Once in a Blue Moon (COMPLETE)

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Just Forget the World
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“You know, there’s another three perfectly good chairs around the table?” Romulus commented as he looked at where his brother and Sirius were huddled together on the same chair. Remus wasn’t actually sitting on Sirius’s lap, but he wasn’t far off.

Remus declined to move to one of the other chairs, and merely continued to eat his breakfast.

“Any jobs going?” Romulus asked, gesturing to the newspaper that was spread across the table.

“Don’t know,” Remus mumbled around a mouthful of bacon. “The Wasps got beaten by the Harpies at the weekend. Looks like the Harpies are the favourite to win the cup this year.”

“That’s nice,” Romulus said with far less enthusiasm than Remus. “But you two really should start looking for jobs.”

Remus shrugged. “We’ve not even got our exam results yet.”

“That’s not the point. Do either of you even have an idea of what you want to do?”

Sirius shrugged, while Remus took another bite of his breakfast.

“Didn’t you get pulled in for career talks with Professor McGonagall in your fifth year?” Romulus asked impatiently. “Professor Sprout made all the Hufflepuffs have one, when I was at school.”

“Yeah, we had them,” Sirius said with a grin. “We had a bit of a bet going as to who could get out of there quickest. Remus won.”

Romulus looked like he didn’t know whether to believe him or not.

Sirius grinned wider. “I told her I wanted to be a motorbike mechanic, which confused the hell out of her. Took her five minutes to cover up that she didn’t really know what I was talking about when I started going on about exhausts and stuff.”

“Do I even want to know what Remus did to win this dubious contest?” Romulus asked.

“I didn’t actually win it on purpose,” Remus muttered. “I told her I wanted to play professional Quidditch.”

“Remus…”

“It’s okay,” Remus said, effectively cutting off his brother. “I know about the law. Professor McGonagall told me about it in our meeting. She explained that it’s never going to happen, and she kept patting me on the arm. She looked like she was about to burst into tears or something.”

“Well, didn’t she talk with you about your other options?” Romulus asked.

Remus shook his head. “Didn’t you hear me? I said she looked like she was about to burst into tears. I got the hell out of there before she did.”

Romulus shook his head. “I suggest you both turn to the job section and start looking for something.”

Remus groaned, but reluctantly turned the page.

“Male escorts,” Sirius read out loud. “That sounds nice and easy.”

Remus elbowed him in the ribs and snickered. “What about Dragon Tamers?”

“You need to be really committed for a job like that,” Romulus pointed out. “It’s a lot of training and you need an Outstanding in Care of Magical Creatures.”

“That rules that out then,” Remus said cheerily. “We’ll be through the entire section in no time at this rate.”

Romulus sighed wearily. “The idea is to find a job to apply for, not to find an excuse to avoid them all.”

Sirius rested his chin on Remus’s shoulder. “What about this one?” he said, tapping the page.

“Port Key Distributor,” Remus read. “What’s that?”

“Delivering the Port Keys to the designated spots ready for use,” Romulus explained. “One of my friends at school had an older brother who did that.”

“I could use it to put my baby through her paces,” Sirius said. Both men knew that he was referring to his as yet unnamed motorbike. “They’re interviewing for the post next month, which means we still have a few weeks of freedom until then.”

Sirius ducked his head to kiss Remus’s neck, prompting Remus to groan and Romulus to make a rather rapid exit.

“I suppose I really should find something to apply for,” Remus said, but it was clear his attention was no longer on the newspaper.

“There’s lots of bar work,” Sirius whispered. “Just apply for the lot and it’ll keep your brother happy.”

Remus nodded, but then Sirius pushed him up onto the table, sending the newspaper fluttering to the floor and Remus soaring to the heavens.

-o-xXx-o-

“What is it?” Sirius asked as Remus scowled at the paper. “Did your team lose again?”

“Of course,” Remus replied with a snort of laughter. “Bloody useless Chasers.”

