In the tour ticketing booth outside of a small castle that was set up on a hill in on the edge of the town of Blackburn, there sat a young man of approximately sixteen, named Timmy Goodall. He was leaning back in his seat, feet up on the desktop, eating an apple in the mid-morning lull. Several school groups had checked in and his fellow tour guides had been sent off on their duties but he himself had not been assigned any groups for the day - he got to stay in the booth and accept the coins of the non-school visitors for the day. All he had to do was smile, nod, push a ticket through the window to them, and tell them to enjoy their time at the tower.

His teeth flashed in the mid-morning sun as he chomped on his apple noisily, flecks of the flesh of it shining on his chin.

Suddenly a shadow passed over him, blotting out the sunlight, and he dropped his feet from the table to turn about and found himself staring into the bearded face of a broad-shouldered young man with a thick beard and piercing eyes that glowered down at him. He was huge, this man, and Timmy stared up at him, chewing on the last bite of fruit that he'd taken, the apple forgotten as he dropped it in his moment of awe.

"G-good afternoon," Timmy stammered. "What may I do for you?"

The goliath that stood before him replied simply, "The Alpha is here."

Timmy stared up at the man for several long moments, the words sinking in. He had, of course, been trained precisely what to do if this phrase was ever uttered to him, but he'd never dreamed that he actually would hear it said. He blinked in disbelief for several moments.

"Aren't you going to show us in or do I need to rip open the door and remind you of the proper protocol?" the man asked gruffly.

Timmy got up hurriedly, grabbing the keys from the hook on the wall and quickly twisted the placard in the window from open to closed. He could hardly breathe as he burst through the doors of the ticketing booth and around to open the gate.

"I am sorry, sir," Timmy stammered, staring up at the huge man.

He was precisely what Timmy had imagined the Alpha would be like from the stories he'd heard growing up. His hands shook as he held open the gate for the man, watching as he stepped through the gate, looking around the courtyard of the small castle, and then looking back as the two smaller men with him stepped through the gate as well. Timmy wondered why the Alpha had chosen such fragile men for his ambassadors - one of the men that followed him was quite peaky from the walk up the hill, limping from what was clearly bad knees, and looking rather threadbare and skinny-faced - even more than most of the starving pack family members usually looked. This one had an almost haunted look to his eye.

Which was why he was even more shocked when the hulking man that he had thought was the Alpha turned and stepped into a stance of following the lead of that fragile man, whose hands clasped rather desperately to a cane upon which he leaned.

Timmy realized then that the weak one - he was the Alpha?

Why, on any given full moon night, Timmy himself could likely have overthrown that man. Surely there was some mistake.

There had to be.

He had all he could do not to laugh.

No wonder his family had been so eager to blatantly disregard the regulations of the pack in recent days. What was this twig going to do about it? Timmy's eyes glowed with amusement.

"You know the protocol," Remus Lupin said stiffly, looking down his nose on Timmy Goodall. Height was the one thing that Remus Lupin did seem to have. He loomed several inches taller than Timmy.

"Yes sir," Timmy said, suppressing the laughter. He scurried ahead, beckoning them to come along.

He led the trio across the courtyard and into the corridors of the castle. The tower was old and designed in the Tudor style, with old English roses carved into the stones and ironwork throughout. They passed glass platform-encased exhibits, and past the two of the school groups that had checked into the museum. They followed him past a tea room and a formal parlor, up a grand staircase and down a long corridor, finally turning into a small library with high vaulted ceilings with windows that stretched away over their heads. 

Sunlight streamed through them and they stood to one side of the room, Remus's eyes tracing over the spines of the tomes on the shelves as they waited for one of the other tour guides to finish showing a school group the elements of a polished suit of armor. Timmy tried to get the attention of the group's guide, but the other boy was too excited about telling the kids about the history they were looking at - despite the kids' apparent disinterest. When they'd left the room, Timmy went and moved a standing sign into the doorway, declaring the library off of limits until half ten.

Timmy moved to the far end wall where there was a dark bricked fireplace. To the left of the fireplace, a stand of several velvet ropes protecting a particular painting, inconspicuous and not at all special, completely easy to look over - if it had not been set aside and so guarded as it were. "There we are," he said, "Privacy." He returned to their side, removed the velvet rope blockading the portrait and stepped up to it.

