The next morning Amelia
woke early and sleepily opened her curtains to the beginnings of an impressive
thunderstorm; she was immediately and profoundly thankful that the staff
weren’t required to play. Glancing into her living room she noticed that Remus
had already slunk off to transform (and presumably be checked over by Poppy) so
she showered and decided to get ready for the match.

She dug out her waterproofs, left
over from a career in muddy trenches, slipped them over her jeans and concealed
them beneath her robes. If she was required to watch the match she was at least
going to come home dry. She ran into Severus on her way down
to the Great Hall; he seemed to be returning from the Library and, as there was
no one around, he greeted her cheerfully.

Faced with her task so early in
the morning, she decided that the direct approach was the best way forward.

“You were unnecessarily rude to
my cousin,” she growled. Snape’s features fell, then rearranged themselves into
a sneer.

“She repeatedly spoke out of turn.”

“You asked a question, she
answered it.”

“I did not ask her to speak.”

“You didn’t want anyone to answer
so you could continue rubbishing Lupin!” she accused. Amelia
was really beginning to lose her temper now: her face was flushing and her
voice rising. Fearing the appearance of an audience, Snape took her to one
side.

“You have no idea what goes on in
my lessons, Miss Brown,
and you have no right to inte-” he began, heatedly.

“You have no right to treat
Gryffindor students with contempt and afford preferential treatment to those of
your own house!” she snapped, pulling away from him slightly. “Nor do you have
the right to bully any student. The fact that no one else’s guardian has
bothered to shout at you before now does not negate my complaint, and nor does
it excuse your behaviour!”

Severus’s voice
was beginning to crack with anger; “Do you wish to make a formal complaint?” he
spat.

“No,” Amelia
retorted. “I would prefer it if you would stop bullying people. As professional
colleagues I’d hoped that we could resolve this matter on our own, though if
you feel that this isn’t possible I’d be happy to discuss this with Minerva
and Albus.”

They stood, eyes flashing, inches
apart for a few seconds*.

Amelia
gave a deep sigh.

“I’m sorry, Mr Snape, I
thought that we could be friends, but anyone who needs to bully those in his
care in order to feel valid, and most particularly finds it enjoyable to upset
my cousin – whose word I can assure you I am more than happy to take over yours
– is not someone I intend to spend any time with at all. Thank you for your
help with my potions work, I don’t think I shall require any further tuition
from you!”

She made to leave, but turned
back and pointed an angry finger at her now apoplectic colleague.

“And your blatant attempt to
reveal Professor Lupin’s
condition to the entire third year was really bloody low. I don’t know your
history, because clearly there must be some, but having spent time with the
both of you I cannot imagine anything that might persuade someone who is normally
so sensible to so cruelly attack such a kind and intelligent man. I hope that
if your ploy succeeds, you realise just what it is that you have done to him!”
And with that, Amelia stormed off towards
breakfast, leaving a dumbfounded Snape seething in her wake.

Still fuming as she crossed the
Great Hall, she was surprised to find Harry
already at the Gryffindor table, attempting to eat breakfast.

Taking a deep breath (and
checking there was no one else around), she approached him.

“Nervous?” she asked as he
glanced up at her. He grimaced.

“Well, I know I’m not supposed to
show bias, but good luck.” He nodded, looking like he might be sick.

“And you can tell Mr
Weasley that I’ll be taking his unfair
detention to Professor McGonagall.”

“Thanks Professor!” said Harry,
surprised. “Was Hermione alright last night – we were a bit worried…”

Amelia
smiled at him, glad that her cousin had such good friends. “She was fine. She
stayed up at mine until pretty late.” Harry gave
her a warm smile before turning to the first of his team-mates to traipse down
the stairs.

0o0o0o0

Having intended to watch the
match with Snape, Amelia instead headed out with
Poppy Pomfrey, who noticed her young friend’s mood and tried to cheer her up.
By the time they’d reached the pitch and had begun to ascend the stairs to the
faculty tower, Amelia was feeling a good deal
happier.