Sirius laughed and sat down beside Remus on the sofa. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” he guessed.

Remus shook his head and tossed the paper onto the coffee table. “Doesn’t matter,” he muttered as he climbed onto Sirius’s lap.

“What doesn’t matter?” Sirius asked, right before Remus pressed their lips together.

Sirius let himself melt into the kiss, but he kept one eye on the paper and as he leaned into the kiss, he reached out to pick it up.

“Don’t,” Remus said. He tried to pull the paper from Sirius’s hands, but he kept a tight grip on it and wouldn’t let it go.

“I thought you said there weren’t any decent jobs in the paper today?” Sirius asked when he saw what page Remus had been reading.

“None for someone like me,” Remus replied. “Just forget it. We could go back to bed for a while…”

“Or you could tell me the truth?” Sirius said, scanning the page for whatever it was that had upset Remus. “Ah…”

“I wouldn’t have a chance of getting it,” Remus said. “I’d be struggling even if I wasn’t a werewolf.”

“You got good results in your exams,” Sirius pointed out. “You’d have as good a chance as any of the others.”

“I don’t know…” Remus sighed. “I like the idea of teaching, but what sort of parent would want me around their kids?”

“One who wants their child to have a dedicated and intelligent teacher?” Sirius suggested. “Though I have to admit, you don’t seem much like a teacher to me.”

Remus frowned. “Why not?”

“Well, you never really concentrated in lessons much. Won’t you get bored?”

Remus shook his head. “I know what bored me in classes, which means I’ll know how to make them fun.”

Sirius smiled. “I guess that makes sense. So, are you going to apply?”

Remus sighed. “What’s the point? I’ve been knocked back for everything from delivery boy to janitor, and all the menial jobs in between. I can’t even get a job as an errand boy in Hogsmeade after what happened.”

“They’ll forget about it soon,” Sirius told him, hugging him closer as he spoke. “You just gave them a bit of a fright.”

“I showed them I can’t be trusted,” Remus countered. “And they’re probably right.”

“Rubbish,” Sirius snapped. “Now, are you going to apply for that job, or am I going to apply for you?”

“I’ll think about it,” Remus finally agreed.

“You know I’m going to pester you until you do?” Sirius told him. “You know I’ll talk you round eventually?”

Remus sighed. Of course he knew that. Sirius Black always got his own way, especially when it came to him, since now he had said yes once, he couldn’t seem to manage a no at all.

-o-xXx-o-

“You can let go now,” Sirius advised Remus as he drew the motorbike to a halt outside the heavy iron gates of the remote house on the outskirts of the muggle village they had just travelled through at an illegally fast speed.

Remus released his death grip and Sirius let out a dramatic sigh, hinting, not very subtly, that he had been in difficulty breathing during the latter part of their journey. “We’re here?” he asked. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

“Yeah, this is the address from the advert. I still don’t see why you didn’t send in your application by owl though.”

“I told you, I’m getting nowhere applying for jobs by owl. They see the word werewolf and put my application straight into the trash.”

“They aren’t allowed to do that,” Sirius stated for what seemed to be the hundredth time during the last few months.

“Doesn’t mean they don’t,” Remus muttered bitterly. “And I can’t prove otherwise.”

“So, stop putting it on the application that you are one,” Sirius advised.

“You know I have to; that stupid bill that the Ministry passed means I have to tell them. Besides, thanks to Rita Skeeter most of the wizarding community knows what I am anyway. If I deliver my applications in person maybe they’ll give me a chance.”

Sirius nodded and squeezed Remus’s hand in silent encouragement. “You’ll find the right job soon. And who knows, maybe this is it?”

Remus smiled back before turning to the house again.

“Do you want me to wait for you?” Sirius asked.

“You’ll be late for your own interview if you do,” Remus pointed out. “I’ll apparate home. And good luck!”

“You too,” Sirius replied as he pulled Remus closer to kiss him goodbye and good luck.

“Oi!”

