrecognisable?

But the Dementors don’t affect
him, Harry thought, staring into the
handsome, laughing face. He doesn’t have to hear my Mum screaming if they
get too close –

Harry
slammed the album shut, reached over and stuffed it back into his cabinet, took
off his robes and glasses.

A hatred such as he’d never known
before was coursing through Harry like poison.
He could see Black laughing at him through the darkness, as though someone had
pasted the picture from the album over his eyes. He watched, as though somebody
was playing him a piece of film, Sirius Black blasting Peter
Pettigrew (who resembled Neville
Longbottom) into a thousand pieces. He could
hear (though he had no idea what Black’s voice might sound like) a low, excited
mutter. ‘It has happened, my Lord… the Potters have made me their
Secret-Keeper…’ And then came another voice, laughing shrilly, the same laugh
that Harry heard inside his head whenever the
Dementors drew near…

Don’t stop here

I lost my place

I’m close behind

Even the best fall down
sometimes

Even the wrong words seem to
rhyme

Out of the doubt that fills my
mind…

0o0o0o0

*Originally by the Mudbloods, who
have something of a flair for wit.

**Aha.

*** ‘Collide’ by Howie
Day… credit to Miss
RJ Lupin of
youtube who made the fabulous video that first introduced me to this song.

****They tended to start badly
and rapidly go down hill. Still, Amelia appeared
to enjoy telling them as much as she’d enjoyed living them; vaguely she
wondered whether this year would turn into another of them…