"Sir Antony?" Timmy called.

It took a moment before the portrait stirred. He woke like an old man who had been long at napping, snorting through his nose and looking rather flustered, adjusting a cuff about his neck with a pompous air.

"Sorry to disturb you, Antony," Timmy said, smirking a little at the unsettled portrait's huffing and puffing.

"Most kindly do allow a bit of warning before sneaking up upon a fellow in the future," the portrait blustered.

Timmy nodded, "Of course."

"What could you possibly want during daylight hours?" Antony demanded, looking about at the sunlight streaming through the high, narrow windows that stretched away up to the vaulted ceiling. He looked over the guide, eyes moved to the two ambassadors, and then landed and lingered on the Alpha. "Oh," he said in a bored but knowing tone. "I see." He again adjusted the cuff about his neck, lips twisted into a sour expression. "It's been some time since you've been 'round here, Mr. Lupin."

"It has," the Alpha admitted.

Sir Antony sighed heavily, "She isn't going to like this, you know."

"She never has been," the Alpha smiled tightly.

Sir Antony's frame swung open, revealing a large tunnel, the stone tunnel behind the portrait disappearing off into darkness.

"Right this way," Timmy motioned, stepping into the tunnel and reaching for a muggle torch from a shelf of them, flicking it on with a click of a button. The beam of light flowed off into the dark ahead of them, showing a sharp turn on the stairs that curved away to the left in an apparent spiral.

Down, down, down through the dark they went, the big man taking lead, allowing the Alpha to brace himself against him to keep from falling. Timmy was aware of the keen scanning of the walls and the darkness that the Alpha's ambassador was doing - probably memorizing the steps taken to the assembly room far below.

When they arrived, Timmy drew the ring of keys he'd taken from the wall of the ticketing booth out and he slipped one of the long, old fashioned keys into the lock on the door that the tunnel dead-ended in. He glanced over his shoulder at the frail Alpha and his two ambassadors, and then he pushed opened the door, revealing they'd come to a large underground Hall. 

Magic crackled in the room, the walls were magically charged with faux windows, spelled to mimic the look of the outdoors. 

Their footsteps echoed across the flagstone floor and finally they came to a stop. Timmy at least bowed and ducked aside, but the two ambassadors flanked the frail-looking Alpha, one on either side of him but two steps behind.

They stood before a short plinth upon which stood a table, set for dinner, surrounded by men and women. As they watched, the woman in center chair at the table rose, turning, and approached them. She stopped at the edge of the plinth and stared down her nose at the Alpha and raised an eyebrow.

"Remus Lupin!" the woman said in a tone of level surprise, her voice loud and regal, echoing off the walls of the chamber. "It's been so long."

There was a loud, ringing silence, and all the eyes from her dinner party stared.

"Hello again, Greer," Remus said. "I'm afraid it has been far too long since I visited you last." He glanced around at the group of riff raff that was gathered around the table, recognizing a few from Greyback's packs who he knew to be notoriously nasty beings, and he raised an eyebrow as he took a step up to be even with her - resulting in him looking down on her due to their height differences, despite his leaning on a cane. He stared into her eyes for a long moment. "You look... well," he said.

"Well?" she laughed gently, "If it is possible... which I never would have believed it could be..." the woman said, "You look even more pathetic today than you looked last time I saw you."

Remus sized her up, eyes sweeping over her. He shrugged. "What can I say, Greer, the eighties were rough on me."

"I heard," Greer answered. She twisted a long lock of hair around her finger. "And to what do I owe the return of our estranged leader now?"

"Just a routine check-in," Remus said, pausing and staring at her long enough to make her shift with discomfort.

"Usually those are announced," Greer said.

Remus shrugged, "Do you need notice?" he asked, "Do you have something you needed to hide?"

"Of course not," Greer replied. 

Remus smiled, "Excellent." He looked at the table. "And it seems we've arrived just in time for dinner. If you don't mind three additional plates, of course?"

Greer looked very much like she would mind, but she said politely, "Of course, welcome, to you and your ambassadors." 

"You're so kind," Remus said with a smirk, and he motioned for Storm and Spence to follow as they settled in at the table.