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None of the children actually saw Completely Headless Nick before the professors managed to cast a charm that swept him up to the infirmary. Once there, Madam Pomfrey spent a few perplexed minutes wondering what to do with him before hanging a sheet over him and depositing him safely in a corner. They heard about it through the ghosts; even the placid Fat Friar, the Hufflepuff ghost, went about with a hunted look on his face and tended to poke his head through walls before going around corners, just to make sure nothing nasty was lurking on the other side.

"It can't have been Dobby," Draco said, catching up to Harry as they walked down the corridor towards the Great Hall for lunch. "He was chained up all evening and the Aurors took him away for questioning."

"What's going to happen to him?" Harry asked.

"Dunno," Draco said glumly. "Mum might give him the sock."

"You mean the sack?"

"No -- that's how you fire a house-elf. You give them clothing and then they're freed from service," Draco explained. "That's why all the house-elves wear tea-towels and pillowcases and things."

"What does a freed house-elf do, do you think?"

Draco shrugged as they entered the Great Hall. "Anyway, Dobby didn't do it. Besides, house-elves don't have that kind of power."

"I wonder who did."

"Don't know. I'll ask the Fat Friar if he's heard anything," Draco said, heading for the Hufflepuff table. Harry picked his way along the Slytherin table, heading for the Quidditch team, who were clustered at one end and waving for him to join them.

"Sit," Marcus Flint instructed, and Harry rolled his eyes before dropping onto the bench next to Towler. "We're playing Ravenclaw in two weeks. The good news is, they're just as out of practice as we are."

"The bad news is, they've seen all our moves," Harry said. Marcus nodded.

"Well, we need new moves then," Towler said. "Where'd you get the other ones from, Flint?"

"Professor Snape passed 'em on. He's got mates in professional Quidditch, I guess," Marcus said. Harry glowed with the quiet pride of the virtuously anonymous. "So that won't help. If he had new plays, he'd have given them to me."

Harry almost drew breath to suggest something, then thought better of it. Discretion was what Professor Snape had taught him by giving Flint the plays without his name attached; he would show Snape that he knew how to be discreet as well. Harry had kept a good number of secrets in his life, more than his fair share if truth be told, and while admittedly knowing when to open your mouth was different from knowing when you shouldn't....

Well, this was good practice. So he stayed silent while the others mulled over their options, hoping one of them would come up with the same solution he had. When none of them did, he sighed and finished his lunch before heading off to class again.

In class that afternoon he found it difficult to pay attention. The idea he'd had at lunch niggled at the back of his mind and he tried to look as though he were industriously taking notes while he was, in fact, devising new plays. He had two near-misses when he forgot himself and became so absorbed that he ignored the teacher coming closer, but at the end of the day he'd avoided detention and he had several strategies for coping with the Ravenclaws. Really it was a matter of knowing that they would expect the new plays, and working with their predictable reactions.

Now the problem was how to give the plays to Flint without him realising it. And Harry had one or two ideas about that, too.

They had practice only a scant few days later; because of Nick's "accident", all students were under constant supervision and Quidditch was no exception. Professor Snape met them at the stands as the Gryffindors were departing under the watchful eye of Minerva McGonagall.

Harry had been watching Flint the last few days when he felt he could do so safely, trying to figure out how his mind worked. This was made difficult by the fact that Marcus Flint was not a terribly bright boy and didn't actually seem to use his mind very much. Harry wasn't sure he'd even have to be very subtle, but of course it was a fine balance between being so subtle he went unnoticed and being so blatant the rest of the team caught on.

Three of the moves he'd given Snape were Seekers' moves, which helped; he didn't have to teach the new adaptations to Flint. He could just do them, and pretend they were accidents. It was the two offensive formations that he was going to have to demonstrate with subtlety.

It wasn't until he was actually aloft, the wind ruffling his hair and the familiar thrill of gameplay washing over him, that he discovered the easiest way of demonstrating -- flying it himself. He'd been ridiculous not to think of it before. It just went to show that you had to think differently about Quidditch to be any good at it.

He watched Flint and Pucey run the Slytherin Feint, and in the middle of it he zipped over Pucey's broomstick, barely inches away, chasing after a Snitch that wasn't there. Pucey, shocked, fell backwards instead of reversing intentionally, and the others nearly had to catch him before he tumbled off his broomstick.

"Sorry!" Harry called, drifting back. "I didn't think you'd get up that high before you dropped."

"Bloody hell, Pipsqueak!" Pucey shouted. "You nearly did for me that time!"