Remus reluctantly stepped back from Sirius as he turned to see who had interrupted them.

“You’re blocking the road,” the muggle complained as she leaned out her car window.

“Sorry,” Sirius called back, pulling his motorbike out of the path of the car as he spoke.

The woman drove past, shooting them a glare as she did. “Horrible place… full of nutters… glad to see the back of it…” she muttered.

“I’m glad she’s not your prospective employer,” Sirius commented.

“Me too, Sirius. Me too.”

“Well, I’d better get going in case the traffic’s bad,” Sirius sighed. “Just you wait until I get the flight spells right. It’ll be great!”

“I can hardly contain my enthusiasm,” Remus replied with a deadpan expression. He couldn’t say that he was really looking forward to the day that Sirius took his experimentation with flying spells to the next level. He would much rather have a nice, safe – professionally spelled – broom underneath him.

“You’ll love it!” Sirius shouted as he started up the engine again. “Remus Lupin, tutor to the next generation of wizards.”

Remus snorted. “Glorified babysitter, you mean?”

Sirius laughed and took off down the lane, leaving Remus standing at the end of the path, wondering what he was getting himself in to. Until he had seen the advert, he had never thought of himself as a tutor or teacher, but as soon as the idea had taken root in his mind, he had been unable to dislodge it. The idea of giving someone the head start in life that he had been denied. Not that Remus would ever say such a thing out loud. He knew that Romulus had tried his best, and Remus knew he could never truly repay the debt his brother had paid on his behalf, but private tutors had been out of reach for him from the moment he had been bitten.

But what sort of parent would want a werewolf for a tutor?

Remus grimaced as he recalled the way that people who knew what he was looked at him. Even the shopkeepers in Hogsmeade, who had known him for over ten years, were wary of him these days.

He wondered if he should turn back and forget it. Sirius would never know the difference. He would never know that he hadn’t delivered his application. It would just be another failed attempt at getting a job.

The application in his pocket felt heavier all of a sudden, and Remus felt his stomach churning.

“Who’s to know?” he whispered to himself as he looked at the rubbish bin next to the bus shelter across the road. He took a step across the road before he realised that he would know. He and Sirius had promised to be honest with each other from now on, but already he was considering keeping something from him. He could see the swirling pattern of the mark of his commitment peeking out from the end of his sleeve and sighed. He couldn’t lie to Sirius or do anything that would hurt him, not after all that he had already put him through.

Remus turned back to the house and forced a smile onto his face as he walked down the long winding path. The place was far larger than he’d been expecting and he wished his robes were of better quality. He felt rather out of place in the grand surroundings and briefly wondered if he should turn back and take another look at the Daily Prophet to see if there was anything else out there worth applying for. The fleeting fear was soon gone though and Remus pulled his Gryffindor courage around him like an extra robe as he rang the bell.

“Yes?” a frazzled looking woman asked breathlessly as she opened the door.

“Ms Anderson?” Remus asked hesitantly.

“Yes?” the woman replied, though it seemed more of a question than an answer.

“I’ve come to deliver my application for the position of tutor,” Remus explained as he pulled the same from his robes and held it out to the woman.

“You didn’t send it by owl,” the woman stated without reaching for the parchment.

“No, I…”

“Thank goodness you didn’t send it by owl!”

“Pardon?”

“Dozens of owls flying into the house since seven o’clock this morning,” she explained as she invited him in and led him into the sitting room. “When the last one arrived ten minutes ago the wretched housekeeper quit on me.”

“Blonde hair, looks like she’d been sucking lemons?” Remus asked with a grin.

“I take it you met her on the way in?”

“Afraid so.”

“Oh dear. What did she tell you?”

“Nothing really. She seemed to be rather offended because we were blocking the driveway with the motorbike.”

“We?”

“Me and my… er…” Remus hesitated a moment before deciding that the truth might actually be of help right now. If she couldn’t accept his homosexuality then there was no need for him to bother mentioning his Lycanthropy at all. One less person looking at him in horror could only be a good thing. “My boyfriend, husband actually.”