She was increasingly grateful to
her concealed waterproofs as she watched the stands gradually fill with
increasingly bedraggled spectators. Amelia’s
school, while encouraging students to compete in the football / rugby / hockey
/ netball tradition, had never successfully instilled in her anything
resembling a desire to play, nor anything akin to school pride. She was
therefore astonished to catch sight of her cousin and her friends, all wearing
Gryffindor colours, faces painted in red and gold, file into the stands.
Watching them for a few moments she noticed that they were all conspicuously
dry; she grinned proudly as she saw the raindrops forming a water-free dome
around them, Hermione at its centre.

The wind around the tower was
roaring now and as she glanced towards the end of the pitch the goalposts were
rattling. She watched as the team captains shook hands and the players, already
soaked to their skins, took to their brooms.

Hermione had once described the
game to her as ‘like rugby, but airborne,’ but the sheer violence of the match
still surprised her. Lupin had been right to suggest that quidditch might rival
rugby in the ‘Possibility of Receiving Most Unpleasant Injury’ stakes.

As the weather worsened, Amelia
lost track of most of the action; around two hours in Madame
Hooch called for a timeout and she saw her
cousin dart out to meet the team, then dart back to her place between Ron
and Neville in the stands. She had the distinct look of someone who was Up to
Something; Harry rose back into the storm
looking more hopeful.

The play continued for another
half an hour as the lightening crackled and the rain swirled around the tiny
players; she wasn’t sure how, but Gryffindor appeared to be winning.

As she watched a Hufflepuff
player streak past, her breath caught in her throat. She felt her skin prickle
and her blood turn cold. Around her an eerie silence was washing over the crowd.
In front of her, Dumbledore stood up and leaned over the rail, craning to see
the pitch. Across the grounds, dark shapes were moving slickly and with purpose
– Amelia realised that she could taste blood as
she watched, hopeless, while the hordes of Dementors swarmed across the quidditch
pitch and funnelled upwards towards the struggling players. As one, the staff
ran down the stairs and onto the pitch to help the airborne students to the
ground and force the Dementors out of the grounds.

They’d got most of the flying
teenagers safely back to earth when Amelia felt
Hermione’s throat tighten, somewhere in the stands; she felt, rather than heard
her scream. Her heart plummeted as she looked up and saw that Harry
was falling, tumbling and turning with the wind. Beside her, Dumbledore raised
his wand and slowed the boy’s progress.

0o0o0o0

After checking on Harry
that evening Amelia stole down to the kitchens,
preferring to eat in her rooms after such a stressful day. On her way back to
her tower she passed Professor McGonagall,
whose lips were still white with anger from earlier in the day.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen
anyone that angry before,” said Amelia as they
ascended the main staircase.

“Albus? Yes, well, if they will
attack the students…”

“I imagine they’re unlikely to
try again?” she asked, hopefully.

“With any luck,” replied the
deputy head. “Not joining us for dinner this evening, my dear?”

Amelia
shook her head, “My immediate plans include a hot bath and a good book, sorry.”

“That’s all right, it’s been
rather a long day… a hot bath and a good book sounds like an excellent end to
it.”

As she continued up the stairs to
her rooms, Amelia decided that she hadn’t been
entirely truthful, but wasn’t all that worried; everyone deserved a little
privacy from time to time.

0o0

She couldn’t help glancing at the
dark shapes circling the grounds that evening, as she dealt with her
waterproofs and had her bath, the heat of the water relaxing some of the
tension she’d felt since the Dementors had converged.

Sleepily, she sat down to dinner
in front of the fireplace, being careful to leave the door slightly ajar, and
continued to read for a time. At around ten
o’clock her door creaked, and she heard paws pad across the floor
behind her towards the sleeping bag in the corner, left out since the previous
evening. The wolf looked up at her and nodded before settling down.

After a while Amelia
put down her book, stretched and got up to close the door. Remus, who had been
dozing peacefully, woke with a start at the click of the door and, as she collected
some butterbeer and a bowl he allowed himself to watch her again.

She seemed agitated this evening,
uncomfortable; his heart fell. Desperately, he hoped that she hadn’t come to
her senses and decided that he was, in fact, disgusting. He padded towards her
uncertainly as she settled back in her chair and put down a bowl of butterbeer
for him.

She glanced at him then and said,
“Rough day,” by way of an explanation. Gently, and as much to his own surprise
as to hers, he nudged her hand with his snout in a comforting gesture.

She filled him in on the events
of the day, absently stroking his head as she did, and although he dearly
wanted to check on Harry in the Hospital Wing he
stayed put, preferring to stay warm and fuzzy and to continue being stroked.

