"You lot have done quite a lot here since I've last been," Remus said. He leaned against James's shoulder as the pair of them walked through the house in Godric's Hollow. It looked so different. "Honestly you've done a really, very good job of it."

"I'm glad you think so Moony," James said, proudly. "Hopefully Evans agrees."

It was just the pair of them for now - Sirius and Peter had both needed to work until the afternoon, but James arranged his schedule carefully so to have a few hours alone with Remus Lupin. After all, he did still have loads of questions about Ned Veigler that he needed to ask Remus as he worked on the Marjorie Grant case. He figured what better time?

Sirius was sure to be knackered off that James didn't wait to bring Remus to the house - especially to the special space they'd made for full moon nights. The last time Remus had been was the day they had begun the nostalgic tunnel dig for full moon nights and it seemed about a thousand years ago now. In his spare time, James had been at the house a lot, especially as the wedding drew ever closer.

He couldn't wrap his mind on how close it was to the wedding... how soon it was that Lily would see the house for the first time.

He hoped she would like it.

"You reckon Evans will like it?" he asked Remus. Remus had better taste than Sirius, he thought, he could trust Remus's opinion on this more than he could trust Sirius's.

Remus chuckles as he answered, "Yes she will."

"What're you chuckling for?" James asked.

"It's just - d'you reckon you'll ever call her anything besides Evans?"

James looked confused, "Whyever would I do that? Evans is her name."

"For now it is," Remus shrugged.

"What?"

"Well a bit better than a month and it won't be, will it?" Remus pointed out.

James stopped abruptly on the stairs, a look of shock on his face. "Blimey, that's right."

Remus raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me this is the first you've thought of that."

"I reckon it's the first its sunk in that way at least," James countered.

"Sorry," Remus chuckled at the perplexed look on James's face.

"I suppose I'll have to call her something else then."

"I suppose so."

They walked down the steps, James thinking, and over to the place where they'd made the tunnel. "It'll feel odd," James said, still hung up on the conversation, but Remus was staring in awe at the finished tunnel mouth.

They'd made it to look like the entry way to a home, with a real door, and on the floor there before it was a welcome mat that read WIPE YOUR PAWS on it with a load of paw prints all around. Remus laughed and smiled. "Oh you lot --"

"Sirius made that," James said, pointing at the rug.

"Of course he did," Remus laughed.

James opened the door and revealed a tunnel beyond, stretching off into the earth beyond the basement walls. There were lights.

"All the better to see what it is we're about to trip on," James said.

Remus was smiling.

They walked, far but not anywhere near the distance the tunnel at Hogwarts afforded them. At the end, they came to another nice door and on this one Sirius had hung a sign that looked like a cross stitch pillow in design, but read HOWLING HOUSE with little wolves instead of hearts. There was a basket of dog toys beside the door and Remus laughed again.

"Why is my husband an absolute idiot?"

"Dunno," James answered. "But they squeak." He reached for one and squeezed it.

Remus grinned. "He does love it when they squeak."

James nodded. "C'mon in, Rey," he said, and he raised his wand. "Security feature number one: the doors open only by magic, so there's no way to leave without your faculties about you."

Remus nodded, "Very good."

"Secondly," James turned and pointed to a spot in the tunnel where there was a ring of stones pressed into the dirt walls. "See that? If you get out headed back to the house, if you pass that point a stupefy will immediately knock you clean out."

"Excellent."

"And through here..." James led Remus into the Howling House, "See, we've made enchanted windows, that show the true outdoors... there are loads of soft beds meant for dogs and stags and rats, see, no climbing on furniture like in the Shack. And here... this was Sirius's doing..." they stepped through a doorway and were suddenly in a forrest.

Remus looked around, "But we're outside."

"Nope. Inside."

"How?"

"Sirius wrote to Mr. Scamander about building habitats."

Remus felt his heart swell. "It's perfect," he said.

James let him relish the moment a bit, standing back while Remus looked around, moving slowly with his knees. James even had a sit down on one of the beds and waited while Remus shuffled about the forest room. When he returned, his face was glowing with happiness and his eyes moist with the threat of tears.

"You lot didn't have to go to all this for me."

"Rey, course we did," James answered. "It's home, isn't it? We needed a safe place for our favorite werewolf."

Remus's palms lay on the door jamb.

James hesitated. "Rey?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we talk?"

Remus looked concerned and he walked over and lowered himself to sit next to James, "Of course, Prongs, you know we can talk... anytime, anything." He paused, then, "Oh. Wait. It's about Ned, isn't it?"

James nodded.

Remus took a deep breath, "I had a feeling you'd be having questions for me before long, ever since you got the case."

"Yeah," James said. "You knew him better than anyone, aside from maybe Mr. Scamander, but I think he trusted you even more than him."

Remus looked down at his trainers, "We were brothers."

"Yeah, I know," James said.

"From the second we found out we were both bitten by Greyback, we were just --" Remus sighed. "You know. You and I are brothers like that, too."

"Of course we are." James nodded.

"Well," Remus said, "What is it you want to know?"

"Anything you can tell me," James replied, "Anything that might help. Anything at all."

"There's just not very much, honestly," Remus said sadly. "I regret never asking him so many things that I thought I would have loads of time to ask... if I'd only known..." He shrugged.

"I know the feeling," James replied, thinking of Charlus and the shadowy story of Ottalie that hung vague and distant in the back of his mind. "We ought to remember to ask folks things before its too late."

"And to make sure once we know them we don't let go too easily," Remus added.

The owl that dropped off the post flew in and flung the letters on the floor and flew out as quickly as he could. Like everything else, even the birds didn't want to linger too long at Spinner's End.

