Once in a Blue Moon (COMPLETE)

A/N: Thanks to my awesome beta LostandAwaiting for getting this back to me in super fast time.

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Dreams in the Mist
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Remus was pretty sure he was dreaming. It was the only way he could stop himself from squealing with joy, or doing something equally embarrassing every other minute. If he kept telling himself that he would soon wake up, he could keep his melodramatic impulses under control.

Albus Dumbledore had disappeared soon after the applications had been heard, simply telling them that he had to see a couple of people who were anxious to hear the outcome of the hearing.

Remus was left with Madam Pomfrey who promised to see him safely delivered to Hogwarts just as soon as they’d done a little shopping in Diagon Alley.

“Really?” Remus asked in surprise.

“You need some more clothes,” Poppy pointed out. “You can’t keep wearing school robes from the Lost Property Department. We’ll get you some of your own, and maybe a few books to help pass the time during the summer.”

“Can’t I just borrow books from the school library?”

“Of course you can, but wouldn’t you like some of your own? Some new fiction, perhaps? The fiction section of the library is a little outdated. Or perhaps a book about Quidditch? Professor McGonagall tells me you’re interested in the game.”

“I had a book on Quidditch once,” Remus whispered. “It was a birthday present from Sirius. It got left at the house in Hogsmeade.”

“We can pick it up on the way,” Poppy promised. “And anything else you left there. I don’t believe anyone’s been in the house, only the Ministry snooping around, and they won’t have been interested in books about Quidditch.”

“Can we visit Sirius before we go back?” Remus asked. “He lives in London and I know he’ll want to know what happened.”

“I’m afraid not,” Poppy apologised with a regretful shake of her head. “It would be quite rude to arrive unannounced at his home.”

“Sirius won’t mind, he really won’t. He always used to visit me and Rom all the time without telling us first.”

“I’m sure Sirius wouldn’t mind,” Poppy agreed. “But I’m equally sure his parents would be less than happy to find us on their doorstep without an invitation. Perhaps we can pick you up some parchment and quills and you can write to him instead?”

Remus nodded, slightly deflated, but still happier than he’d been in a long while. “I should write to Mr Greyback too, shouldn’t I?” he asked after they had flooed to Diagon Alley.

Poppy looked down at him in surprise. “Only if you want to.”

“I should thank him for saving my life,” Remus said. “Even if he is the one who bit me. He couldn’t have known what he was doing at the time; it isn’t his fault. He didn’t have to agree to look after me.”

“Remus,” Poppy began, faltering slightly. “Fenrir Greyback isn’t… he’s not… well, he’s…he’s not a nice person at all. Even if he weren’t a werewolf… well, let’s just say he’d probably be residing in Azkaban instead of a being where he is.”

“Not everyone sent to Azkaban is a bad person,” Remus pointed out quietly.

“Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” Poppy hurriedly apologised. “I didn’t think.”

“It’s okay,” Remus replied. “I’m sure most people in Azkaban deserve it, and most people probably think Rom deserved it, too.”

Poppy nodded thoughtfully and they continued their way down the Alley. “You write to Mr Greyback if you wish. You never know, it might do him some good.”

Remus was no longer listening though. The sight of the Quidditch supply store had caught his eye and he hurried across to look in the window at the latest Cleansweep.

He grinned widely at the knowledge that he was in Diagon Alley, the most famous place to find magical shops in all of Britain. He was free and he was going to Hogwarts School in September. He just hoped that if this was a dream, he never woke up.

-o-xXx-o-

Sirius had never seen Regulus so cheerful, at least not since the first day that the word squib had been heard spoken in a hushed tone within the hallowed walls of Grimmauld Place.

“So, Shuttleworth’s isn’t so bad after all?” Sirius asked as he flopped down on his brother’s bed and skimmed through the list of homework that Regulus had been given. He was slightly annoyed to see that his brother had got far less homework to do than he had. He had even less than Sirius had been given after his first year at Hogwart’s.

“Nah,” Regulus replied. “Everyone there’s in the same boat, though not many of us have parents that hate the sight of us.”

“Mother and Father don’t hate you.”