“Oh.”

Remus shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other as he waited for her to cast judgement on him.

“Is he still here?” she finally asked.

“No, he has a job interview he had to get to,” Remus replied. “Do you still want my application?” he asked.

“Oh, sure, just add it to the pile,” she said pointing to the stack of applications on the coffee table. “I’m Alana by the way. Do you want a coffee or something?”

“No, I didn’t mean to intrude. I just wanted to explain something in my application in person.”

Alana laughed shortly, and the tinge of hysteria to it startled Remus somewhat. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Only that I’ve been reading applications all morning and I’ve no idea what half of the stuff in them means.”

Remus frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Well, take this one,” Alana said as she picked up a sheet of parchment and read from it. “I have seven owls and three newts. What the heck does that have to do with anything? I’ve had dozens of owls coming in here all flaming morning and all they do is make a mess. I don’t even want to know what the newts do.”

“You’re a muggle!” Remus gaped in astonishment.

“A non-magic person right?” Alana asked with a frown.

“Yes. But… er… well, you advertised in the Daily Prophet. It’s a wizard paper.”

“My ex was a wizard,” Alana explained. “He told me a bit about your world and our daughter takes after him.”

“He put the ad in for you?”

“No, I’ve not seen him since I told him I was pregnant. I’ve never seen him move so fast as he did when he was packing that morning.”

“Sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.” Alana shrugged off his concerns. “But he told me enough about your world for me to be able to figure out how to get an ad in the Prophet.”

Remus nodded. “O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s are our exams,” he explained. “We take O.W.L.s in school at the age of fifteen or sixteen and then N.E.W.T.s two years after that.”

“So, they’re like our O Levels and A Levels?”

“Er…”

“I’m talking another language, aren’t I?” Alana asked with a laugh.

“Afraid so,” Remus replied with a laugh of his own. “Do you want me to translate anything else for you, while I’m here?”

“Would you?”

Remus grinned at the hopeful expression of the woman sitting opposite him. “Sure,” he offered. “I’ve got the rest of the day free anyway.”

“Let’s start over,” Alana said as she gathered all the parchments together and set them neatly into one pile.

For the next hour the two of them worked their way through the pile of applications, which was occasionally added to by the arrival of another owl arriving through the open window.

“So, let me see if I understand this, Potions is like science or something?” Alana asked. “Mixing stuff up and seeing what happens. Like in Chemistry?”

Remus waited for her to explain Chemistry in more detail before nodding in agreement with her assessment. It wasn’t exactly the same, of course, but as a muggle it would do for a comparison.

“But what’s Transfiguration?” she asked with another frown.

“Turning things into other things,” Remus explained simply. “I can demonstrate if you like?”

Alana nodded as Remus pulled out his wand and pointed it at the small puppy that had been frolicking on the carpet. A moment later it was a table lamp.

“Is it permanent?” Alana asked in horror.

“No,” Remus shook his head and pointed his wand at the lamp, turning it back into a dog.

“So, you can turn anything into anything?” Alana asked.

“I wish,” Remus muttered. “We’ve got all sorts of rules and limitations on what we can do. My husband is really good at Transfiguration. Our Professor said he had a natural talent for it.”

“Looks like this applicant has as well,” Alana commented. “She got an A in it.”

“An A?” Remus asked. “That’s not that good actually.”

“It isn’t?” Alana asked in confusion. “A’s the top grade for our exams, isn’t it for yours?”

“O is our top grade,” Remus explained. “It means outstanding. Then E for exceeds expectations, then A for acceptable. Those are the passing grades. The rest are fails.”

“E is a pass,” Alana asked in horror. “E is one of the bottom grades for muggle exams. That means I’ve got to start over… again.”

Alana looked close to tears by this point, and Remus heard a telltale sniff as she scooped all the applications up once more and started again.

