War, uncertainty, death... We all find a way to drown out the pain.

It's the last day of the holidays for the children, and we're having a dinner, or party if you will, tonight. You're welcome to come! I'm inviting a few people, but I don't know how many can make it. And of course, Snuffles and Remus will be there, and most of us Weasleys. We would really love to see you as well! It starts at around six.

Love,

Molly

I glanced at the small piece of parchment. I had just come home from work, and I was feeling frosty after four straight days at Azkaban, even though it was warm and sunny all day. So, I decided to light a fire but the invitation laid neatly on the rug in front of the hearth, probably having been sent by Floo.

I smiled at the nickname Snuffles. That was Sirius, wasn't it?

Not having to make dinner did sound nice, I mused, automatically looking at my closed pantry door. There wasn't much there, I knew. I should have gone shopping, but work had left me apathetic and I had just transfigured some of the scraps I found in there every day this week. It wasn't healthy, so some of Molly's hearty home cooking might do me some good. Not to mention the company, I surprised myself by thinking.

Yes, I would go.

I glanced at the clock over the kitchen window. It was five past six already. We had to work overtime today. The Dementors were getting more and more disobedient, and we were just about ready to start putting up the extra protection around the prison, but it took time and careful planning. Nothing could be done on a whim at Azkaban.

Quickly, I changed my clothes and cast a freshening charm on my hair. The air out on the island was damp and windy and didn't do anyone any favours. My hair was always bushy and unruly when it was my time at the Azkaban station.

It was a quarter past when I was done and could Apparate near Grimmauld Place, and then to the front steps of the house. A gentle tap with my wand to the door, and I slipped into the dark house. My senses were immediately filled with the delicious smell of home cooking and the sounds of cheery company. I wound my way down the narrow staircase towards the basement kitchen.

"– else is coming, so I suppose we –"

"I'm here!" I announced and entered the narrow, but cavernous kitchen. All eyes turned to me, and I felt somewhat embarrassed.

"Oh dear! I'm so glad you made it!" Molly announced and pulled me into a hug.

"Sorry, I'm late," I excused as I was let out of the hug. "I only just got home."

"Trouble at Azkaban?" Alastor asked gruffly, both his normal and magical eye fixed on me.

"You could say that," I replied tiredly, but with finality, indicating I didn't want to talk about it right now. I turned to Molly instead. "It looks and smells delicious!" The table was laden with potatoes and pot pies and vegetables and sauces and bread.

The older woman beamed and blushed at the same time, waving her hands dismissively. "Go on, sit down! There's an empty seat next to Kingsley." She turned around and began setting the rest of the food on the table.

As I made my way to the empty seat by the end of the table, I saw a huge crimson banner in the middle of the room with carefully painted words in gold:

CONGRATULATIONS
RON AND HERMIONE
NEW PREFECTS

Ron and Hermione noticed me spotting the banner, and I beamed at them. Ron blushed and Hermione seemed pleased.

"What happened at Azkaban?" Kingsley quietly wanted to know. I looked up and saw a frown on his face but was saved from answering by Arthur.

"Well, I think a toast is in order!"

We all raised our goblets to Ron and Hermione, both now blushing with the attention. I clinked my goblet with Kingsley on the left, Bill on the right and Sirius and Remus across the table.

"I was never a prefect myself," Tonks said as everyone helped themselves to food.

As she told the story about the reasons why I found myself chuckling. The subject stayed on prefects, Remus explaining that he thought Albus had only made him a prefect so he could control his pranking friends. Then Tonks turned to me.

"Were you a prefect?" she asked. "I can't remember you were."

"You were in school together?" Ginny asked.

I nodded. "Didn't you start while I was in fifth?" I asked Tonks.

She narrowed her eyes in thought. "I think. Or sixth?"

"Either one," I concluded. "We didn't really hang out, she so young – everyone younger was a brat to me back then. But no, I wasn't one. Wouldn't have accepted if I was offered either."