“They just wish they didn’t have to put up with me being round here at all. They probably wish I could stay at school during the summer holidays, too.”

Sirius shrugged without commenting. Regulus was probably right. But then again, it seemed that nothing either of them did these days could appease their parents.

“The lessons are fun,” Regulus continued, clearly eager to change the subject from that of their parents. “They don’t go on about how muggles are useless; they really make you see how they live and some of the stuff they have is even better than magic.”

Sirius listened as his brother chattered on about his school and the things he had learned in his first year there. He smiled to himself as he realised that his brother was far happier with his life than he had been in a long time. There was still a lingering trace of bitterness when he spoke of his parents, but the jealousy of wizards and the ability to do magic had evaporated under the excitement of things like flying on an aeroplane, movies and muggle music.

“Mother and Father are wrong about muggle-borns, too,” Regulus whispered. “According to Professor Corrigan, muggle-borns have witches or wizards back in their family somewhere and the magic had just been lost for a long time.”

“You’d better not let Mother or Father hear you say that,” Sirius warned. Although he was pleased to hear that his brother was no longer echoing the beliefs of their parents, the last thing he wanted was for Regulus to start repeating what his teachers were saying, not when it was things that their parents would hate.

“But it’s true,” Regulus argued.

“But if Mother thinks they’re teaching you stuff like that at Shuttleworth’s, they may look for a new school for you too.”

“They really want to move you out of Hogwart’s?” Regulus asked.

“If they can get me into another one, they will. If you like Shuttleworth’s, you’d better keep quiet about stuff Mother won’t like.”

Regulus made a motion to indicate locking his lips shut and grinned.

A knock at the door sounded and both Sirius and Regulus turned to see who it was. Neither of their parents would bother to knock, which meant they either had a visitor or Kreacher was about to enter.

Sirius wasn’t that surprised to see that it was the latter. The house elf looked at both boys with clear malevolence. Sirius wasn’t surprised to see it directed at him. He had never been a favourite with the house elf and ever since being sorted into Gryffindor the creature had made it clear that he was no longer considered to be of any importance within the household.

What did surprise Sirius was the way that Kreacher looked at Regulus. His expression towards his brother was even more hostile than to himself. Of the two boys Regulus had always been the favourite of the house elf, and Kreacher had even been known to help Regulus cover up mischief within the household.

Now, it seemed that Regulus was as despised as Sirius.

“Disgraces to the noble house of Black,” Kreacher muttered as he gathered Regulus’s laundry from his school trunk.

“Ignore him,” Sirius said. “He’s just repeating the crap Mother’s no doubt been coming out with all year.”

“Nice to know what our parents really think of us,” Regulus whispered with more than a little bitterness.

Annoyed at seeing his brother’s bitterness returning once more, Sirius turned to Kreacher with a scowl. “Get out of here, vile creature!” he shouted.

“Don’t take it out on him,” Regulus said. “It’s not his fault our parents hate what we are.”

“Doesn’t mean we have to listen to it.”

“Well, I’m not going to take it out on Kreacher,” Regulus resolved loudly so that the mumbling house elf could hear him. Sirius suspected that his brother was wasting his breath, but he couldn’t help feel a slight twinge of guilt at the number of times he had snapped and shouted at the house elf the last couple of summers.

-o-xXx-o-

Remus had the run of the castle when he arrived back at the school. He even found that during the long summer holidays the passwords to the various common rooms were no longer necessary.

“I’ve fixed a few bits of the map that were wrong. We’d got the Ravenclaw boys’ and girls’ dorms mixed up and the Slytherin quarters stretch right to the lake so I’ve altered those,” Remus told Sirius through the two-way mirror. Romulus had given them enough information about the Hufflepuff quarters to complete that section of the map some months before, but the other house areas had been completed purely on guesswork. “I’m in the Ravenclaw common room at the moment.”

“Cool! Let me see it,” Sirius asked, and Remus dutifully turned the mirror around so that he could see it for himself.

“Isn’t it great?”

“You sound like you want to be sorted into Ravenclaw,” Sirius suggested quietly and somewhat slyly.

“Nah, but it’s fun to be able to see the rest of them.”

“I can’t believe they’re letting you run around them without passwords.”