“Hey, we’ll get through them all,” Remus assured her. Alana nodded and they set to work once more.

“Well, this one’s got my name wrong,” Alana muttered half an hour later.

“Reject pile,” Remus commented as she passed the parchment to him to set to one side.

“This one wants more money,” Alana sighed. “I don’t know squat about the exchange rates. What?”

Remus tried to smother the smirk that had prompted her question. “Nothing,” he replied.

“What’s so funny about me not knowing about the exchange rates?”

“It’s just the way you said it,” Remus replied. “You sounded like my brother for a moment there.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“It’s good.”

“Maybe I could meet him some time?” Alana casually asked.

“It might be a bit difficult, he doesn’t get out much.”

“Why not? Is he shy?”

“Not particularly, but he’s a ghost.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. Maybe not then.”

“Anyway,” Remus tried to steer the conversation back on track. “You’re offering more than enough for the position as it is. Too much, if I’m really honest.”

“I wanted to add more because of travel expenses,” Alana explained. “This place is kind of out of the way.”

“We’re wizards,” Remus replied. “We can apparate all over the country in the blink of an eye.”

“I feel so stupid for not knowing stuff like this,” Alana sighed.

“Your ex didn’t tell you much about us did he?”

“He was kind of secretive about all sorts of things,” Alana replied. “Good riddance to him. But there’s so much I don’t know. I didn’t even know that our daughter could be like him until I was asked to keep her away from the local nursery because she was doing strange things like making crayons fly across the room and stuff. I daren’t send her to another one when she’s doing stuff like that. I could try and teach her stuff at home, but I have to work and I don’t know anything about magic.”

“It’s a lot to take in.”

“And every time I think I’ve got something right, something else crops up and I have to rethink it all. Like if you wizards can apparate all over the country, why did you travel here by motorbike?”

“I was asking myself the same question the whole time,” Remus laughed. “But Sirius happens to like that mode of transport, and I find it difficult to say no to him.”

“Whipped,” Alana smirked.

Remus grinned back. “Totally,” he replied.

“Reject pile,” Alana stated as she passed the application for the expensive tutor to Remus.

Remus took the parchment and added it to the pile as Alana reached for the next one.

“What the…?”

“What is it?” Remus asked.

“I… I…” Alana shook her head unable to form words at whatever it was she was reading.

“What is it?”

“Do… er… do vampires and werewolves and stuff like that really exist?” Alana whispered.

“Afraid so,” Remus confirmed. “Is that a vampire or werewolf application?”

“A werewolf,” Alana replied. “I can’t let a werewolf near my little girl. What was he thinking to apply for the job? I just can’t believe it.”

“Reject pile,” Remus stated in as calm a voice as he could manage, as he took his application from Alana’s shaking hands and added it to the growing pile beside him. He tried not to let the overwhelming feeling of disappointment take over as they continued to work through the applications.

“That’s the last of them!” Alana leaned back in her seat after placing the final application into the maybe pile. “Oh, wait! I forgot your application.”

“You’ve already dealt with it,” Remus said with a tight smile. “I put it with the others earlier.”

“You did?” Alana picked up the pile of the most promising applications and flicked through it for a few seconds before stopping. “I just realised, I never asked your name?”

“Remus Lupin,” Remus replied. “And it won’t be in that pile,” he added as Alana turned back to the pile.

“Oh.” Alana flushed with embarrassment. “Well, I’ll just move your application up a pile,” she said as she reached for the maybe pile. “You’ve been so helpful to me this afternoon, that has to count for a lot.”

“I should really be going,” Remus said with another forced smile, already on his feet and heading for the door before the young woman realised what she had let into her house.

“Oh, of course,” Alana said with an apologetic smile. “I’ve monopolised your time for far too long.”

“You’re sure you know how to handle the owls that have stuck around to deliver your replies?” Remus asked, having shown her the best way of handling the waiting birds earlier on.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Then I’ll be going,” Remus said with a bright smile that he hoped didn’t seem too fake.