"Why?" Hermione asked incredulously.

"Don't know. Just never seemed like something for me. A couple of my classmates were much better suited. Albus would have been out of his mind to choose me over them," I smiled crookedly, my school years suddenly seemed so very long ago.

The Weasley boys and Harry laughed at my statement, and the conversation continued with the adults sharing stories from their school days. For a while, I just sat listening. Sharing still didn't come easily to me, and I felt I had shared enough for one day, even though I had grown really fond of these people and trusted them. If there were anyone I was going to open up to though, it was these people. There were genuinely good people in the Order of the Phoenix. People that really wanted to do some good in the world, even if that world was against them. Some of them might be a bit shadier than others, but there was nothing deliberately bad in any of them.

The food was eventually cleared from the table and things got more casual. People started mingling and changing seats, catching each other up since last we had met.

I was about to get up to go ask Molly about a recipe I wanted to try when Kingsley put a hand on my arm to get my attention. "What happened at Azkaban?" he asked quietly.

I didn't answer right away. Not because I didn't want to, but because I wasn't sure how to explain it. "The Dementors aren't doing their job," I began but realised that wasn't right. Sirius, who had been about to stand up and move around the room as well, sat straight back down, giving me his full attention.

"As far as the Ministry understand, the Dementors are doing their job perfectly fine. But we've noticed lately, that it seems like they're – I didn't think it was possible – acting."

Both Kingsley and Sirius widened their eyes in surprise.

"I know," I said to their expressions. "For an outsider, they're doing everything they're supposed to. But I – we – know them. It's all pretend. We're still finalizing the new wards, but today we had to put something up before plan. The Dementors didn't make it easy."

"What could they possibly do to hinder you?" Kingsley asked. "You keep a Patronus Shield around your person at all times, don't you?"

"We do, but you'd be surprised at what Dementors are actually capable of." My mind fell into a dark place for a moment. Yes, I knew the Dementors. Too well, I would say.

"What did the Minister say about the change in the wards?" Sirius asked.

I snapped back to the room, looking around for a moment to remember where I was. It surprised me that they didn't ask again what the Dementors had done, though my spacing out was probably answer enough. "The Ministry has no say in what we do at and with Azkaban," I said fiercely. "Yes, we're affiliated with them, but we do what we want, for the safety of the population."

Kingsley raised an eyebrow. He was a high-ranking Auror, and loyal to the Ministry, even if he technically worked against them at the moment.

"It's true," I said to him. "If Cornelius was given full authority over what happens at Azkaban, there wouldn't be any prisoners left in there! He's too naive and –" I interrupted myself and closed my eyes with gritted teeth. There was no point in arguing this.

"I understand where you're coming from," Kingsley said, making me look at him again. "But Cornelius isn't the whole Ministry."

"Right now, he might as well be." It had been easy, recruiting me to the Order. I never doubted for one second that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had returned to power, the proof was right there in the Dementors' behaviour. And my feelings about the Minister and his Ministry... The way they were ignoring the warning signs and slandering Albus and Harry about it all was sickening.

I had grown up in the first war, being in my third year at Hogwarts when infant-Harry defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I had felt the war on my body, it had coloured my childhood, and in turn my adult life. It had taken people away from me, both directly and indirectly, by death and by turning to the other side. Ignoring this brewing war was the very definition of stupid and reckless, and it was incredibly selfish of the Minister, as far as I was concerned.

"I take it the Minister doesn't know anything about the new wards, then?" Sirius asked, reminding me of the question I had begun answering. His tone was humorous, but there was something hard in his eyes.

"He doesn't. And we're not going to tell him unless he asks."

"Don't you think he has the right to be told?" Kingsley asked cautiously.