“Why not? It isn’t like most of the other students are here, and I’ve not got sorted into any house yet, so who’s to say which one I would be in?”

“You’ve got to be in Gryffindor. No question about it.”

“We’ll see.”

“Who else is there with you for the summer?”

“Professor McGonagall, Madam Pomfrey and Hagrid. Some of the others who live in the school have gone away for a holiday, but there’s always someone here.”

“No other students?”

“Just two Hufflepuffs,” Remus replied. “A brother and sister. Their home is in quarantine and they don’t have any other relatives they can stay with.”

“Can they get into all the common rooms too?”

“Yeah, we all had supper in the Gryffindor common room last night.”

“James would go nuts if he knew that.”

“So don’t tell him.”

“Do the Hufflepuffs know…you know…about who you are?”

“I think so. They’ve not said anything, but I think Professor Dumbledore spoke with them before I got back from London. They’ve not said anything and they seem okay with me hanging out with them.”

“Is Dumbledore there too?”

“He’s out most of the time. He and McGonagall had a talk with me about next term.”

“Oh, fun.”

Remus snickered. “Hardly. Lots of lectures about behaving myself and making sure that I don’t let them down by getting into so much trouble that the parents of the other students demand I’m kicked out.”

“They can’t do that!”

“I’m a werewolf,” Remus pointed out. “They’re going to be looking for any excuse to demand that the school throws me out and into a Dangerous Creatures’ Camp. The Prophet even included my name in the story this time. Dumbledore couldn’t stop them because it was the first case where the new law was used. It means everyone will know what I am and I’ve got to be extra careful.”

“Does that mean you can’t take part in the pranks James has planned?”

“No.” Remus grinned through the mirror. “It just means I better not get caught.”

-o-xXx-o-

“Sirius, straighten your robes,” Walburga ordered.

Sirius dutifully straightened his robes again and tried yet again to edge away from his mother’s watchful eye.

Bellatrix Black, now Bellatrix Lestrange, stood beside her new husband Rodolphus at the far side of the gardens. Sirius disliked his cousin immensely, but he had to admit that she did look radiant today. She was no virginal blushing bride, but she had a timeless beauty that was inherent in the Black family. Sirius had been told in the past that he also possessed those looks, though he hoped his face never portrayed the sneering expression that was frequently found on his cousin’s.

“Sirius, come and say hello to Amarylis,” Walburga called. “Hasn’t she grown into a beauty?”

Sirius looked at the blonde teenager who was a few years his senior and groaned silently. His mother’s increasingly frequent attempts to parade every eligible pureblood female in front of him had been pushed up a gear at the wedding. Sirius didn’t know what number Amarylis was in the line of potential brides; he’d stopped counting after the first half dozen.

“It’s hard to believe Sirius is nearly fifteen,” Walburga commented to a woman Sirius guessed to be Amarylis’s mother. “They grow up so quickly, don’t they?”

Amarylis’s mother nodded in understanding. “It seems like just yesterday Amarylis was on her way to Beauxbatons for the first time. Now she’s about to start her final year.”

“And what do you think of the school itself?” asked Walburga, with what Sirius knew was feigned casualness. “We’re thinking of having Sirius transfer in September.”

“Beauxbatons is a fine Academy, but the cost is prohibitive. I understand they are at their capacity already though.”

“They are?”

“Rumour has it.”

“Ah well, we were more interested in Durmstrang actually.”

“I think you’ll find that you have the same problem there. Apparently there have been several transfer requests these holidays and both schools are limiting admissions.”

“The Black family has enough influence to get him into one of those schools,” Walburga stated, although Sirius could tell that she didn’t sound quite so sure of herself. Sirius knew that she had sent an owl to the headmaster of Durmstrang but had yet to receive a reply. If the school was full, surely he could stay at Hogwarts?

“I think you’ll find that a family name won’t do as much for you as an obscene amount of money.”

“If only Orion weren’t counting the knuts,” Walburga complained. “Anyone would think we’re on the verge of bankruptcy the way he guards the vault.”

“Walburga, darling,” Orion quietly implored as he strolled up behind her. “Do you really think it appropriate to discuss our personal finances in public.”

