Remus couldn't get Marjorie Grant out of his mind. Every moment, her face seemed to hover in his mind, those eyes - so exactly like Ned Veigler's - blinking up at him from the photograph in James's file. It seemed that the image had indelibly burned itself into his brain and he couldn't push it out, no matter how many times he squeezed his eyes shut. All he could do was wonder where she was, what was happening to her, if she was okay, if she was alive, and, most urgently, if she was Ned's.

James could feel Remus's anxiousness, and it drove him to work all the harder, pouring over information, watching and rewatching various memories in the office penseive, trying to spot who it was that took the girl in the midst of all the cacophony of the battle at the Ministry of Magic that day. It seemed every witness that had submitted their memories for the investigation was somehow just detached enough that James could get close, but not actually see the face of the man who took Marjorie's hand as her father lay dying on the floor of the Ministry. He could see Grant, laying there prone, and a figure take hold of the girl's wrist and pull her away, even as she shrieked and screamed and tried to get back to the man she knew as her father.

Records showed Grant had met Anne Viegler the year Ned had come to Hogwarts, precisely as the Marauders had guessed. Anne was classified as widowed, and when Xavius Grant had come into her life, she married him near to immediately. Within a year, she was dead - of dark magic undistinguished, the file said. Mungos mediwizards had done their best but an unusual sort of curse had been cast upon her and there'd been no explanation they could come upon, no healing spell or potion, and of course there was no way to bring her back from the dead. So it was that Grant had adopted her daughter and Marjore Veigler had become Marjorie Grant.

James sat at his desk, leaning over the file, his eyes moving across the text of the reports for the hundredth time, searching for any small detail that might unravel the mystery and allow him to go and save the girl, or at least to get some answers for Remus. His eyes hurt from reading the spindly handwriting the forms were written in, and he rubbed his eyes under his glasses, letting out a long, low breath that shook his lungs. He pressed his eyes until he saw red spinning dots and colours, a kaleidoscope of blood vessels and brain cells.

The door opened and James looked up, his eyes readjusting to the light in the office, and saw Mr. Underhill, shaking out an umbrella so that it became his wand again. He took off his hat and hung it up on the coat rack beside the door, then sank into his desk chair.

James waited until Mr. Underhill had settled himself in behind the desk, then he got up and walked over, standing directly across from the auror. Mr. Underhill paused in unfolding the Daily Prophet he had set out before him, James's shadow cast long over the pages. Slowly, Mr. Underhill looked up.

"Yes?" he drawled.

"You said you knew Xavious Grant, yeah?" James asked. When Underhill nodded, he added, "Personally?"

"We went to Hogwarts together, and attended the Auror Training Program together as well. As much as you know Frank Longbottom is about as well as I knew Xavious Grant. Why do you ask?" Underhill leaned back in his chair, eyebrows raised as he stared up at James.

"D'you know much about his wife? Anne Viegler?"

"She was a muggle," Underhill replied, "I didn't know her until after Xavious was married to her. She was timid, as most muggles are when they become aware of What We Are."

"The file says she was a widow."

"Yes."

James considered, "D'you know anything about her late husband?"

Mr. Underhill thought for a moment, his eyes becoming unfocused as he processed the question and James could nearly see him sifting through his memories of the muggle woman, searching for anything that might answer his assistant's inquiry. Finally, Underhill replied, "She was always very secretive about her past, she didn't much like to talk about the life she'd lived before marrying Grant. She never changed her name though, in her late husband's honor. Grant was very patient about it, but there were things that seemed to upset her that never quite set right with him. He worried about her. And when she became ill and was in Mungo's, there was one night she had a visitor... Grant and I had worked late and I accompanied him to the hospital, and when we arrived to her room we only just saw the shadow of the man leaving. We never found out who it was."

"Blimey, I'm beat. Those gnomes were real rotters today." Bilius sighed as he slung the last of the gnomes over the bushes and out of the backyard of the final client of the day.

"Yeah, the buggers must've sharpened their teeth this mornin'," Sirius agreed, shaking his head and looking over his punctured hands. "How's your thumb, Bil?"