"The Ministry has nothing to do with Azkaban other than keeping us funded and bringing us prisoners. We do what we do best, and that involves keeping the Ministry out of the daily run of it. Even if they take credit for everything." The last part, I said in barely a whisper, not meaning for anyone to hear.

After a few tense moments of silence, Sirius finally got up to do what he had planned to do earlier, and I left Kingsley at the table. I needed to calm down, and Molly had just brought out a large tray laden with Eccles Cakes.

Ginny and Tonks invited me over to them leaning against the kitchen counter, eating cake. They asked what I thought of the very public and embarrassing escapade one of the members of The Weird Sisters had recently been part of and I found myself laughing with them, listening to their gossiping about the band.

The evening wore on and soon Molly announced that she was turning in. Her leaving didn't end the party though. Mundungus and Harry left, but more Butterbeers were brought out and I sat down quietly with a bottle, gazing at the room and the groups people had arranged themselves in. I wasn't feeling particularly talkative, but something inside me didn't want to leave.

Suddenly, I noticed Alastor's magical eye swivel all too quickly to something above us. His normal eye gazed around the room, stopping at most for a fraction of a second, and then he leaned towards Remus to whisper something. Remus' faze froze and he stood and strode out of the kitchen. Sirius followed almost instantly, and Alastor too clunked after them. I wondered what that had been about.

Only a few short minutes later, did the three of them return, stony-faced and pale.

"It's late," Alastor said gruffly, pulling out his pocket watch. "Don't you lot have to be up early tomorrow." It was not a question.

Arthur seemed shocked at the time, as he too dug out a pocket watch. "Great Scott! Ginny, Ron, Fred, George – bed, now!" He put a hand on Ron's shoulder and steered him towards the door. "Hermione too!"

"Dad," Ron complained, but was still ushered out, his siblings and Hermione following.

"Good night," Alastor said as the children had gone. "See you all next Saturday?"

Everyone nodded or mumbled positive replies.

He and Kingsley left. Before anyone else even considered leaving, Sirius summoned a bottle of Firewhiskey. "Drink, anyone?" Without waiting for an answer, he cracked it open and took a large swig right from the bottle. I summoned glasses for everyone. Only me, Tonks, Bill, Sirius and Remus were left now.

"What happened upstairs?" Tonks asked what everyone wanted to know.

"Boggart," Remus replied. "Molly... Don't say anything to Arthur, but she had trouble with it. Saw..." He hesitated.

Sirius took another gulp of Firewhiskey before pouring into the glasses I put in front of him. "Her family. Dead," he explained brutally. "And Harry."

Everyone gasped. The good mood from the dinner party evaporated like water under a burning sun. Sirius emptied his glass in one swallow and filled it up again.

"Blimey," Tonks muttered. The tips of her hair turned grey.

I drank down half my glass of Firewhiskey, the burn in my throat taking away some of the sting from what Sirius had just said and the anxiety that had bubbled up inside me. I couldn't let myself have any fears. It took a special type of person to have the job I had. You had to have the right personality to handle the strain. But it still changed you, forced you to find ways to not be afraid, not to let your fears and worst memories control you. Not to acknowledge them. All my time growing up, it seemed like I had been preparing for a job as an Azkaban Security Official. All my experiences, everything... And now I was struggling to keep control of the things that could tear me down in the blink of an eye. This war was forcing me to visit mental places I didn't like.

"Where'd you go?" Remus' voice came from somewhere far away. I didn't answer him, and instead, my body got tense and hard, not letting myself crack right there in Grimmauld Place. "Are you alright?" he asked. This time I turned to look at him. He seemed genuinely concerned. I must have let too much show during my reminiscence. Or he could have smelled the changes in my body. He was a werewolf after all. Then I noticed that my hand was resting on the table, tightly gripping the small half-full glass, shaking with the strain. Unclenching my fist, I let the glass stand on its own and laid both my hands in my lap, wiggling my fingers a bit.