"I said I was sorry!" Harry insisted. "I thought I could get more clearance. I knew you were going to drop..."

"And what if I hadn't?" Pucey demanded. This was going even better than Harry could have dreamed. "What if I'd just have kept going?"

There was a brief silence, followed by a noise of surprise from Marcus Flint.

"That's it," he exclaimed.

"What's what?" Pucey demanded.

"That's how we're going to cream the Ravenclaws," Flint said excitedly. "They're going to expect these moves."

"Well, yeah..." Harry said, encouragingly.

"But what happens when you feint, everyone drops expectantly, and you keep going up?" Marcus asked.

The Chasers all looked at one another, thoughtfully.

Harry grinned.

***

Scheduling sittings for the portrait shouldn't have been so difficult.

Sirius was unemployed, after all. Remus only worked when it pleased him. Helena was a painter who worked at all hours and had nearly total control over her own schedule. It should have been easy to find a time at which all three could come together for a two-hour sitting.

Still, they discovered that they were surprisingly busy people. Sirius was invited to all sorts of events as a representative of one of the old Wizarding families, and he liked to go to readings and book-signings at Flourish & Blotts. Remus had bad days around the full moon, and of course during the holidays Helena had been snowed under with people who wanted portraits done as gifts. Their first sitting since December had to be rescheduled three times: once because of a meeting with Llewellyn Payne about Sirius' amended will, once because Harry had a Quidditch match (they creamed Ravenclaw handily -- apparently they had more mastery of tactics and basic psychology) and once because Remus had to take an emergency shift at Madam Schaeffer's when the entire staff caught a magical strain of the flu from one of their younger patrons.

"The entire staff?" Helena asked when they finally met again, after she'd arranged them in their pose. The bare little stall she painted in had been decorated with a bookshelf, a fake window, some curtains, and a large shaggy rug. The wooden posing stool had been exchanged for a comfortable wing-chair in which Remus sat, a prop book open on his knee. Sirius, one arm over Remus' crossed legs, glanced up at Remus and grinned before returning to his prescribed pose.

"Sticky little children," Remus replied, with a sigh. "The child couldn't have been more than two, and he sneezed in everyone's faces as they were passing him around admiring him. Fortunately," he added, a trifle smugly, "werewolves are generally immune."

"Do you know, I think I've learned more about werewolves from two sittings with you than the entire unit we did on them at school," Helena observed. "More accurate information, certainly."

"It's nice to talk about it with someone," Remus replied. "I don't often get the chance, except with Sirius, and he knows just about everything there is to know."

"Oh yes?"

"When I found out, I did a lot of reading on the subject," Sirius said.

"It must have put a strain on your relationship."

Remus chuckled. "It would have, except he found out -- what, fifteen years before?"

"Well, we were thirteen -- so, fifteen or sixteen years before anything happened between us," Sirius said with a nod.

"Thirteen?" Helena raised her eyebrows. "How old were you when it happened?"

"Eight," Remus said softly. Sirius glanced up at him.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to intrude -- it's just we've been trained to ask personal questions," Helena said, looking only mildly apologetic. She had, after all, warned them. "You must have been at school, then? When Mr. Black found out, I mean."

"Yes," Remus replied. "Sirius, and two of my other friends."

"One friend," Sirius replied. "One filthy traitor."

"He was our friend then," Remus said gently.

"Yes, I've retroactively disqualified him."

Remus smiled indulgently.

"How did you find out?" Helena asked Sirius.

"Well, the monthly excuses for his absences were wearing a little thin," Sirius said. "Finally we started keeping round-the-clock watch on him."

"Sirius harboured youthful dreams of being a spy," Remus sighed.

"We saw him leave the school and followed." Sirius shrugged, fingers tightening possessively on Remus' leg for a moment. "Nearly lost James, that time."

"James Potter? Your godson's father?"

"Yes, of course. He was almost James Potter, my friend's midnight snack."

Remus was silent; Sirius bent his head and brushed his cheek against the other man's leg, affectionately. Helena, sensing they were on dangerous terrain even for someone trained to ask impertinent questions, changed the subject.

"Then you haven't been together that long, have you?" she asked. "You've been friends a long time, but -- "

"No," Remus said, relief evident in his voice. "Just four years together. He kissed me while we were doing the washing-up."

Helena grinned, brush still moving over the canvas. "Romantic."

"I was going for the element of surprise," Sirius sulked.

"I did wonder, after that article in the Prophet came out," she said.

"Which one?" Sirius asked resignedly.

"The Skeeter piece, back last summer -- the one about Mr. Lupin."