“It’s hardly in public,” Walburga replied. “We’re all friends here.”

“Nevertheless, we’ll discuss this further when we return home. Sirius, go find your brother and see that he’s not getting into mischief.”

Sirius hurried to do his father’s bidding. The last thing he wanted was to give his parents another reason to question his schooling. Being on his best behaviour was about the only thing he could do.

Sirius soon found Regulus hiding out in the kitchens. He was chatting with the house elves who were undergoing the last minute preparations for the wedding banquet.

“Escaped?” Regulus asked with a grin.

“Just barely,” Sirius replied. “I’ve been sent to find you and make sure you don’t get into mischief.”

“Too late,” Regulus smirked and he pointed to the five tier wedding cake.

Sirius frowned slightly as he tried to figure out what his brother had done. Then he spotted the figures on the top tier. The bride and groom were magical miniatures of the happy couple and were charmed to smile, wave and dance a waltz across the top of the cake. The most expensive models were charmed to contain a small amount of the personality of the witches and wizards they were modelled after. Naturally, the Black family had to have the best.

“What did you do?” Sirius asked as he watched mini-Bellatrix and mini-Rodolphus duke it out on the icing. Mini-Bellatrix had uprooted one of the pink flowers that circled the edge of the cake and was brandishing it like a weapon. Mini-Rodolphus meanwhile was desperately trying to climb down to the relatively safety of the tier below.

“Bellatrix called me a stupid squib again,” Regulus muttered. “She said I shouldn’t have been invited as a guest, and should work in the kitchens with the elves. So, I sort of told the models of them on the cake about how I caught her making out with Lucius Malfoy at their engagement party last summer.”

“You didn’t?” Sirius choked out around his laughter.

“They started laying into each other right away,” Regulus explained. “Serves her right for being so mean.”

“Maybe we should get out of here before they realise what you did?” Sirius suggested, although the sight of mini-Rodolphus, now on a lower level of the cake, hiding behind a column in an effort to avoid being hit by the confectionery that Bellatrix was hurling down at him, was quite entertaining.

Sirius and Regulus returned to the main party, looking forward to seeing the arrival of the cake, if nothing else.

-o-xXx-o-

“How was the wedding?” Remus asked through the two-way mirror.

“Awful,” Sirius replied with a sigh. “Like it would be anything else.”

“Wasn’t there anything nice about it?”

“The food was okay,” Sirius reluctantly admitted and he brightened up considerably as he told her about Regulus’s prank with the wedding cake and how Bellatrix had pulled out her wand to blast the miniature models, but had blown up the entire cake instead. “Everything else was a nightmare though. Mother kept shoving all these girls at me. The only time she stopped was when she was moaning about Hogwarts and how she wants to get me transferred.”

“You won’t really have to go to another school, will you?”

“Don’t know. Durmstrang and Beauxbatons are supposed to be full, but if they pay enough money I may get in one of them. Mother wants me to go to Durmstrang, but Father doesn’t want to spend the money.”

“I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”

“Don’t be daft. Mother’s been looking for an excuse to get me out of Hogwarts ever since I got sorted into Gryffindor. If it hadn’t been this, it would have been something else.”

“Still… it won’t be the same if you’re not here with me in September.”

“You got everything you need for school?” Sirius asked. “Maybe we could accidentally meet up in Diagon Alley?”

Remus grinned in the mirror. “I’m going shopping for school things with Romulus some time in the last week of the holidays.”

“Perfect,” Sirius grinned back. “Just another dozen dinner parties to get through until then.”

“They can’t be that bad.”

“Oh, they can,” Sirius muttered.

“Just think of how much fun we’re going to have at Hogwarts next year.”

“If I get to go back.”

“You will,” Remus replied quietly. “You have to.”

Sirius nodded reluctantly.

Long after he’d gone to bed, Sirius lay awake worrying about the following September. He’d had a couple of letters from James in which he’d moaned and complained about how much he was missing Lily Evans and how he was looking forward to seeing her again.