"I'm fine," I lied. I was far from fine. Yeah, I had learned to repress my fears to the point where I didn't know what I was afraid of anymore. But sometimes, a hand would wrap itself around my heart and try to squeeze all the life out of it. Giving me such a heartache I never knew how I would survive from one second to the next. That is what almost happened now. Word of Molly's Boggart had done that. It had made something rear its ugly head. Something I couldn't push down as easily as all the other times. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that I could kiss my job goodbye if I didn't manage to control it.

I heard Remus sniff and smell. He tried to be subtle, but I could hear him. It wasn't the exact same sound, but it was the same low decibel that the robes of the Dementors made when they roamed around Azkaban. I was tuned into that.

"You're not fine," Remus said.

I looked defiantly at him. If I said I was fine, he should accept that, no matter how much he could smell me lying.

"I'm knackered," Tonks announced suddenly, yawning so wide that a hippogriff could have flown into her mouth. Remus and I both turned to look at the pink haired witch. She looked at us with an expression I didn't understand before she stood and put on her travelling cloak. "Got to be on my best for the guard tomorrow," she announced. "You should go to bed too, Remus. Don't want you falling asleep on the way to King's Cross."

"Don't worry, Nymphadora. I'll be alert and ready tomorrow," Remus said and smiled a bit as Tonks' hair turned flaming red at his use of her hated first name.

"Good night!" she announced and poked an unconscious Sirius in the shoulder. When he made no reaction other than a snore, she headed for the door.

"I'll walk out with you," Bill said hurriedly. "Showing Fleur around the bank tomorrow," he added with a wink to Remus.

I should probably have left too, but when Remus turned his hard gaze on me again, I found myself stuck to the chair as if I had been jinxed to stay put.

"You've been very quiet since we opened the Firewhiskey," he observed.

"Aren't I usually quiet?"

"Yes, but not this quiet. Was there something about the Boggart?"

Had he been smelling me all night?! I considered him. Trying to decide if it was worth telling him. If saying it out loud to someone would help me control it, or if it would make me break down completely. My brain was screaming at me all the irrational reasons why I shouldn't do it. "I'm afraid," I began, taking a chance and ignoring the voice in my head. "Afraid of what my Boggart would be. And that's not good."

"You don't know?"

"I haven't met a Boggart since my O.W.L.s. I can't remember what it turned into. I can't be afraid and work at Azkaban. But I am afraid. Terrified." I stopped. Listened to the snores of Sirius. Just talking about it, the hand tightened around my heart.

"Of what?" Remus had shifted his chair so that most of him was facing me, his elbow on the table and his head resting in his hand.

"I don't know. The general stuff I guess – my family, my friends. But I honestly don't really know. But there's... something there."

"How can you not know?"

"I can't be afraid and work at Azkaban," I repeated. "I would go insane or lose my job."

Remus looked at me with something warm in his eyes. I couldn't look at him, for it felt like whatever his eyes held, would tear down my walls, and everything I had suppressed for the last eight years would explode all over.

"How do you do that?" he asked.

"Do what?"

"Control yourself like that. Deny yourself fear. I –" He hesitated. "I never thought I could smell control, and I don't know exactly what it smells like, but I'm sure it smells like you."

"How can you know that it's control if you don't know what it smells like?"

He seemed somewhat taken aback that I didn't make a bigger deal of his excellent sense of smell. But he didn't answer. Instead, he stared at me. I stared back. The warmth was gone from his eyes, thank Merlin. There was a determined curiosity there instead.

"I don't know how I keep control," I finally admitted. "I just do."

"Don't you ever need to let it out? Or channel it into something else? Or..." He didn't have a third option.

"Do you have any fears?" I asked to get the focus away from me, I didn't want to answer that.

He nodded glumly. "Lots." He seemed to want to say more but hesitated.

I spoke for him. "You're afraid you're going to hurt someone during the full moon. Turn someone or kill someone."