Finishing her story, Amelia
trailed off to stare into the fire, thinking of the awful things the Dementors
brought to mind.

“If only I could stop seeing the
rubble…” she said, mostly to herself.

Remus, who was utterly baffled by
this last statement couldn’t have questioned her if he’d wanted to; she looked
so small and tired that all he wanted to do was put an arm around her and tell
her that everything would be alright. Given the lack of arms, he settled for
jumping up beside her on the sofa and offering a comforting paw. Amelia
was so sleepy that this barely registered, but she wriggled around to get more
comfortable, giving him more room purely by chance.

Eventually, he too drifted off
and thus they slept, curled into the same seat; the wolf’s head resting in Amelia’s
lap.

0o0o0o0

After the mutual mild
embarrassment experienced when waking up in the same room as someone that you
sort of fancy (even if one of you is currently a wolf), Remus returned to his
office in order to await his transformation back to humanity. Having become a
man once more, and had a hot shower, he returned to his office, glowering at
the pile of marking that had built up on his desk in his absence.

The sounds of the school waking
up increased as he worked, and he was about two-thirds of the way through the
stack when he looked up to hear a familiar voice say,

“You look like shit.”

Amelia
was leaning against his doorframe, book under one arm, mug in hand. He could
see students milling about in the corridor outside and guessed that classes
were about to start. He looked at her stood there, the very picture of
irreverence, and thought that he’d never seen anything so alluring in his life.
He decided to move the conversation forward as thoughts of exactly what he’d
like to do with her in his office threatened to overtake his brain.

“I’ve looked worse, believe me,”
he said, unable to stop himself smiling back up at her as she chuckled and
moved off along the corridor.

It’s official mate, said a
voice that reminded him strongly of his old friend Prongs, you’re doomed.

As the door closed behind her, he
scrubbed his face with his hands and tried to concentrate.

0o0

Once his pile of marking was done
with and the Grindylow in the corner (squelch!) had been replaced by a
thin, wispy creature with an unpleasant expression, Remus headed down to his
first class of the day. Passing by the first floor corridor he paused to take
in a snippet of an argument and was seized by reverie; surely he was seventeen
again and it had been an enraged Lily Evans, not Amelia, who was shouting at a
sixth-year to “Take that first-year off the ceiling you stuck up little prat!”.

He was momentarily nonplussed
when, the unfortunate first-year having been released from his predicament, the
aforementioned sixth-year – now pinned to the far wall by a thin beam of light
streaming from Amelia’s wand – was Duncan Crowe and not James Potter.

Some things never change,
he smiled to himself as he made his way to the Defence Against the Dark Arts
classroom, thinking that Lily and James
would have approved of this young woman. His smile faded a little as Harry
and his friends entered the classroom noisily and he reflected on the
unfairness of it all.

Before he could get started, his
class burst out at once into an explosion of complaints about Snape’s behaviour
while he had been ill.

“It’s not fair, he was only
filling in, why should he set us homework?”

“We don’t know anything about
werewolves –”

“ – two rolls of parchment!”

“Did you tell Professor
Snape we haven’t covered them yet?” he
asked, frowning slightly; Severus seemed to be trying to set
him up.

The babble broke out again.

“Yes, but he said we were really
behind –”

“ – he wouldn’t listen –”

“ – two rolls of parchment!
–”

He smiled at the look of
indignation on every face; his class seemed to be behind him at the very least,
and he could be thankful that no one would have had time to start their
research.

“Don’t worry. I’ll speak to Professor
Snape. You don’t have to do the essay.”

“Oh no,” said Hermione,
looking very disappointed. “I’ve already finished it!”

Lupin felt his heart drop into
his stomach – what if she knew?

Deciding not to dwell too much on
this new and unsettling possibility, and considering it unlikely that if
Hermione had figured him out (and given her cousin he wouldn’t put it past her)
she would then spread it about the school, he got on with the lesson.

When the bell rang, everyone
gathered up their things and headed for the door, but Lupin called out to Harry
as he made to leave. The boy doubled back and watched him covering the
Hinkypunk’s box with a cloth. Feeling very much like he was speaking to James,
he began,

“I heard about the match,” he
said, turning back to his desk and starting to pile books into his briefcase,
“and I’m sorry about your broomstick. Is there any chance of fixing it?”