Dreary and dark, it was amazing that anything survived there beyond the rats and roaches - survived being the only word for what those who existed there did. You couldn't really call what they did there living. Most of the houses were empty; in fact, save for the one at the very middle of a block, the whole row that the owl had delivered to was vacant.

The letters lay on the floor, a bright white patch on a dark green carpet. A pile of books sat nearby, a candle in a candelabrum balanced upon it, a shadow filling the corner of the room, pressed right to the wall.

But not a shadow after all.

Severus Snape leaned forward, the candle light illuminating his pale, pimply face as he took up the small pile of letters, his fingers long with dirt-darkened nails. The top was a pale blue envelope with little bell shaped flowers bordering the edges and he recognized instantly the handwriting on it, as well as the smell of it and he leaned forward, out of the shadows, the other letters dropping to the floor as he came closer to the candlelight, his eyes eager and wide.

He shoved his fingernail under the seal and pulled it open. Out of the envelope came two cards, a single sheet of notepaper, and a pressed bluebell, which slid from the stack and slowly drifted to the floor. He flipped over the cards eagerly, but stopped stone cold when he saw what it said.

The card was pale blue, stars and bluebells like was on the envelope and pressed inside decorated the words and the edges of the page with great flourishes. Faint silhouettes of trees in the background, punctuated by starlight-bright words that shimmered as the card moved in his hand, and Severus hated everything about it instantly.

A monogrammed L and J set at the top between branches of bluebells. Below that, the card read:

Messer James C. Potter & Missus Lillith P. Evans warmly request the gift of your presence at the occasion of their binding in love through the unbreakable vows of holy matrimony on 24 December in the forest of Ashridge Estate at a gathering of all their most cherished persons. Please RSVP by 26 November by Owl or Muggle Post.

Severus dropped the card and it fell to the floor along side the clipping of bluebells.

He looked at the other card - it was a reply card to send back with boxes to check and lines to fill in and he threw it down, too, before turning to the notepaper.

This infuriated him most of all for instead of Lily's delicate handwriting, the notepaper had a messy scrawling script that could scarcely be kept straight on the lines of the paper.

Severus: I know we've had our differences. You've done a lot of things and so haven't I. Things that ought not to be forgivable - on both parts. I don't blame you for hating me and certainly you cannot blame me for hating you, either. However, the one thing that we have in common, and have always been able to rally up for, is Lily. This means a great deal to her and I know that she could not truly ascribe to the idea that all of her most cherished were in attendance at the wedding if that all did not include you. Although neither of us may understand her liking for the other, I do hope that we can allow bygones to be bygones and perhaps share a drink and a handshake to call it paix. Sincerely, James Potter.

Severus stared at the words, his mouth twisted into a deep and hateful scowl and he let out a yell of rage, tearing the letter up into the tiniest pieces and flinging it into the air. He grabbed the cards from the floor, knocking the books askew, and set them on fire with the candle, tossing them into the floo and casting the candle - candelabrum and all - in with it before storming from the room, his black cloak fluttering behind him.

The sprig of bluebells lay on the floor where they'd landed, pressed between the covers of the fallen stack of books.

Vernon Dursley was sitting in the living room watching a spot of telly when he heard Petunia let out a scream. He jumped up and hurried to the kitchen to see what had happened - she'd only been making them a lunch to share, but perhaps she had cut her hand trimming roast for sandwiches or something. What he found was much worse.

Petunia was up on one of the kitchen chairs, shrieking and waving a broomstick at a terribly agitated looking owl, who had tied to its leg a letter in a pale blue envelope.

"SHOOO! Shooooooo!!!" Petunia cried, batting at the owl as it sat on the table, struggling to nip the envelope's binding from its own leg. She screamed again and nearly slipped from the chair, and Vernon hurried to steady her.

The owl successfully released the envelope and with a bristle of irritated feathers launched himself  to the counter, grabbed onto the roast, and flew out the open window, leaving both Vernon and Petunia behind, staring gape-mouthed at the bird's escape.

Vernon helped Petunia down from the chair, her hair was misplaced, and she tucked it back into the severe bun she'd tied it to. Vernon picked up the broomstick and shoved it into the corner where he knew it belonged while Petunia collected herself. "Ruddy dirty birds," Vernon muttered thickly, "Filthy thing, probably left dung all on the cars too, I'll wager!"

Petunia didn't answer. Instead, she had lifted the envelope and was staring at the addressee.

Petunia Evans, The Kitchen Window, Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.

The return address was just as strange.

Lily Evans, The Bedroom at the End of the Hall, The Flat in East London, Southwark.

Vernon looked over her shoulder as she opened the envelope, touching it with only her forefinger and thumb as though it might be poisonous or might bite.

The cards fell out with a note and a sprig of bluebell - just as they had done for Severus in Spinner's End - and Petunia looked at the invitation with disgust. "I cannot believe she is marrying that delinquent, nasty boy! And in the woods, too!"

Vernon made a face.

Petunia looked at the note. It was rather long and the handwriting was messy and there were blotchy bits, as though something had splashed on the paper. (She didn't recognize the splashes as Lily's tears.)

"I suppose you'll be expecting me to take off work for that," Vernon said.

Petunia stared at the first words she spotted without reading the rest of the letter.

I am so sorry, Tuney for all the things that have happened.

She shook her head.

"No," she said firmly, "Because we aren't going. I don't care if she is my sister! She is a freak and I certainly don't want to see her marrying that horrible boy!"

"Very good," Vernon said, relieved, then he looked over at the counter. "Petunia dear, that bleedin' bird took the roast!"