Remus ate more than he should've at the curry restaurant, and though he tried to tell Tonks not to, she bought a meal to go to send home with him, and he flushed as she shoved the bag in his hand as they got onto the muggle bus, having swiped her own fare card before he could stop her. "Tonks --" 

"Enjoy it, Remus. Alright? I just want you to be alright," she'd said, and it had bothered him all the way across the city, even as she chattered away about how great it had been to see Charlie Weasley and about how excited she was to get to be security at the Cup that weekend. "I'm hoping I'll get a eye on Victor Krum. You seen him?"

"No," Remus admitted. He'd never been as big into quidditch as his mates and other than following Oliver Kent's success on the Cannons, he hadn't paid much attention to quidditch at all in nearly fourteen years. 

"Well he's right brilliant. Bulgarian." Tonks shivered. "Gorgeous. You ought to look at the Sports section of the prophet now and then. You'll enjoy the view." She elbowed him, laughing and her eyes sparkling. "Sorry, I know - you like 'em with the long hair and leather jackets, rather than clean cut and sporty, huh?"

Remus blushed. 

When he went to get off the stop by the Ministry entrance, Tonks was surprised Remus was following her. "You've got Ministry business?" she teased.

He sighed. "I still haven't done the registration paperwork. If I'm not careful they'll send that entrapment bloke after me again... I can't afford anymore fines. I'm already a couple hundred galleons in debt at Gringott's and they said if I don't register soon I'll be facing jail time when they catch up with me."

"I won't let that happen."

Remus shrugged, "I don't know that you could do anything about it, honestly."

She followed him, even though she wasn't working that day, and walked with him all the way to the Atrium of the Ministry, just before the security checkpoint where he would be required to weigh his wand and get his credentials for going further into the building.

They lingered in the atrium, the bustle of the place flurrying all around them. The statue of the Wizard, Witch, Muggle and House-Elf stood over them, spurting forth water in colorful streams. He stared up at it, thinking how that fountain was supposed to represent the equality and harmony among beings, but they'd left several sorts of beings out of the statue. 

"I really hate that you have to register," Tonks said, shaking her head, "That foul Snape to blame and all, you deserve so much better than the Ministry treats werewolves." Her hair started fading to red from the pink.

Remus pointed, "You're going red, Tonks."

"Oh am I? Blimey. I just get so bloody fired up..."

Finally, they parted ways, Tonks walking backwards back to the floos to go home and Remus on through security. She didn't let her eyes drop away from him until after he'd gone through the checkpoint and onto the elevator at the far side. She sighed, feeling awful and wishing she could do more than a couple plates of curry to help Remus Lupin's life be just a little bit better.

"Name?"

"Remus - R - E - M - U- S... John Lupin."

The liaison looked up. "Yer not serious?"

I'm not but my husband is. "What?"

"Lupin? Yer name be Lupin and yer a bleedin' wolf?" The Liaison asked, chuckling, "Bit spot-on innit?"

Remus shrugged. 

"Jus' sayin' is all...  date of birth?"

Remus rattled off that and a few more basic things, the liaison writing them down onto a form labeled "BEAST REGISTRATION - MOM FORM #684". Remus watched his information being recorded down with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

"Yer seemin' real nervous," the liaison said.

"I mean... do you really blame me? You know what your program is like."

"Ain't all bad," the liaison said, "Honestly ain't bad at all. Yer goin' ter be just fine, jus' fine... really... Yer got benefits, too, to partake. They do a hot meal once a month - third Wednesday - out in Bristol. There's loads of clubs and programs to join and such. Are yer much into motor cars?"

"No," Remus said.

"Ah well. There's a club for it if yer were. Loads of clubs ter be gettin in ter."

"I'll keep it in mind should I ever have a sudden new interest in them."

"Once we've yer all registered, whot you can also get is monetary compensation for the time yer can't be workin' as a werewolf," said the liaison behind the desk at the Ministry for Magic Interspecies Liaison Department, Office of Support. "Compensation currently pays out approximately... thirty-seven galleons per moon cycle."

"Fifty galleons? To live on for an entire month?" Remus exclaimed.

"That's right - more than covers the time yer goin' ter miss in a 24-hour period for the moon period. And the months there's two moons a month yer goin' ter get you twice that."

"Oh well, since you word it like that..." Remus rolled his eyes, but when the gent didn't seem to get that he was being sarcastic, he added. "Mate, c'mon you've got to be joking. That's 185 quid."

"That's right! Nearly 200 quid for one day's time," the wizard was smiling like this was a good thing he was trying to pass off. "You a muggle then?" he poised a pen over the paperwork.

Remus shook his head, "No."

"Squib?" 

"No. I'm a wizard."

"Really? Surprising."

"Why?"

"Because, usually wizards don't calculate out the quid." He paused. "Muggle-born?"