“No,” said Harry.
“The tree smashed it to bits.”

Lupin sighed; somehow, he felt
that this was all his fault.

“They planted the Whomping Willow
the same year that I arrived at Hogwarts. People used a play a game, trying to
get near enough to touch the trunk. In the end, a boy called Davey Gudgeon
nearly lost an eye, and we were forbidden to go near it. No broomstick would
stand a chance.”

“Did you hear about the
Dementors, too?” said Harry. It sounded as if he
was none too proud of his reaction to the creatures.

“Yes, I did. I don’t think any of
us have ever seen Professor Dumbledore
that angry. They have been growing restless for some time… furious at his
refusal to let them inside the grounds… I suppose they were the reason you
fell?”

“Yes,” said Harry.
The boy paused, apparently struggling with himself, before,

“Why? Why do they affect
me like that? Am I just –”

“It has nothing to do with
weakness,” he said sharply, guessing where this train of thought must have
sprung from. “The Dementors affect you worse than the others because there are
horrors in your past that the others don’t have.”

A ray of wintry sunlight fell
across the classroom, illuminating Harry’s green
eyes and producing the uncomfortable feeling that he was staring back into his
past.

“Dementors are among the foulest
creatures that walk the earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they
glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope and happiness out of the air
around them. Even muggles feel their presence, though they can’t see them. Get
too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory, will be sucked
out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you
to something like itself – soulless and evil. You’ll be left with nothing but
the worst experiences of your life. And the worst that has happened to you
Harry, is enough to make anyone fall off their
broom. You have nothing to feel ashamed of.”

“When they get near me –” Harry
stared at Lupin’s desk, his throat tight, “I can hear Voldemort murdering my
mum.”

Almost overcome with despair,
Lupin made to comfort Harry, as he had comforted
his parents through the trials and tribulations of high school and later, the
heavy losses of war, but found that he could not. Had the world been different,
Harry would have grown up knowing him as an
Uncle and it wouldn’t have been weird… it also wouldn’t have been necessary. He
stayed silent.

“Why did they have to come to the
match?” said Harry, bitterly.

“They’re getting hungry,” said
Lupin coolly, shutting his briefcase with a snap. “Dumbledore won’t let them
into the school, so their supply of human prey has dried up… I don’t think they
could resist the large crowd around the quidditch pitch. All that excitement…
emotions running high… it was their idea of the feast.”

“Azkaban must be terrible,” Harry
muttered. Lupin nodded grimly.

“The fortress is set on a tiny
island, way out to sea, but they don’t need walls and water to keep the
prisoners in, not when they’re all trapped inside their own heads, incapable of
a single cheerful thought. Most of them go mad within weeks.”

“But Sirius Black escaped from
them,” Harry said slowly. “He got away…”

Lupin’s briefcase slipped from
the desk; he had to stoop quickly to catch it.

He disliked thinking of Sirius,
particularly as a pale and maddened prisoner of the Dementors. They had been as
close as brothers until the last few weeks of the war, when he’d began to feel
a distance between them… but then, that Sirius was dead and gone, along with
James, Lily, Peter, Alice, Frank and all the others that had fallen in those
last, trying days. But Harry was waiting for an
answer.

“Yes,” he said, straightening up.
“Black must have found a way to fight them. I wouldn’t have
believed it possible… Dementors are supposed to drain a wizard of his powers if
he is left with them too long – ”

“You made that Dementor on
the train back off,” said Harry suddenly.

“There are – certain defences one
can use,” said Lupin. “But there was only one Dementor on the train. The more
there are, the more difficult it becomes to resist.”

“What defences?” said Harry
at once. “Can you teach me?”

“I don’t pretend to be an expert
at fighting Dementors, Harry – quite the
contrary…”

“But if the Dementors come to
another quidditch match, I need to be able to fight them –”

Lupin looked into Harry’s
determined face and suddenly he could see his old friends staring back out of
the boy’s young face. He owed it to them, especially to Lily,
to keep Harry safe. He was the only one of them
left who could.

“Well… all right. I’ll try and
help. But it’ll have to wait until next term, I’m afraid. I have a lot to do
before the holidays. I chose a very inconvenient time to fall ill.”