The love-hate relationship between James and Lily had been grounds for a great deal of amusement in the final couple of months of the year. One day Lily was the bane of his existence and the next she was a goddess incarnate. James was still of the opinion that she was the latter when they had broken up for the holidays and it seemed that his new crush wasn’t lessening in the slightest during the long hot summer.

Peter had written too, though only one letter. He’d begged Sirius to reply with a letter that didn’t mention ‘that annoying Evans bird’, and Sirius guessed that he’d been on the receiving end of more of James’s letters of woe. Woe, because Lily was not speaking to him following a prank involving the girls’ bathroom and some rather insulting talking mirrors.

Now, alone in his room, Sirius couldn’t help but dwell on the thoughts of how he was missing Remus as much as James was apparently missing Lily.

He thought back to the last day of term when he had come dangerously close to kissing his best friend. He wondered if Remus would have kissed him back and he ran his tongue over his lips as he thought about what it would have been like if he had.

With everything that had happened since that July morning, Sirius was almost sure that Remus had forgotten all about that moment in the dormitory. He just wished that he could put it from his own mind as easily.

He didn’t know what he would do if his parents succeeded in getting him into one of the other wizarding schools. The thought of not seeing Remus again was completely unbearable, but still it lingered in his mind.

-o-xXx-o-

Sirius escaped from the dinner party to his room at the earliest opportunity and threw himself onto his bed with frustration. He wondered if his mother could get any more obvious with her plotting and scheming. He picked up a pillow and threw it across the room, narrowly missing his uncle as he stepped through the door.

“Sorry,” muttered Sirius, meekly accepting the pillow back from his rather bemused uncle.

“So, are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” Alphard asked quietly, sitting down beside Sirius on the edge of the bed.

Sirius shrugged and began to pick at a loose thread on the pillowcase.

“Your mother means well,” Alphard continued. “Though I don’t think the little madam downstairs is interested in you either.”

“She stabbed me with her fork,” Sirius pointed out.

“Well…erm…”

“Is mother really mad?”

“She’ll calm down,” Alphard assured him. “Now, are you going tell me what’s been bothering you?”

“Nothing’s bothering me.”

“Nonsense,” Alphard snapped. “You’ve been quiet and withdrawn all summer. I thought you’d have cheered up once you found out that you were going back to Hogwarts, but instead you’ve grown even more distant. You used to confide in me…”

Sirius looked up as his uncle’s voice trailed off. Of course he was happy to be going back to Hogwarts. The financial problems that his father had been hiding for a number of years had turned out to be his own good fortune. But now that worry had gone, the other one had returned even stronger than before. Sirius wondered if maybe he should talk to his uncle about what was bothering him. It’s not like he could talk to his parents, and there wasn’t anyone else.

“What is it?” Alphard asked kindly.

“How can you tell if you have a crush on someone?” Sirius asked in a rush. “I mean, how do you know if you like a friend as more than a friend?”

“You’ve got your eye on a girl at school?” Alphard asked with a wink. Sirius didn’t bother to correct his assumption. “Well, I remember the first girl I liked as more than a friend. She was a little corker in Ravenclaw. I used to think about her all the time; I got more detentions from daydreaming about her in class than anything else. I’d take longer routes to classes so that I could ‘accidentally’ bump into her. I even pretended to like her favourite Quidditch team so that we’d have something to talk about… and they were the worst team in the country at the time.”

Sirius didn’t have to force a smile at his uncle as the older man chuckled at the recollections.

“So, do you think you’ve got a crush on this girl?”

“I…” Sirius faltered as he thought about what his uncle had said. If those were the symptoms of a crush then he was well and truly doomed. The number of times he had detoured out of his way to check on Remus were too numerous to count and even though he’d never had a great deal of interest in Quidditch he was happy to talk to Remus about the game for hours on end. As for thinking about him…he never did anything else.

“Do you think she’s pretty?” Alphard asked.

“Gorgeous,” Sirius whispered. He pictured Remus’s smile and the sparkle in his eyes when he had told him through the mirror that he was really going to go to Hogwarts.

“You like spending time with her?”

Sirius nodded mutely.

“You miss her during the holidays?”

“We talk all the time,” Sirius admitted. “But, I still can’t wait to see him again.”