Sirius' brow furrowed. Helena tutted, and he resumed his pose. "I don't think I saw that."

"Oh, it was stupid -- it speculated that Mr. Lupin was somehow blackmailing you."

"Ha! Blackmail!" Sirius said, before realising what was being inferred. "Oh -- people don't think that, do they?"

"I doubt it," Remus said. "I rarely draw enough attention for people to think anything. Besides, the article was pure speculation because they couldn't dig up anything real on me."

"You knew about it?" Sirius asked. Remus worried his lip with his teeth. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"We had other things to worry about."

"When did you find out?"

"It came in the clippings Severus sent us. I didn't think you'd care, Pads," Remus said. "It wasn't anything, really. Just a stupid little piece on a back page somewhere."

When Sirius looked up at him angrily, Remus glanced at Helena, a not-terribly-subtle signal that they could postpone this fight for when they were in private. She cleared her throat, anxiously.

"I was hoping you'd tell me a little bit about your godson, Mr. Black," she said. "You seem very fond of him."

Sirius, with a last glare at Remus, turned his attention to Helena, giving her a brief history of Harry's life with them, and Remus relaxed by degrees.

They walked home in a somewhat stony silence, however, and by the time they'd reached their flat again Remus was strung tightly, waiting for the explosion he was sure would come. Sirius remained quiet, hanging his coat with particular care and deliberately folding the jumper he'd been wearing, setting it on the arm of the sofa when he was done. Remus almost burst into hysterical laughter at this; Sirius always threw his clothing on the sofa, even if he folded it first.

"You might as well shout, then," he said finally, heart thudding fast at his own audacity. He knew Sirius wouldn't hurt him, but he hated rows and they hadn't had a really serious, important one in years.

"What would be the use? You'd just sit there until I was finished and then change the subject," Sirius said tightly.

"That's not fair, Sirius."

"Not fair? That's rich."

"It's just a newspaper article -- "

"It's more than that, and you know it," Sirius replied. "I realise I'm not the easiest person to live with, you know, but I don't want to be handled!"

"I'm not handling you, Pads!" Remus protested. "I honestly didn't think you'd care."

"Then why didn't you let me see it?"

"I was angry. I burned it before I thought about it."

"You think about everything," Sirius retorted. It was true, and Remus watched him silently. "You are handling me and you know I care what they say about you. If you don't you're a fool."

"It's not your business. It's mine," Remus said. "My life and my reputation."

"It's your stupid damned pride is what it is!" Sirius insisted. "Your life is a part of my life. This is our life together, that's why they call it a life together, you shouldn't be hiding things from me!"

Remus had hidden things from Sirius before they stole Harry, and they both knew it; some things more important than others, but never maliciously. Since the first time they'd kissed he'd hidden nothing, as difficult as it was for the naturally private man to believe that Sirius wanted to know, wanted to hear. The implication angered him, irrationally.

"All right, would you like to know the truth?" he asked, aware that such a phrase was usually the opening of a truly ugly row. "Would you? I hate it when you get angry at the Prophet for running those stupid articles. I hate hearing you rant about them and I don't want you defending me," he said, keeping himself from shouting only through long practice. "I know you've never begrudged a moment you've spent taking care of me and I won't deny that sometimes I've needed help, but I don't want to be taken care of in times and places where I don't need to be. I'm not Harry, I'm old enough to fight my own battles or to choose not to fight them if they're not worth fighting. And some stupid editorial in the Prophet isn't worth it. It isn't, Sirius. But you get so upset over every stupid thing. And it's fine when it's you or Harry, but not me. Because it's exhausting and it frightens me."

Sirius was staring at him in shock. Remus bowed his head and waited. Whatever was said next, he wouldn't speak until Sirius did.

"Frightens you?" Sirius said finally. "Why? You know I don't mean anything I say -- you know I'd never -- it frightens you?"

"Yes," Remus confessed. "Because I'm afraid one day you're going to realise I'm not worth it."

He hadn't raised his head; he wasn't sure he wanted to see what Sirius was thinking, and Sirius always wore his emotions on his face, nakedly.

"You stupid, stupid git," Sirius said softly, and then he did look up. "Remus, the reason I shout is that you're worth shouting over. Don't you see? You're so frightened you're going to lose me that I start to wonder if you're going to leave first so that it doesn't happen, and I don't know how to tie you down. The portrait is permanent, that's why I'm doing it. This is the only -- I'm not good at this, you know, the only things I know about love are shouting when someone I love is hurt and taking care of them and giving them things. Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?"

