"Forty-four sleeps til Freddie!" Sirius Black's voice echoed into the kitchen as his head ducked in and then back out, disappearing down the hallway.

Remus didn't even look up from the frying pan he was working with on the stove.

Spencer looked from the doorway, where Sirius had popped in like a spring loaded jack in the box, back to Remus. "He really likes Freddie Mercury."

"Yes he does," Remus nodded.

Spencer turned back to the copy of the Daily Prophet he was looking at. He'd been trying at learning more about magical culture by reading the paper, and finding it very strange indeed. The moving pictures had creeped him out at first, but he was getting more used to them now. Now he was intrigued by the advertisements, some of which actively tried to sell you stuff when your eyes looked at them.

LOOKING FOR A BROOM? Look no further than Quality Qudditch Supply! Check this one out! No? Not your fancy? What about this one? Top of the line! Only 400 Galleons! Now this is what the professionals use, mind! Official broom of the Yorkshire Yetis, this is! No? No wait, maybe a bit more affordable? What about this beaut - on sale, refurbished, only 100 galleon! Retwigged it myself!

Spencer shook his head and looked up at Remus. "Wizard stuff is very strange," he said.

Remus shrugged, "To us, muggle stuff is strange." He slid the egg onto a plate, which had hovered over from the sink and sat at the table with a fork, shaking a bit of salt over his scramble. "Are you sure you don't want one?" He asked for the hundredth time.

Spencer turned his nose and shook his head. "Ugh, food."

Remus understood too well. But for once he was famished and the egg smelled delicious, so he bent to it and started eating, reaching for one of the sections Spencer had already finished. Mostly it was more coverage of the interim Minister's appointment, emergency security measures being implemented at the Ministry headquarters, and the ongoing hunt for the wanted Fenrir Greyback.

"We won't rest until he is captured," Millicent Bagnold said, a photo of her on the Embankment, coming up from the Auror Department accompanied that portion of the article. She looked very official, dressed in a smart magenta skirt suit with a lime green vest. "He is a menace to society, a dangerous threat to health and well being, and an eyesorous blight on the tapestry of Magical History. He shall be removed."

Remus would be glad to hear that Greyback was captured, it would mean one less fear loose on the ground for him to worry about. The list of people with vendettas against him would be down, at least, but as his eyes travelled down the article, he started to get a sick feeling in his stomach.

In order to track Greyback, a trace will be placed upon all known (registered) werewolves, allowing Ministry officials to locate them at all times. Werewolves law-abiding and without connection to Greyback will have nothing to fear with the trace upon them.

Nothing to fear until the Ministry used the trace for some other purpose, he thought darkly.

The majority population of werewolves in England at this time are subject to Greyback in that members of the Magical Research And Statistics Committee  have concluded that 68% of werewolves bitten since 1963, the year of the signing of the Restriction Act, have been either directly from Fenrir Greyback or have been from direct "descendants" within the pack, including inter-familial "nippings" (the turning of a child to accommodate the parents lycanthropic symptoms). The remaining 32% were from other packs or unknown origin. To neutralize Fenrir Greyback, then, would be to decline to less than half of the current infection rate - a very good thing indeed.

"Effectively, with proper control and regulation, England could be nearly eradicated of the diseased community within one to two generational cycles," said the head of the Department of the Control for Magical Creatures, Jack Maw, "And this is without the use of euthanasia-driven efforts, allowing the current law-abiding members of the infected community to complete their lives in peace."

Remus Lupin stared at the letters, so stark in black ink upon the grey-ish newsprint paper, and looked up over the crest of the page at Spencer Stewart, whose eyes were following what he guessed was the coverage of the previous day's quidditch matches. They'd recently started featuring a wizarding photograph that captured all of the highlights of the games and even he, who was so disinterested in quidditch, had to admit the photographs were very cool. Sirius and James had poured over the sheets for near to an hour the first time they'd appeared, following the Quidditch World Cup, and James had used one of the photos to train with Oliver Kent in the Potter's backyard. Spencer's eyes were wide with fascination.

It was horrible enough, Remus thought, being a part of the wizarding world and being pushed to the outskirts by his furry little problem - but to be on the outside, looking in, not a part of the community but not entirely separated from it, either, due to the condition that the wizards looked at so poorly as to suggest "euthanasia efforts" to "eradicate" the country of your kind must be... wholly disheartening. How terrible to belong neither fully in the world of Wizards, nor int he world of muggles, but on some lonely fringe, like an island in between continents, unreachable on either side.

Spencer looked up. "What?" he asked, catching Remus staring at him.

"I was just thinking how lonely you must feel," Remus admitted.

Spencer thought for a moment, then lay down the newspaper and said solemnly, "I've felt lonelier."

Remus's eyes moved with pity.

Spencer continued, "The Stewarts are not a very loving family, Rey, but this family you've invited me into is."

Remus's throat tightened with emotion and he nodded.

Spencer offered a small smile, then raised his newspaper back up, returning to the quidditch photographs, a child-like light in his eyes. After a moment, he paused and looked up, "Remus?"

"Yes?" Remus had started eating his eggs again and had his fork part way to his mouth, he paused, the eggs hovering mid-air.

"Can wizard drawings move?"

Remus smiled and lowered the fork, "They can."

"I'm not a wizard, but - is there... I don't know... magic paper or something?"

Remus considered this, then said, "I could try enchanting some pencils."

Spencer smiled.