"Yes," he breathed. "And I'm afraid for Sirius." He glanced at his friend, drunk and snoring on the table. "For Harry. Dad. For everyone. I can't –" He broke himself off, and I could see his eyes water a bit. "Mum died during the first war."

He didn't have to say anything else. I understood what he meant. Remus had lost his mother, James, Lily, Pettigrew, Sirius and Harry during the first war. Sirius and Harry came back. He couldn't handle losing them again or losing anyone else close to him.

I thought about my own parents. They were both alive and well, but my career choice had driven us apart. I still loved them, I truly did, and would be devastated if anything happened to them.

And then suddenly, the hand around my heart clenched painfully. My entire body tightened and I gritted my teeth. My eyes stung and I felt that I couldn't breathe. I was there. I had reached the point where it hurt so bad I didn't know how to live for one more second. Never before had it gone this far, never before had the fear taken this much of my control away. And it had certainly never before happened in the presence of other people. I had never let it show.

A warm hand was laid on my knee. I jumped. Remus' face, suddenly so close I could count the shades of brown in his eyes, stared questioningly at me.

"I think I should go. It's late," I muttered through gritted teeth and stood up, his hand falling off my knee.

He stood up too, still staring me down. Before I could move, he had pulled me into a hug, wrapping his arms tightly around me in comfort. I stood stiff, not immediately knowing how to respond to this kind of nearness or kindness or show of affection and comfort. I felt my walls crack a bit, but I bit into my cheeks and stayed in control. I still found that my arms snaked around Remus, hugging him back. I let my head rest against his chest – I thought I was tall!

It was truly comforting to stand there ­– unnatural warmth radiated from him and calmed me down. Slowly, I felt something else seep into me and stir something that had been dormant for Merlin knows how long.

As politely as I could, I pulled away and turned to leave the kitchen ­– before he could smell it on me.

But he followed. "I'll walk you out. I got to get up to bed anyway. Sirius can sleep on the table tonight. He deserves it for getting himself drunk like that."

I chuckled at the dryness in his voice.

As we walked up the stairs to the ground floor, I was very aware of him being right behind me and very close. Remus had always been attractive in my eyes, not the most attractive wizard I had seen, but he could hold his own. The idea of falling for him had never been an option. Sleeping with him hadn't crossed my mind either. But now, I wanted nothing more than to turn around, shove him against the nearest wall and shag his brains out. Shove my tongue down his throat and taste him. Rub my skin raw against his scruff. Have him scream my name. Ride him until he couldn't walk straight for a week.

I felt myself going wet at the thoughts and images running through my head. The intensity and suddenness of it all, nearly Stupefied me. It was like walking in syrup, but I forced myself forwards. A man shows me some friendly attraction and suddenly I want to make babies with him? It was mental. It had to be the Firewhiskey – hadn't had that in ages either. It was lowering my inhibitions and I would never have it again.

We were halfway across the hall to the door, when he touched my shoulder. Being so high strung, so close to losing control of everything, had me stumbling on my next step at that simple touch.

He spun me around. Lust and desire were burning in his eyes, his mouth half open and his nose flaring. He had smelled my arousal. And he must have smelled its explosion at his touch as well. Without thinking, we both jumped at each other, his mouth crashing down hard on mine. Our teeth clashed, but he kissed me like there was no tomorrow. He stole the breath from my body and demanded I give him life. I shoved my tongue back at him.

I had no idea where this sudden desire had come from. No idea why it seemed like a good idea to shag him in the middle of the hall, with children in the house. All I knew, was that him inside me was the only thing that mattered. The world could crash around us, for all I cared.

Remus pressed himself into me and I felt that he was already hard and ready. I rubbed against him, anticipating the feeling of him inside me and I groaned unhappily about the fact that he wasn't. There had to be at least a ton of clothes between us. Reading my mind, he began fumbling at the buttons on my blouse, while my hands were grabbing fistfuls of his hair.