He looked so confused and unhappy that Remus covered his face with one hand, ashamed.

"I said you can have everything you want if you ask for it," Sirius continued. "But you have to ask, so that I know. What do you want? Anything. Anything you ask for. It's yours."

"Just you," Remus replied, brokenly. "You and Harry, that's all I ever wanted. I don't care about things or the Prophet or any of it. Just you and Harry."

"Well I can't give you that, dolt, you already have that," Sirius said, so gravely that Remus laughed. Sirius took a hesitant step forward and Remus pulled him close, burying his face in Sirius' short black hair.

"I would never have left you," he said. "I wouldn't have the courage."

"You don't need to," Sirius insisted.

"All right then."

"All right."

They were quiet for a few minutes, Sirius breathing slowly to calm Remus' frightened, quick breaths. Finally Remus stepped back, rubbing his forehead.

"That's a hell of a way to end a row," he said. "I thought there were supposed to be doors slamming and flung crockery and the rest."

"I could slam some doors if you want," Sirius said uncertainly.

"No -- no," Remus said, laughing a little. "That's all right. Let's...let's go out and have dinner somewhere. Somewhere very expensive and posh. We can pretend I'm blackmailing you into it."

Remus kissed him, gently but firmly, and Sirius smiled into it. He'd always been the more open one, almost embarrassingly so, but something in their fight had snapped the last barrier he always sensed in Remus, the one that wasn't natural reserve but fear of some kind.

They went to Sosi Alley for dinner, to the exclusive but glass-fronted Pisces Bistro, which Ted Tonks said always reminded him of eating in a fish-tank. And Sirius did not shout about the society reporter who took their picture, even the next morning when the piece on Sirius Black dining at Pisces included mention of his dinner companion Remus Looping.

***

The week after Nick's petrification was especially difficult for Professor Tonks, all things considered. Her students normally paid the lazy attention of children who, because the weather is terrible, have nothing better to do; when word got around school that there was something wandering the halls which could freeze a ghost, they either focused so tightly on her lectures that she found it unnerving, or they distracted her with questions about ghosts, freezing spells, petrification, and charms against the Dark Arts. It was no good her explaining to them that an amulet was worthless if you weren't paying attention to your surroundings.

"I don't know what to do," she complained to McGonagall one afternoon in the Professors' common room. Flitwick looked sympathetic over his digestive biscuit. Sinistra, who was marking sixth-year star charts near the windows where Madam Hooch sat, nodded and frowned.

"It makes them nervous. I've never seen students so reluctant to leave a lesson, but none of them want to be wandering the halls at midnight," Sinistra said. "I have to escort the younger children myself. To be sure, it sometimes makes my skin crawl. Whatever do you suppose could have done it?"

"He's free of hexes and curses, and there aren't many that work on a ghost at any rate," Tonks replied. "Madam Pomfrey's still working on unfreezing him. It must have been something that went through him. Which....which might mean whatever happened was aimed at someone else."

"And you're certain it's not the house-elf?" McGonagall inquired.

"Couldn't have been. He was in custody at the time. Not that I don't think he's capable of it, and certainly now he'd have reason to want revenge -- especially on Harry."

"Oh?" McGonagall raised her eyebrows.

"He's been fired," Tonks said, sadly. "The Aurors couldn't really hold him on anything more than mischief making, and Narcissa Malfoy went down to the Ministry when they released him. She gave him two socks on the spot. And it's Harry's fault, you know, he's the one who caught him and took him to Dumbledore's office."

"Where is the little blighter now?" Madam Hooch inquired, from the window-seat where she was birdwatching with a pair of omnioculars.

"Gone off somewhere to look for work, I suppose. Aunt Narcissa left immediately, of course, and the poor little thing burst into tears on the front steps of the Ministry. My friend Anne -- she's been in on the case since Dobby was caught -- tried to calm him down, but he ran off."

"No more than what he deserves," drawled Snape from his armchair near the fire, where he was reading a literary-looking wizarding novel. "He faked the death of a cat and painted graffiti in blood on the walls, wasting our time and resources."

"He's clearly unbalanced," Tonks said uncertainly. "I think he deserves pity more than anything. He obviously thought there was a very good reason to do what he did, even if he won't say what it is."

"On one point, we agree -- he oughtn't to be running about loose," Snape said. "Unemployed house-elves are a menace and nothing good can come of it. Narcissa Malfoy may be a bigger menace and entirely unfit to command house-elves, but -- "

"She is my aunt, you know," Tonks said, feeling that if anyone was going to call her aunt horrible names, she ought to have first chance. Snape raised his eyebrows.