“I’ll be in touch soon,” Alana promised as she showed him out. “And thank you again for all your help.”

“You’re welcome,” Remus replied before apparating away with a pop. The last thing he saw before he disappeared was the astonishment on the face of the muggle mother who had watched him leave. It would have been slightly amusing if it weren’t for the bitter feeling of rejection welling inside him once more.

“How did it go?” Sirius asked as soon as he walked in the door to their flat.

Remus took one look at the other man and burst into tears.

“Stupid bigots,” Sirius muttered as he pulled Remus into his arms and steered him towards the sofa. “I’ll go hex ‘em for you if you like?”

“Don’t do that,” Remus whispered. “She was really nice. She’s a muggle and her ex was a wizard. She’s got a little girl who takes after her father and she knows so little about our world. She was really nice.”

“I don’t suppose you explained to her about what it means to be a werewolf? About how you take precautions when it’s the full moon, and how you’re perfectly human the rest of the time?”

“She was scared. I saw it in her eyes. Her hands were shaking so much I couldn’t… I just couldn’t…”

“Couldn’t what?”

“I couldn’t make things even more difficult for her by making her suffer the humiliation and fear of having a werewolf in her house.” At that Remus’s sobs started afresh and all he could do was let Sirius hold him until they’d subsided.

“Forget her, Remus,” Sirius murmured over and over. “Just forget the rest of the world. You’ve got me now. I won’t let any of them hurt you again. Just forget them.”

-o-xXx-o-

Sirius waited until Remus had cried himself to sleep before he crept from their bed and apparated out of their flat.

The house that he arrived in front of looked the same as it had earlier that day. Even though it was quite late the lights were still on and Sirius scowled as he marched purposefully along the path to the front door. He rang the bell and waited as he heard hurried footsteps on the other side.

“Yes?” the young woman, who he guessed was Alana Anderson, asked after she opened the door.

“I’m here about the job,” Sirius stated firmly.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid the position’s been filled,” Alana replied with a shake of her head.

“Maybe you’d like to rethink that,” Sirius hissed as he pushed his way into the house.

“The deadline for applications was six o’clock.”

“You had the application I’m here about well before then,” Sirius replied.

“If you’ve already applied, why are you here?”

“Me?” Sirius spluttered. “Hell no! I’m here about the application of the young man who has spent a large portion of his day helping you with the rest of the applications, and said nothing when you rejected his own.”

“Are you Sirius?” Alana asked.

“Y-yes,” Sirius stammered, momentarily taken off guard by her question. He hadn’t realised that Remus had spoken about him. “Sirius Black.” He waited in vain for the fear that would normally come with the recognition of his family name. Then he remembered that Alana was a muggle, and that she had never heard of the so-called noble house of Black.

“Remus’s husband?” Alana asked.

“Ye-es?”

“Strange,” Alana replied. “You aren’t what I pictured at all.”

“What? No fangs and fur?” Sirius asked sarcastically.

“I didn’t know until after he left that he was the werewolf who’d applied for the job,” Alana whispered.

“But you rejected his application because of it anyway,” Sirius hissed. “Do you know how hard it is for him to find a job with his furry little problem?”

Alana shook her head, opening her mouth to speak, but no words were coming out.

“Do you know how upset he gets at being constantly rejected at every turn?”

“I…”

“Do you know how long he cried today after he came home? Do you have any idea how much it breaks my heart every time he cries himself to sleep in my arms?”

“I’m sorry,” Alana whispered. “I didn’t mean to…”

“You didn’t mean to treat him with the same contempt and disregard that the rest of the world does, just because he was bitten by a werewolf at the age of six years old?”

“Six?”

“Six years old,” Sirius repeated slowly, watching as the horror at his words appeared on the face of the woman before him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Sirius hissed. “Just don’t do what everyone else does. Don’t judge werewolves by what you’ve read in the books and papers. Judge Remus on his own merits, not on this.”