He didn't quite manage to get my blouse open. Instead, with an impatient growl that vibrated in my mouth, he grabbed my legs, lifted me easily up and crashed us into the door.

"Hold on," he said hoarsely. One arm gripped me tighter, his head cocked to the side and he seemed to be listening for something, eyes out of focus. Then, the hand not holding me reached down to unzip his trousers, letting his hardness out. I could feel it jutting against my jeans, and I wondered how he was going to pull this off without setting me down. But before I knew it, my jeans and panties were banished. I didn't even have time to react to this rude behaviour before he quickly and unceremoniously dropped me all the way down onto him.

I let out a whimper of surprise. It had been so long since I had sex, Connell and I hadn't crossed that line when I last saw him. It made Remus feel so big, and me so full, bordering on painful. But the slickness of me made it easy and pleasurable.

I hadn't realised I had closed my eyes, but when Remus started pulling out, I opened them and looked at him. He was staring at me, there was something painful hiding behind the lust in his eyes. When just the tip of him was inside me still, I forced myself down and his face tensed with pleasure instead. Hard and fast, he began pounding into me. Hard and fast, I moved with him. My eyes fluttered closed again, my mouth open. I could feel and taste his breath on me, my own coming fast and shallow towards him.

Suddenly and all too quickly, pleasure took me over. I was about to scream, but Remus clamped his mouth over mine and it drowned in him. I came hard, tightening my legs around him, squeezing his shoulders with my hands, leaving bruises. The contractions made him feel so much bigger, and I swear another orgasm came on top of the first one.

Seconds later, Remus bottomed out and came with a groan that vibrated in my cheeks. He took a few shallow strokes and stilled, letting it all spill out of him.

Slowly, we came down from our highs. I was leaning my head back against the door, and he was leaning his head on my shoulder, our breaths normalising.

"Oh Merlin," he muttered.

"Yeah," I whispered weakly.

Remus had effectively shagged my brains out. I had used and pulled muscles that hadn't been used in ages, and I would have real trouble walking for a few days. Not what I had in mind at all.

Inside me, Remus went limp. He looked up, his face flushed, a thin film of sweat glistened on his forehead, a small smile played on his lips. Then he raised me up, slipped out and sat me down on unsteady feet.

I wanted to say something, but my mind was a complete blank. I didn't know him all that well, and we had just shagged against the front door of his best friend's family home – housing a few Order members, their impressionable children and the Boy Who Lived. It was so wrong but had been so good.

"I should probably go," I said. My voice was hoarse from our tryst, even though I had barely made a sound. "You're on guard duty tomorrow."

He nodded.

"Where are my jeans?" I asked a bit annoyed, looking around the hall. I still felt it was rude of him to banish them like he had.

Remus packed himself into his trousers and pulled the zipper back up, before flicking his hand. My jeans appeared in his hands.

"Thanks," I muttered and began pulling them on. "I'm off then."

"Okay," he said, a slight smirk on his face. I wondered if he was as confused as me with what to say in this situation.

A loud grunt from the kitchen spared us of any awkward goodbyes. The sound really brought to the surface where in the house we were. Quickly, I turned around and opened the door.

"Good night," Remus said hastily as he closed the door behind me.

Next morning, as 12 Grimmauld Place woke, Remus met Sirius in the hall on his way down to breakfast. Sirius halted in his steps.

"It smells like sex in here," he pointed out, sniffing the air.

Remus frowned. "No, it doesn't," he lied. Though perhaps not really lying – it not only smelled, it reeked of sex. He fought not to inhale the delicious aroma.

"It does. I can smell it. I have a dog's nose you know, Moony." Sirius pointed his finger to his nose cleverly.

"And I'm a werewolf. I have a better sense of smell than you, Padfoot. And I assure you, there are no unexplainable smells in here," Remus said smartly and headed for the stairs, smirking with his back to his friend.