"What was that?!" Bilius Weasley's voice was shrill with panic. "Bleeding hell, Black, you nearly got yourself arrested. What were you on about?!"

Sirius landed with a thump so hard it blew the wind right out of his lungs and his ribs nearly cracked from the impact. He scrambled to get up, looking up at Bilius, whose face was flushed and panicked.

"Are you mad?" Bilius added, leaning closer and lowering his voice, "The way you were on back there, it sounded almost as if -- as if you knew a -- as if --" Bil's face paled suddenly. He stared at Sirius.

Sirius felt sick. "Calm down, Weasley," he grumbled as he got up. He rubbed the back of his neck where Bilius had grabbed on so roughly. "You blighter, going to leave a mark that is..." he rubbed his chest.

"Sirius!" Bilius looked around them, as though expecting a crowd, even though they were in the middle of no where.

Well, not the middle of no where, really, they were in the front yard of the wonky-looking structure that was the Burrow, the Weasley family home, where Bilius lived with his brother, Arthur, and his whole family. Even from outside in the yard there was a lot of commotion easy to be heard coming from within, including the sound of two shrieking babies.

"You lot are probably going to have a bloody inquiry if she goes to the Ministry, which of course she will, you threatening her like that! Are you mad?" Bilius's voice was shaking, "I mean I know you were just talking theorhetically back there, but I'm your mate so I know you and Remus are safe, but her, she doesn't know that neither of you is a - a - one of them." Bilius lowered his voice.

The look Sirius gave Bil then was one of anger and stinging challenge.

"....right?" Bilius whispered. "You're - you're not... one?"

Sirius shook his head.

Bil stared at him. "And Remus... isn't....?"

Sirius didn't know what to say, what to do. It seemed no matter what he said would be a betrayal on some level. Laugh it off, say that Remus wasn't a werewolf, and hide it like it was something to hide? After all he'd just said? Or reveal the truth, stand his ground, and wipe that terrified fucking look on Bilius's face right off? Either way, Sirius felt like he was violating something and he didn't know what to do. So he just stared at Bilius Weasley, wordlessly, his  mouth sort of gaping like a fish out of water.

"Oh hell," Bilius muttered and he sat down on the grass, crossing his legs and covering his face with his hands.

Sirius stood there, panic gripping him. If Bilius put two and two together so quickly...

Bilius looked up at Sirius. "When?"

"What?"

"When did it happen?"

Sirius stared at him.

"Has he been - one - a long time?"

"Bil..."

"Must've been since after Hogwarts, yeah? This year? Was he one when you got married?"

Sirius stared at Bilius, he couldn't form words, couldn't wrap his mind around what was happening.

"Before? Before - was - was he one at school? Bloody hell, that's dangerous, though. What - what if --" Bilius was shaking, his voice trembling. "Was he one when - when I was at the school? As long as I've known you lot?" He stared at Sirius. "He's been one all this time and I never knew."

"Because there wasn't anything to know," stammered Sirius. "There wasn't any reason to know. He wasn't dangerous, he isn't dangerous, he's not --"

"Not registered. He's not registered." Bilius looked up at Sirius. "He's not, is he? That's illegal, that is."

"Bilius..."

"Ohhhh bloody hell. You could get in huge trouble for that. Both of you. You could go to jail, harboring they call that. And him - bloody hell."

"Yeah, well it won't happen if you keep your mouth shut," Sirius said. He was trying to sound strong and determined but he sounded timid and nervous instead and he hated the way he sounded. His hands shook too much to even grab onto his wand to draw it. He just stared at Bilius with pleading eyes. "Please."

Bilius criss-crossed his heart with his fingers, "Sirius, I swear, I'd never."

Sirius sat down on the grass beside Bilius and stared at him.

"That woman will though," Bilius said, shakily.

"Fuck."

"She'll tell Gomer what's happened, Gomer'll trace it back to you, and --"

"Fuck."

"Yeah."

"Fuck." Sirius doubled over so deeply that his face was nearly touching his boots and he stared down into the grass.

"I can tell Gomer you weren't there," Bil said quickly.

"What?"

"I'll tell Gomer you weren't there and the woman's mad. Or we'll - we'll intercept her message. Yeah, that's it. We'll tell her a false name for you and she can go on a wild goose hunt looking for some fake bloke."

Sirius's voice rose in a panic, desperate for a solution, "Or we'll just go back, right now, right now and just confund her! That's it. We'll go back and we'll confund her and make her forget the whole thing."

"What about her friends?" Bil asked.

"Confund them, too!"

"Madness," Bilius said.

"Better than having the Ministry go after Remus, isn't it?" Sirius choked the words out.

"Or we can tell Gideon and Fabian."

Sirius looked up.

"They can watch for the report. They can make it disappear on the Ministry end."

"They can?"

"I assume. They're top aurors and all."

"Yeah," Sirius murmured, "Yeah."

Bilius and Sirius sat there for a long time, silent, then Bilius looked at Sirius squarely. "So..." he paused and waited for Sirius's eyes to meet his. "Is it cool being married to a werewolf?"

Sirius replied, "Simply the best."