Lost in his thoughts, Lupin found
himself wandering towards his rooms when Peeves tripped him over, probably
getting him back for the chewing gum incident. Too tired to deal with the
poltergeist (who was zooming away, loudly singing abuse) he bent to gather his
books.

Lupin sighed as he straightened
up, there was another reminder of his past, though not a friendly one.

“Severus, could
I have a word?”

The sour-faced head of Slytherin
glowered at him, but gestured his colleague into an empty classroom
nonetheless.

“My students tell me that you
changed their work and set them homework,” he began, wishing that he were
elsewhere and not having to have this ridiculous conversation.

“It seemed to me that they were
woefully behind in their education,” the other man sneered, his lip curling in
distaste.

Lupin sighed, he really wasn’t in
the mood for this.

“Look, Severus,
just because it’s not the way that you’d do it doesn’t mean that it’s the wrong
way to do it. And I shall take your early introduction of that particular topic
as an innocent slip.”

“I can’t imagine what you mean,
Lupin,” said Snape, coldly. But his heart didn’t appear to be in it.

Truth be told, Amelia’s
reaction to the rearrangement of classes had unnerved him somewhat; he had
underestimated her attachment to her cousin. He wasn’t sure how comfortable he
was about losing such a promising friend and was privately as relieved as Lupin
to be leaving the classroom ten minutes later, business concluded.

0o0o0o0

It had been nearly a week since
Remus had realised just how completely rumbled he had been, and he’d thanked
Amelia profusely, then blushed furiously as she’d shook her head, kissed him
lightly on the cheek and wandered off laughing.

As he worked through his lessons
and walked the halls of his alma mater he realised, with a pang, that he was
looking forward to his transformations for the first time in twelve years; it
had been a long time since that last time his three friends had arrived at his
flat, sleeping bags tucked under their arms.

His thoughts seemed to drift
endlessly between his enigmatic new friend and the men that he had once called
brothers.

There had been a time when he
could not, would not believe that Sirius had betrayed and murdered their
small but defiant family. His mind still strayed back to the times when they’d
sat on the grassy banks of the lake on a hot summer’s day, Lupin reading,
quietly observing his friends’ antics. James
would be plotting future pranks with Sirius, periodically glancing over to the
group of girls in which Lily Evans
was sat, and being smacked on the head by his friend if his attention wandered
for too long or if he started drooling.

Peter
would be laughing along with them, hanging on his friends’ every word. They
might sneak into the kitchens in the evening, little Peter carrying so much
that he could barely walk, James showing off by levitating a pudding directly
behind Filch so that it spilled all over him and Sirius and Remus laughing so
hard their stomachs hurt, holding on to each other to stay upright.

And then there was Lily…
so kind and thoughtful, always there for people when they needed it. He
remembered the day that he’d chosen to tell her his secret. It was spring and
the scent of mayflowers was wafting through the grounds; he’d been so afraid
that she’d simply walk away and never speak to him again, but he needn’t have
worried. She’d listened calmly to his stuttered explanations and had given him
the tightest hug he’d ever received (his teenage mind had of course relived
this moment many times), told him that she’d figured him out in second year and
returned to the project that the two of them had been working on for Professor
Slughorn.

His friends… his best friends…

He shook his head; it seemed so
long ago now, but the memories still seemed to find yet new ways to hurt him.
He glanced out through the rain streaked glass of the classroom window at their
‘spot’ on the shores of the lake; he could have sworn that, just for a second,
he had glimpsed four boys laughing together in the long faded sunshine.

He turned, sighing, as the door
opened and his fourth-years filed in; he got on with his day.

0o0o0o0

*I am aware, Bones, that at this
point you would like them to snog, so here it is, just for you:

They stood, eyes flashing, inches
apart for a few seconds, before Severus, having entirely run
out of things to shout at her, simply grabbed her, crushing his lips against
hers. He seemed just as surprised as she did, even more so when she didn’t pull
away, instead deepening the kiss. His hands entangled themselves in her hair
and she pulled him closer, mewling into his mouth.

0o0

I think we should leave them
there, before they decide they need to relocate to a handy broom closet…
honestly, what will Lupin say. Oy! *throws ball of screwed up paper at her
characters* I’m working here, keep it down. You’re in a school for gods’
sake!