"Yes, your mother would appear to have got the lion's share of sanity in her generation," he replied. "But of course, your family is a topic upon which I have been forbidden to speak."

McGonagall, sensing the tension in the room -- not that it didn't rather bludgeon one over the head -- cleared her throat.

"The question is, I suppose, what we're to do about your students," she said to Tonks.

"It's not really a problem except that I don't know how to remind them that if they're not paying attention to their surroundings and prepared to cope with whatever comes their way, all the protective charms in the world won't do them an ounce of good. They want practical lessons, but it's hard to decide what I ought to do. It's not as though I can leap out at them in the halls and hex their noses off while they're busy adjusting their lucky amulets."

"Not much chance of an expedition into the Forbidden Forest at this time of year, either," Sinistra said, laying down her quill. "The centaurs have been hostile lately, and you know they hate anyone mucking about down there until the first spring thaw. They hardly even come down to the border to talk to me anymore, and I thought Ronan was rather fond of me," she added sadly. "He did say once that I wasn't entirely incompetent as an astronomer, which is very high praise from a centaur."

"What about some sort of extracurricular activity?" Hooch asked. "You could take them out to the old Shrieking Shack and give them a good scare."

"It's so unpredictable, though," Tonks sighed. "It never seems to perform on command."

"If I may," Snape said, surprising everyone, "perhaps some sort of...competitive activity would be more to your students' liking."

"What, like Quidditch with hexes?" Sinistra inquired.

"I don't think we could be having with that," McGonagall answered, somewhat severely.

"I'm afraid I couldn't approve hexes and broomsticks. It only ends in nasty splatters," Hooch added.

"I suggest something slightly more direct," Snape continued, marking his place and closing the book he'd been holding. "An activity which teaches alertness and defence at once -- perhaps along the lines of dueling lessons."

"By Jove, a dueling club!" Flitwick said, excitedly. "We had one of those when I was at school -- oh, the happy hours spent making people grow garlic out their noses and dance jigs while they tried to cast a gibberish hex....splendid times, wonderful times." He sighed, nostalgically.

"Yes -- I remember some of the senior students had something of the sort, when I was a first-year," McGonagall said thoughtfully. "If I recall, it was put to an end two years later when one of the young women involved became a little overzealous and hexed her partner's wand into oblivion."

"That doesn't sound too terrible," Tonks said.

"It wasn't the wand you're thinking of," McGonagall replied. Tonks looked horrified. Madam Hooch and Professor Sinistra both chuckled. Snape looked extremely uncomfortable. "Fortunately it was not irreparable, but it caused him some definite discomfort for several months, of both the physical and social variety. He was not a very nice boy, so I can't say that I blame his tormentors over-much."

"It's not a bad idea though, as long as we make sure there's no...no hitting below the belt," Tonks said, with a snigger. Madam Hooch abandoned all pretence of birdwatching and burst out laughing, coming to sit next to McGonagall on the sofa, near the small round table with the tea-service on it. McGonagall poured her a cup as Tonks continued. "If it were properly supervised and we made certain that the older students were aware of punishments for using any of the really dangerous hexes and jinxes, it ought to be all right, don't you think?"

"With two professors supervising it? I don't see why not," McGonagall said with a smile. "And I'm certain Professor Snape can put the fear of several of the more ancient and bloodthirsty gods into them."

"I beg your pardon?" Snape said, craning his neck around the wing of the armchair.

"Well, naturally you and Professor Tonks, having formulated the idea, would want to work together on it," McGonagall said innocently.

"Nonsense, I haven't -- "

"Surely the children could benefit from your experiences in Defence?" McGonagall asked. Snape's mouth closed abruptly. "Of course, Professor Tonks may prefer to ask Headmaster Dumbledore -- "

"There is no need to bother the Headmaster," Snape said quickly.

"Grand," McGonagall declared. "Then you'll supervise Professor Tonks?"

Dora didn't care for the idea of being supervised by Professor Snape, considering she'd had seven years of that already, but certainly he was well-informed about the Dark Arts and she'd heard Andromeda say once that he was not inexperienced as a duelist. Aside from that...well, if he seemed to be sizing her up as an opponent, she was already wondering what it would take to beat him. After all, she was a fully qualified Auror now, not a terrified sixteen-year-old.

"I will," Snape replied impassively, "if she wishes to teach an extracurricular course in dueling."

McGonagall, had she been a cat at the moment, would have groomed her whiskers as if she'd just eaten a very large canary, Tonks was certain of it.

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