Lula was delightful, that was the only word Remus could think of to describe her. She was bubbly and friendly, she excitedly led him around the campus, showing him different classrooms and telling him stories about the teachers and various events they'd held there. She was a journalist major, she said, wanting to go into writing for a rock magazine and took photography on the side. Her boyfriend (Stewie, she called him) was an artist who took classes in the fine arts department but already had sold a lot of work on commission. "He does a lot of portraits and fabulous anti-realism, he calls it."

"Anti-realism?"

"Everything looks realistic but there's fantastic elements. Like the portrait you saw he did of me. The eyes being galaxies... he'll draw a perfectly normal scene of a garden, say, then he'll throw in an alien sitting on a park bench. Perfectly normal except it isn't. It's brilliant and I love it."

Remus laughed, "That sounds interesting."

"It really is. He explains it much better than I do. You'll have to meet him sometime. What're you taking this summer?"

Remus told her and she lit up. "Excellent. We're both in that class actually. He's trying to get me to try my hand at drawing so I'm taking a basic drawing elective and he's taking a basic photography elective with me in exchange."

"That's brilliant you take courses together," Remus felt jealous, thinking how much Sirius would hate it. "I wish my husband would do that, too."

Lula looked at him. "Oh, husband is he? Earlier he was your boyfriend."

Remus flushed. "We're going on a year and I still can't believe it, honestly."

Lula smiled, "That's how it should be, isn't it? Always feels brand new."

"It feels rather old actually," Remus said, and when Lula made a face of concern, he said quickly, "Oh not in a bad way, I mean old the way a jumper is old. You've worn it so much you can't imagine ever taking it off because it's practically a part of your skin now. That's what Sirius is like."

"Sirius! I love that - like the star? Yeah? Is it his real name?"

"It is," Remus smiled. "And he lives up to it."

Lula's eyes went all gooey. "Aw I love that."

They had made their way around the full campus and back to the front doors. "Are you hungry?" Lula asked, "The quad's open. Grab some lunch. You can see the disgusting excuse for food they'll be offering you everyday if you're dumb enough to stick around for it." She laughed. "I have some lunch tickets here so it's free." She bent and reached in her purse.

The light caught the row of piercings that were stuck through her eyebrow and Remus wondered if those hurt very much. Not that he'd ever get them, but he could picture Sirius wanting them if he saw them. He could almost imagine Sirius's face. "Remus, what would you do if I had some of those?" It would be just like all the times he asked about mohawks and dreadlocks and tattoos...

"Can't say no to free food," Remus said.

They walked through the school to a courtyard and a little cafeteria where they got some cold bacon sandwiches and a couple bags of crisps. Remus was confused by the muggle drinks and ended up getting what tasted like bubbly gilly-water. They sat at a table outside and Lula told Remus about a large mural that took up the whole far wall, how a bunch of people from the school had contributed tiles that were fitted together to make one big picture made up of a bunch of smaller ones.

When she was finished with her sandwich, she leaned forward, and played with a straw she'd stuck into her bottle of soda. She studied him a moment. "So what mediums do you create in?"

"Pencil, mostly. Sometimes by quill."

She laughed. "Quill? You mean a pen?"

"Oh. Yeah." Remus flushed and focused on his food, selecting a crisp from the little bag carefully. "Pen."

Lula nodded at his briefcase. "Do you have any of your work with you?"

"It's not very good."

"Let me see."

"Alright." He undid the clasps on his briefcase, careful to keep it turned so she didn't see all the magical paper clippings and articles he had stuffed in there, and he pulled his sketchbook out, and flipped through the pages a moment. Finally, he turned it 'round to show her the picture he'd done of Regulus Black.

"Is that your husband?" Lula asked, taking the sketchbook.

"His brother."

"Good genes?" Lula smiled. She studied the picture. "His eyes are sad."

"Yeah, they were." Remus looked down at the sandwich.

Lula looked at Remus. It was clear she caught the past-tense word, then she looked back down at the sketchbook without saying anything more. She flipped the page and found the sketches of Sirius's eyes and nose, his browline. She turned the book and tilted her head a bit. "There's so much depth in these."

"That's my husband."

"His eyes are sad too, but a different kind of sad." She turned the page and found a picture he'd done of Sirius asleep, sprawled across the page in the morning rays of light. Another page had the black dog asleep among pillows with the detail of his nose's texture carefully drawn in. She laughed and said, "I like your dog."

"I like him, too," Remus smiled. "He's a good dog. Very loyal."

"He looks fluffy." She grinned, "What's his name?"

"Snuffles."

Suddenly there was a shadow cast over the table and a guy with shaggy brown hair and a bit of facial hair smattering across his chin sat sideways on the bench beside Lula. He wasn't nearly as punk-rock as she was, he had sideburns and big glasses that filled half his face with the hornrims. His eyes were green. He wrapped himself around Lula's side and looked at Remus with curiosity. "Uhoh. You pick up another stray?" he teased her.

"This is Remus," Lula replied without looking up. She turned the book back to show the boy the first pages. "Look at those eyes."

"Those are great, damn," the boy said, leaning closer.

"Thanks," Remus said. "You must be Lula's boyfriend. Stewie?"

The boy laughed and handed the book back to Lula, who closed it and handed it back to Remus. "Honestly, Lula darling, you needn't be telling everyone that dreadful nickname."

"I think it's cute," Lula pouted.

The boy held out his hand to Remus, "Spencer Stewart. It's great to meet you."