Bilius held it up - swollen and purple, it was clear exactly where the gnome had bit in because there were four great welts where his canines had sunk in. Bilius tipped his hand to give a thumbs down and puckered out his lower lip. "Well it's not fallen off yet, at least."

"At least," Sirius laughed.

They collected their equipment and left the invoice with Madam Tennenpin, then walked 'round to the street before the huge house whose garden they'd spent the entire day clearing out. "Reckon you could use a good healing potion for that," Sirius said conversationally when Bilius winced tugging on his jacket.

Bilius laughed, "Yeah -- a potion from the pub, that is." He smiled, "Care to join me, mate?"

"Sure why not," Sirius said. He wiggled his fingers in his pocket to be sure he had a few sickles and knuts kickin' around inside still - he did - and he followed Bilius down the sidewalk, his mind set on a glass of firewhiskey.

"There's a grand pub 'round the way here," Bilius said, nodding down the road to the left. "The Grindyswallow it's called."

Sirius laughed, "That's bloody terrible."

"Innit?" Bilius's eyes lit up with amusement.

They walked in silence a few moments, a light, chilly breeze blowing their hair off their foreheads and wicking away a bit of the sweat they'd built up over the long day of hard work. Sirius's eyes were upturned toward the sky. The sun was setting, the sky was a fuzzy sort of peachy-purple and the first speckles of stars were starring to peek through as the night came on like a gradient of color rolling over the orb of the atmosphere. It felt so... normal, so nice to be walking along like any other gent with a good mate, on the way to knock back a few drinks. It felt good not to be thinking about Voldemort for a moment, to be carefree.

Gods alive, how Sirius wished he could feel this sort of freedom all of the time.

If only it were possible, he'd be on a beach in Costa Rica right that very moment, sipping drinks with Remus Lupin out of coconut shells with tiny umbrellas in them. He smiled to himself at the thought of that sort of tropical paradise. Freedom and an ocean of peace stretching off into every sunset for the rest of his life. It sounded fantastic.

"I'm Henery the Eighth, I am! Henery the Eighth, I am, I am!" Bilius started singing, "I got married to the widow next door - she'd been married seven times before.. and ev'ry one was a Henery... She would'na have a Willie or a Sam... I'm her eighth old man named Henery -- Henery the Eighth I am!"

Sirius looked over at Bilius, roused from his thoughts, and smiled as Bil continued on, singing the song loudly, his voice ringing off the houses and buildings they passed by on their way. There was something disturbing yet calming about the sound of Bilius Weasley singing that blasted old song, Sirius thought. Same as ever. It was just proof, he thought, that sometimes things do not change even in the midst of nothing being the same.

The pub was hidden in what looked like a rundown old shed at the corner of a public square. The building the scarcely larger than a portaloo from the outside, but Bilius walked right up to it with confidence, kicked twice on the base of the door, rapped the handle with his wand, and opened the door up. "After you, sir," he said in a false, stuffy accent as he waved Sirius on ahead, "And do watch your step, the first one's a bit of a shocker."

Sirius stepped into what appeared at first to look exactly as he had expected a shed to look - but then it shimmered and, exactly as Bilius had warned, the first step really was a shocker as he seemed to get the sensation of falling through the floor and into another dimension. He found himself very suddenly transported to a dive bar, sunk partway sub-level. Strings of fairy lights twinkled over head, criss-crossed in every direction, and the walls were positively covered with photographs and newspaper clippings, notes and letters, paintings and tiny kitschy items like keychains, coins, and tarnished jewelry. Sirius looked around in awe.

"Brilliant," he declared.

Bilius grinned and stepped 'round Sirius. "Wait 'til you try the ale."

Sirius followed along behind Bil as they made their way through the crowded floor toward the bar, where Bilius ordered two pints, handing one off to Sirius. They clanked their steins together and gulped a few mouthfuls of the poignant ale, and Sirius wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand. It was even better than firewhiskey, he reckoned - though the atmosphere did heavily influence this assessment.