“I already have,” Alana replied as she raised her chin defiantly. “He didn’t leave an owl, so I sent his reply by muggle post. He said he’d get it eventually. If I’d known you were stopping by I’d have waited. Can he start on Monday?”

“What?”

“Can Remus start on Monday?” Alana repeated.

“You’re hiring him?” Sirius asked.

“My daughter requires someone with a lot of patience and he certainly showed that this afternoon with me. His qualifications are good, and I realised after I found his application how badly I’d misjudged him when I read it. I want to hire him.”

“I’ve just made a complete idiot of myself, haven’t I?” Sirius asked sheepishly.

“No more than I did this afternoon,” Alana replied. “I want to tell Remus I’m sorry, and that I really want him to have the job.”

“How about I take you to him, so you can tell him right now?”

Alana shook her head. “I can’t leave my daughter.”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes with a sitter,” Sirius announced before apparating out of the house. He didn’t give Alana time to respond. He arrived back again as promised a few minutes later with a rather irate redhead on his arm.

“Here we go,” Sirius announced with a bright smile. “Miss Lily Evans, babysitter supreme!”

Lily shot him a glare as she looked for somewhere to place her half-eaten carton of noodles. “You could have at least waited for me to agree,” she complained. “And what’s James going to think when he comes back from the bathroom to find me missing?”

“I’m not sure about this,” Alana interrupted. “I can’t just leave my daughter with a stranger.”

“Which is exactly what I said you’d say,” Lily crowed. Then she turned her glare on Sirius. “But Sirius isn’t exactly known for taking a great deal of notice of people. And, have you even told Remus that you’re here? I’ll bet anything you haven’t, and you know he’ll do his nut when he finds out!”

“I’ll worry about that later,” Sirius said with a wave of his hand.

“And…” Lily interrupted him, “I don’t know anything about babysitting.”

“But you’re a girl!”

“So?”

“So, you know all about kids and stuff.”

“What? You think this knowledge is ingrained in us at birth or something?” Sirius dropped his gaze as he saw Lily’s famous temper rising. “You think that because I’m a woman I’m going to spend my life chained to the kitchen sink, and up to my eyeballs in dirty nappies?”

“Well…”

“You’re so lucky you’re gay, because with an attitude like this you’d have some severe problems if you ever wanted to get a girl. Any girl you were dating who had to listen to this sort of rubbish would slap you six ways to Sunday and then dump you pronto. I’ve never heard such a chauvinistic attitude in my life!”

“But James said…”

“James said what? That we’re going to have a dozen kids? Yes, I’ve heard him say so, and if he thinks he’s leaving me with all the work for them, he’s got another think coming as well.”

“But, this will be good practice for you,” Sirius suggested. “It’s only for a few minutes, half an hour tops.”

Lily made some kind of strangled noise deep in her throat as she glared at him, before turning to Alana whose expression had gone from worried to alarmed, before finally settling on amused during the course of their discussion. “As you can probably guess, Remus is the sensitive one of the couple, he’s also the kindest, the smartest, the tidiest…” Sirius snorted at this, “…and the most organised.”

“And Sirius?” Alana asked with a smirk.

“I’m still trying to figure out what he brings to the relationship,” Lily replied. “All I’ve come up with so far is the you-know-what.”

“What’s that?” Sirius asked as Alana nodded in understanding. Lily just glared at him again.

“Sirius,” she said with a sigh of frustration. “Hasn’t it even occurred to you that if you drag this poor woman back to your place to offer Remus the job, that Remus will think you’ve forced her into giving it to him, and he’ll turn it down?”

“She was giving him the job anyway,” Sirius replied. “I’m just making sure he finds out as quickly as possible. And he won’t turn it down, he really wants the job.”

Lily shook her head and rolled her eyes heavenward as though praying for guidance, or more likely patience.