"Half-blood. Look --" Remus leaned forward as the wizard marked that down on his sheet. "What you don't understand is that it's not just the twenty-four hours that are lost by being on the registry," Remus said, frustrated and really wanting to wipe that little grin off the wizard's mouth. "The ministry requires nearly a week's time in quarantine anyway, which is extremely archaic to begin with, given discoveries on how the luminosity and lycanthropy interact, don't get me started on that, but on top -- On top they force you to tell every employer up front about your -- your condition -- and damn near to nobody will hire a werewolf. It's legal to discriminate that way, so there's no place to work as a result. So I don't get to work even when I'm not locked up in some jail cell facility in the bowels of the Ministry because I'm black balled and treated like dirt month-round, legally discriminated against, and I'm supposed to be bloody clapping on account of you're going to compensate me with less than 200 quid? That's not even enough to rent a one bedroom in the shady bit of town, not to mention buy food, clothing, hygienic supplies, transport..."

"Knight bus is free of charge," the wizard chirped.

"And the Knight Bus has a strict no werewolves policy."

"Oh does it? That's new."

"No... no it isn't. It's on the placard as you board. Right under the fare till. You don't even know the policies regarding the species --" he did air quotes around his face here, "-- that you supposedly representing?" Remus asked.

The wizard smiled tight-lipped, like he was the one desperately trying to remain polite. 

"You know what..." Remus sighed. "This is absolutely ridiculous. I don't have the patience to do this today." He stood up, took his briefcase and the handle of his rolling suitcase, and stormed away from the desk.

"Wait, we haven't got yer registry completed, still need ter tag yer wand and get yer prints and such..."

"I'm not doing it."

"Whot yer talkin' about not doin' it?" the wizard leaped up and followed him to the door. "Yer legally required ter register iffin yer a wolf... Yer'll get fined.

Remus shrugged. "They can't take blood out of a rock. Maybe if they want their money they should up the compensation so I could have a hope of paying it." He turned and stormed off down the corridor.

He half expected the bloke to follow him, but he didn't, thank goodness, for Remus wasn't entirely sure what he would do if he had. He hurried out of the Ministry at ground level, not keen to floo home in fear of a trace. Not that they couldn't figure out where he lived if they really wanted to - wouldn't be that hard at all, seeing as they more than likely still had all the information on Lyall on record somewhere and if that old Lupin cottage was the first place they looked for Remus, they would find him.

He couldn't afford to go anywhere else.

Remus disapparated home, another day of frustration, no more help to get by than he'd had the day before, and a few pence none the richer for having taken the muggle bus about London. He groaned as he bent to pick up the Daily Prophet from the porch and stepped into the house, which smelled dusty and empty.

He hadn't changed much in the place. Much of the things there were still things that once belonged to Dora and Charlus Potter when they had lived here, after their home in Godric's Hollow had been attacked. Upstairs was still a bedroom that had things of James's, untouched from the way he'd left them last time he'd been there, years ago...

Then again, there were many things the same there as they'd been when it had been himself, Lyall and Tizzy the House Elf living in that house... and beneath those things, there were things the same as when Hope had been alive and living there, too. Like the curtains in the kitchen.

Moving through that house was like an archeological dig, unearthing layer upon layer of artifacts.

The fridge was empty save for a pitcher of water, and the cupboards weren't much better. He found a tin of beans and opened it, heated them with a tap from his wand, and settled in to read the Daily Prophet.

Everyday, he'd gotten the paper, unfolded it, skim-read the headlines. It was usually a bunch of tosh about the search for Sirius Black, but Remus knew that they would never find Sirius if he didn't intend for them to. Sirius as too good at disappearing and somehow Sirius's ability as an animagus had managed to stay quiet, unlike Remus's lycanthropy, so Sirius didn't have to do too much to stay hidden.

Remus wished he wouldn't, though. At least not from him - the Ministry, yes, but not from him. Why hadn't Sirius shown up? Why hadn't he come to the Lupin house? Or any of the other place? Remus was frustrated and scared and lonely and it was all compounded by the face of his husband on every page, screaming in a rage, holding those old Azkaban Numbers, being blamed for things he didn't do.

I gotta have faith, Remus told himself, pleading with himself to believe in the best of Sirius, to believe that it wasn't because Sirius didn't want him, Remus, around. Eventually, Sirius would come for him... wouldn't he?

After he'd skimmed the headlines, Remus turned to the help wanted ads toward the back of the paper and read through them, looking for something that he might be able to do - in the wizarding community or in the muggle community. At this point, he didn't really care which. He'd done loads of odd jobs for muggles - and had even done a few commissioned portraits and such that some of his old friends from college had told him about. There was a listing for a new DADA professor in every paper he'd looked at so far. He hated seeing it, knowing what he'd been foolish to throw away. Especially since he was no closer to finding Sirius Black now than he had been then.

There were a couple listings for helpers selling merchandise at the Cup for Quality Quidditch Supplies and he reckoned he could give a damn about Quidditch long enough to get through a single game if he somehow managed at getting one of those jobs, so he circled them with a quill, and there was another for a book keeper at the Magical Menagerie and he thought of those terrible books all the Care of Magical Creatures students had been so terrified of last term and chuckled to himself. He rather hoped that wasn't what the ad was meaning, but who could tell?

He was about to close up the paper for the day when he spotted it:

HELP WANTED: LOGISTICAL EXPERT
If you like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain
If you're not into Yoga and you have half a brain
Let's cut through all this red tape
I'm the one that you looked for - come with me and escape.
Pay is handsome.