They found a table in a shadowed area to drink their ale and a house elf came 'round with a plate of chips. They sat eating their chips as music filled the room, rumbling and making the walls tremble with the sound. Sirius loved the way such loud music felt vibrating through his veins and he grinned merrily, watching in a hypnotized sort of manner as several witches danced on tables around the room - one of them was a metamorphmagus and Sirius stared mesmerized as she danced for she had a continuous river of colors falling through her hair with every move she made. He wished his hair could do that. His mind wandered as he tried to think up a work-around that he could do with regular magic of the ordinary sort.

This place, Sirius decided, was his new favorite place. He shoved several chips into his mouth at once, grinning as he looked about.

"Oi, look - Jasper." Bilius pointed toward the bar and Sirius craned his head about to see the back of Jasper's tall, dark frame, motioning to the bar tender.

Sirius wasn't sure how he felt about seeing Jasper at the pub. Part of him was excited that Jasper was out and doing something at all, but being at a pub could mean something more sinister for Jasper's emotional status. 

Bilius raised his arm up, waving, then stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out a shrill whistle that was easily twice as loud as the one Madam Hooch used when teaching firsties how to fly on broomsticks. Several people turned about to look and Bilius shouted, "Jasper!" Spotting them, Jasper took his stein from the bar tender, who was glowering at Bilius, and started over to their table. 

"Hullo," Jasper said, sitting down at the table.

"Odair you are," Sirius grinned.

"Siriusly?" Jasper replied.

Sirius laughed and he and Jasper gave one another a handshake. 

They spent the rest of their glasses talking, Bilius and Jasper catching up mostly, while Sirius sipped his ale and looked over the edge of the frosted glass at Jasper, trying to gauge how Jasper really was under the presentable facade that Sirius knew too well to fall for. He reckoned Jasper wasn't too terribly off for the time being at least, and he relaxed into the occasion of the three of them getting to muck about for a bit.

When their steins were empty and the last of the chips had been consumed, the three of them left a tip of a couple galleons and moved out through the front door to the street once more. Bilius was singing once more, and they walked along aimlessly through the streets, talking and laughing at jokes as they burned off some of the alcohol they'd taken in. Finally, some time had passed and Bilius glanced at his watch and announced himself as "brilliantly knackered" and bade Jasper and Sirius good night, disapparating away to get some sleep.

Sirius and Jasper made their way through the streets of London until they'd come to Trafalgar Square. They disapparated up onto the back of one of the great lion statues and lay on the stone, staring up into the smoggy London night sky.

"You wanna bum a fag?" Sirius asked.

"What now?" Jasper looked over to find Sirius holding up a pack of cigarettes, one shaken loose so it stood up for Jasper to take. He laughed and wiped his eyes from tears of mirth, then took the cigarette and lit it. Sirius lit his own and they lay there, smoking.

"Where do you reckon they go?"

Jasper's voice was low and the ringing laughter that had been carried in his tone all evening had melted away.

"Where does who go?" Sirius asked.

"Dead people," Jasper replied. "D'you believe in Heaven?"

"I... I dunno, really," Sirius said.

"Some muggles think they just die and that's the end of it. Others say you get sort of recycled and when you die you go into another body and do it all over again."

Sirius considered this, blowing a long stream of smoke to hover above them. "I dunno what I think," he said finally. "It's too big a question, with too many unknown answers to it." Then, as a second thought, he said, "I don't reckon we just disappear, though, when we die. I reckon there's something left of us - after. I'm just not sure what."

Jasper nodded and took a long drag on the cigarette and let out the breath slowly, the smoke curling in tendrils up, up, up into the sky. "We're all a bunch of dust and smoke anyway, 'ey?" 

"I s'pose so," agreed Sirius. "But damn fine dust."

"Gold dust," Jasper laughed.

"Bloody platinum, baby," Sirius grinned.

"OI, YOU THERE, WHAT'RE YOU DOIN' ON THEM STATUES LIKE THAT?!"

Sirius sat up and looked down. A muggle policeman was running across the square toward them, flashlight held up, the beam aiming directly at them. Jasper looked 'round and groaned. Sirius looked about, then reached into the pocket of his leather jacket.

"C'mon, Odair," Sirius said, withdrawing his palm and holding it opened to reveal his shrunken motorbike. "Let's get out of here."