“Am I interrupting?” a familiar voice asked. Sirius spun round to see Remus standing on the doorstep. He’d been so distracted he hadn’t even heard Remus apparate into the area.

“How long have you been there?” Sirius asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Long enough, and looking for you. It wasn’t exactly difficult to guess where you’d gone when I woke up to find you missing. Alana, I’m sorry my friends have intruded on your time like this. Sirius can be a bit over-protective of me sometimes.”

“It’s all right,” Alana said with a shy smile.

“And Lily?” Lily raised a questioning eyebrow at his tone. “Sirius brings more than… er… you-know-what to the relationship. In fact, he has all those attributes you’ve assigned to me in abundance. Plus he has the strength to keep on fighting when I just want to give up and give in.” Remus walked over to Sirius and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Not that I approve of this evening’s little outing.”

“Am I in the doghouse?” asked Sirius as he pouted slightly childishly, knowing that it would amuse Remus no matter how annoyed it was.

“Don’t worry,” Remus sighed. “I won’t make you sleep on the couch.”

“Good. Now, can you enlighten me as to what it is that you three seem to think I bring to our relationship?”

“I just told you, you bring a lot more to it than Lily thinks.”

“But I want to know what she meant,” Sirius whined.

“Remus, I pity you,” Lily consoled him. “Now, I really have to get back to James. Let us know how the job goes.”

“If Alana really wants to hire me, and not just because Sirius has bullied her into it,” Remus replied.

“I’d already chosen you for the job,” Alana interrupted.

“So I heard,” Remus replied. “Are you sure you want a werewolf in your house?”

“If it means I get you as well, then yes,” Alana announced, and although there was still a lingering trace of fear in her eyes it was small and fleeting and Sirius suspected that it would soon vanish entirely. “Can you start on Monday?”

Remus didn’t have time to open his mouth before Sirius answered for him. “Of course he can. Though if he doesn’t tell me what Lily meant I may not let him out of the house to come here at all.”

“I was talking about your sex appeal,” Lily stated with a roll of her eyes.

“You think I’m sexy?” Sirius asked in astonishment, though he made a rapid recovery. “Does James know you feel this way?” he teased.

“I pity you, Remus,” Lily repeated before apparating away.

“I’ll never get used to that,” Alana said as she looked at the spot where Lily had been standing a moment before. “People just popping in and out of the house without warning.”

“You just apparated into the house?” Remus asked Sirius with a glare.

“I rang the bell the first time,” Sirius insisted, prompting Alana to back him up. She nodded to confirm that he had done so and Remus’s glare was replaced with a look of relief. “I do remember some of my manners,” he added with a sniff. “You haven’t corrupted me entirely, quite yet.”

Remus smiled before turning to Alana again. “Are you really sure you want to hire me?” he asked again.

“Absolutely,” she replied with a grin.

“I’ll not be around during the full moons,” Remus explained. “I’ve a house up in Scotland, and I’ll be there for them. If the constant time off gets to be a problem you be sure to let me know, okay?”

“I can work my own hours around you,” Alana promised.

“And I can baby-sit if you’re really desperate,” Sirius offered. “Not on the full moon nights, but the days after while Remus recovers. At least until I get a job myself.”

“I don’t think she’ll ever be that desperate,” Remus teased, winking at Alana and making sure that Sirius saw him do so.

Sirius gave another haughty sniff before bowing slightly to Alana and apparating out of the house with a pop.

“So, I guess I’ll see you Monday?” Remus questioned.

“Eight thirty prompt,” Alana replied.

“Thank you,” Remus said quietly. “I’m going to apparate out now,” he advised with a smile. “You ready?”

Alana nodded and Remus gave a small bow of his own before disappearing back to Cauldron Close.

Sirius was waiting for him when he arrived home. He looked like he was preparing himself for a lecture. This was confirmed by the start of astonishment when Remus approached him, planted a soft kiss on his lips and whispered a thank you into his ear as he took his hand and gently pulled him towards the bedroom.