Sirius came wandering back into the kitchen then, looking more miserable and with far less enthusiasm than he'd had before, his hair a mess and his shirt a bit frumpled. He threw himself dramatically into the seat at the head of the table, limbs going every which way, and waved his wand. The bottle of orange juice from the fridge floated to him and he wrenched it open, raised it to his mouth, frowned at it, pulling it away quickly and recorking it. "Ferfucksake," he muttered, and he dropped his head onto the table, resting it on his elbow. "If Evans doesn't pop that little bastard out soon I'm going to die."

Remus flicked his wand, sending the juice back to the fridge. "You've got eight months yet to go, Sirius."

Sirius groaned.

Spencer looked 'round the table. "Tell me again why he's having her pregnancy symptoms?"

"Love magic," Remus and Sirius said at the same time. "I've magicked myself right into this hell," Sirius added.

Remus petted the top of Sirius's head. "Love magic binds some deeper part of two people together in a bond that functions like an extreme empathy. Think of the phenomenon of twins that are bound and might feel one another's pains."

"Ah," Spencer nodded.

"There's good stuff too," Sirius said defensively. "I can feel when the people who I've love magicked need me and I can take the burden off them, carry their anxieties and fears and make their sadness ease by siphoning part of those things onto myself."

"Doesn't that hurt you, though?" Spencer asked.

Remus looked at Sirius.

Sirius looked at Remus, their eyes locked. "I'd die for any one of the people I love," Sirius replied, "And I'd feel their pain a hundred times over if it meant they did not have to."

Remus's mouth went dry at the solemnity of Sirius's tone, the way his eyes did not waver from Remus's own, their connection fathoms deep within. There was not a doubt in Remus Lupin's mind about the words his husband spoke - Sirius Black would take any burden, unto death itself, to spare any one of them. Remus's heart thundered, the passion of Sirius burning through his pupils straight into his chest.

Spencer glanced between the pair of them.

Sirius murmured, "Love is worth the pain."

The breakfast table at the Underhill house was crowded. Harry Underhill made stacks of toast and every imaginable topping was spread out on the table, along with a tea kettle that never seemed to drain, which Ellie Lyson was quite enamored with. Marjorie stared at Storm, their son, with an expression of profound fascination as he ate more toast than she ever thought anyone in the whole world (besides perhaps a GIANT) could eat in one sitting. Carl and Harry sat talking, Harry bouncing Carl's little girl on his knee and blowing raspberries at her as Carl talked.

The Veritiserum had set Carl Lyson to talking about his entire life as boldly as anything, and even after the effects of the potion had likely worn away, Carl still had more to say, and it seemed he had bottled up his doubts about the pack for a very long time. Underhill listened, nodding to indicate he was paying attention, even as he made a spoonful of baby porridge fly into the baby's mouth like an aeroplane.

"Storm," Ellie said, seeing her son grab yet another piece of toast and start dolloping on black current jam, "Please. How many of those have you eaten?"

"Not many," he said.

"Seven," said Marjorie, a tone of awe in her voice.

Storm looked up at his mother guiltily.

"He can have as much as he wants," Harry Underhill said. "If the boy is hungry, he can have his fill. As can you and your husband. There are no limits here."

Ellie flushed and then reached for a second slice for herself.

Carl had shared with Underhill the deplorable conditions of the pack house in Blackburn. Because they were werewolves, obtaining and keeping a job was near to impossible under any circumstances. There were few qualified - either by education or by physical limitations caused by the lycanthropy - and no where near enough income to keep everyone unqualified fed. They lived on rations - or else by game hunted and even that was scarce. Greyback did little to help, but seemed to prefer to keep the members of the pack always on the edge of hunger pains. This, he claimed, was the doing of the Ministry for Magic, was the doing of the Restriction Act, and was the very reason the pack needed to align themselves with the Dark Lord. Voldemort promised to feed the pack, and if he was made leader over the Wizarding World, the Restrictions that kept the werewolves unable to work would be done away with. "We will be free," Greyback promised them, "Under Lord Voldemort, things will be great again."

"I don't much remember them ever being great in the first place," Carl said, shaking his head. "The Act was a formality of feelings long rooted in the Ministry's actions anyway."

Underhill nodded. "Voldemort would do little to help you, if anything. He is known to make false promises. The Ministry is not good to you, either, but the evil that would come from You Know Who coming into power would be far worse. And there are ways to fight the Act, ways to change the system. If Voldemort takes control, there will be no system left, no Ministry left. We'll be stripped of any hope to change the way things are and create a better policy."

Carl ran his hands over his baby girl's curls and looked into Underhill's eyes, "I just want a better world for my children. For my boy. For my girl."

"I know," Harry said and he sighed as Carl lifted the baby up from his lap and held her close. "And you can't tell me anything about the location of the pack house?"

Carl shook his head. "Under command of the Alpha, I can't tell anyone. I can't even show you where it is; the only people that I could would be perhaps other pack members... but the full pack already knows the location. We're all bound by the same wolfish, or perhaps magical, laws."

Underhill sighed, nodding, and got up, waving his wand for more toast to warm up as Storm reached for an eighth and Marjorie grinned at him with amusement. "Well, at least you are safe here. He cannot find you here. My protections on the house would block any scenting or direct disapparation. You and your family are safe."

Ellie's eyes filled with tears at those words and she looked up at him. "You're an angel, Mr. Underhill."

Underhill snorted. "Far from it."