“Him?” Alphard’s head snapped round to face him and Sirius felt his face flushing in embarrassment.

“I…I…”

“Oh, Sirius,” Alphard murmured with a sigh.

“I can’t stop thinking about him,” Sirius whispered. “I even dream about him sometimes.”

“It’s perfectly normal to dream about people you know.”

“I meant…” Sirius’s voice trailed off and he felt his face flushing even redder. He ducked his head, mortified at what he’d almost admitted.

Alphard nodded in understanding at Sirius’s unspoken confession. “How long have you felt like this?”

“I’m not sure,” Sirius replied. “Since just before last Christmas, at least that’s when I first thought I might like him that way. It might be longer. I’ve been trying not to think about it, but I miss him so much.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe it’ll go away,” Sirius suggested hopefully.

“It might,” Alphard agreed with a nod. “But nearly a year is a long time. Have you told this boy you like him?”

“No.” Sirius shook his head. “Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

Sirius could feel his face getting even redder as he blurted out what had happened in the dormitory on the last morning of term.

“Has your friend mentioned this ‘almost kiss’ since?”

“No, not a word. I think he must have forgotten about it. I hope he has. I don’t want him to hate me. I don’t even know why I was going to do it; it was just some stupid spur of the moment thing. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I just don’t know.”

“Is he a good friend?”

“My best friend.”

“Maybe you should talk to him about how you feel?” Alphard suggested.

“What if he doesn’t like me that way?”

“You won’t know unless you ask.”

“We kind of talked about it once before. Not about me liking him, just about me maybe liking other boys instead of girls.”

“And?” Alphard prompted.

“He said he’d still be my friend. But…”

“But, there’s a big difference between accepting that your friend likes other boys, and knowing that they like you that way,” Alphard concluded as Sirius nodded.

“What if he hates me?”

“Then he’s not a very good friend.”

“He’s a great friend,” Sirius argued, shaking his head at the idea that Remus was anything else.

“Then he’ll understand… even if he doesn’t feel the same way about you.”

“Maybe I should just see if it goes away on its own,” Sirius whispered, more to himself than to his uncle.

“Perhaps you should,” Alphard agreed. “I’d certainly not recommend telling your mother that you think you prefer other boys to the girls she’s introducing you to, at least not yet.”

“She’ll be furious.”

“Wait until you’re of age,” Alphard advised. “That should be plenty of time to figure out whether these feelings you’re having are going to pass.”

“I hope they do,” Sirius grumbled. “I don’t want to like boys, not when everyone else likes girls. I don’t want to be different.”

“Maybe you’ll go back to Hogwarts next month and find that the chubby girl with pigtails has turned into a slim and pretty teenager who makes your palms go sweaty and your heart beat faster. And all this worry will be nothing more than the overactive imagination of a teenage boy who simply hasn’t found the right girl, yet.”

“You think so?” Sirius asked with a hopeful smile.

“You’ll find the next few years a lot easier if you do,” Alphard replied with a rueful chuckle. “But, since when did my favourite nephew take the easy route?”

“It must be the Gryffindor in me,” Sirius commented with a small smile of his own.

-o-xXx-o-

Remus sat at one of the tables outside of Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour, a stack of new books on the table beside him, and the remains of a large, mostly melted, ice cream in front of him.

“I still need a cauldron and school robes,” he said between mouthfuls of ice cream.

“Hmm,” Romulus replied distractedly from the other side of the table.

“A cauldron and robes,” Remus repeated and he pushed the list towards his brother. Romulus leaned forward to glance at the list, but was soon distracted again by something over Remus’s shoulder.

Curious as to what his brother had seen, Remus twisted around in his chair and followed his brother’s gaze to a woman by herself a couple of tables away from them. The woman looked to be in her twenties and was dressed in muggle clothes. The table in front of her contained two large empty ice cream bowls, and she was currently part way through her third. “She knows how to put it away,” he commented, turning back to his brother with a grin.

“It’s cravings,” the waitress commented with a grin, as she took Remus’s now empty ice cream bowl away. “She pops in every week for her ‘fix’ as she calls it.”

“Cravings?” Remus asked.

“Pregnancy cravings,” the waitress clarified. “Can I get you anything else?”

Romulus sighed with disappointment as he eyed the menu.

“We’re done, thanks,” Remus replied. He picked up his books from the table, and the rest of his school items from the chair next to him, and made his way towards Madam Malkin’s, Romulus drifting along at the back of him.

“You miss it, don’t you?” asked Remus, after he’d caught Romulus casting a second longing glance back at the ice cream parlour.

“Who wouldn’t miss Florean’s ice cream?” Romulus joked weakly.

Remus smiled sadly and pushed open the door to Madam Malkin’s. It was time to face another shop assistant, who would no doubt ask awkward questions about his ghostly companion. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of Romulus, but he hated being the centre of attention, and going shopping in Diagon Alley with a ghost had turned out to make him rather conspicuous.

“Remus!”

On the other hand, at least he was easy for Sirius to spot. He turned with a wide smile at the sound of the voice and saw Sirius stepping off the stool after being measured for yet another set of robes. “Hi, Sirius,” he replied with a small wave.

“Well, aren’t you going to introduce us?” an older man asked with a wide smile. Remus could tell at a glance that the man was a Black, though he wasn’t at all what he imagined Sirius’s father to look like. From what Sirius had said about his father, he found it difficult to believe that the man would ever wear his hair in a ponytail. Nor could he picture Orion Black smiling so widely at anyone.

“Sorry,” Sirius apologised. “This is my friend Remus. Remus, this is my Uncle Alphard. What a coincidence that we’re doing our school shop on the same day!”

Alphard looked amused at Sirius comment, and not a little suspicious. “The way you’ve been badgering me all week, I’m thinking set up, rather than coincidence. Nice to meet you Remus. And who’s this?” He turned to face Romulus with open curiosity.

“Oh, sorry. This is my older brother, Romulus.”

“Romulus and Remus,” Alphard repeated. “Not the Lupin brothers?”

“That’s right,” Romulus replied with a glare that dared the man to make an issue of it.

Alphard missed his look entirely though, because his gaze was now fixed on Sirius. “And how is it you know the Lupins?” he asked pleasantly.

“We met when I was in first year,” Sirius admitted. “They lived in Hogsmeade and I sort of used to sneak out.”

“You’ve been friends quite a while then?”

“We’re best friends!” Remus declared.

Alphard raised an eyebrow and turned to look at Sirius. Remus watched his friend flushing with what appeared to be embarrassment and he wondered why.

“I can see that you read the papers,” Romulus commented.

“I like to keep up on current events,” Alphard agreed. “All the Black family do. Though don’t make the mistake of likening me to the rest of them in all matters.”

“You’re not going to make a scene about Remus?” Romulus queried cautiously. “We’ve been shopping all morning without his being recognised.”

“Even with my ghostly escort,” Remus added.

“I don’t believe in making scenes,” Alphard assured them. “We’re heading to Flourish and Blotts next, how about you two?”

“We’ve been there already,” Remus said, slightly disappointed that he and Sirius hadn’t managed to plan their mornings a little better.

“Never mind. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to spend together back at school. Come along, Sirius, I promised your mother we wouldn’t take all day about this.”

Sirius nodded and followed after his uncle. “See you next week,” he called back to Remus.

“So, that’s your best friend, huh?” Alphard asked once they were out in the street.

“Yes,” Sirius whispered, his face flushing again.

“Remus Lupin.” Alphard shook his head sadly. “Hogwart’s new celebrity. You really do believe in making things difficult for yourself, don’t you?”

“I don’t mean to.”

“He’s a werewolf,” Alphard whispered.

“I know. But he’s still my best friend.”

“Just make sure that you’re absolutely sure before you let the rest of the family know,” Alphard advised. “Another boy, a half-blood, and a werewolf. Oh, Sirius.”

“Maybe I’ll suddenly start to like girls once I’m back at school,” Sirius muttered dismally.

“I hope so, Sirius. I hope so.”

Sirius glanced back towards Madam Malkin’s and caught a fleeting glimpse of Remus through the window. Next week couldn’t come soon enough, but he knew that it wasn’t any of the girls he was looking forward to seeing…it was only Remus.