Well, here it is folks – I know you've been waiting a while, so I hope it lives up to your expectations!

Remus Lupin spent the morning cleaning.

It was a stifling day; the skies outside the tiny flat he'd been sharing with his fiancée were moody and dark, casting a gloom over the small Midlands town and sealing in the heat. First, he cleaned the bathroom, mostly because theoretically the presence of water should cool him down a little. It hadn't.

He'd moved onto the main room, dusting Amelia's houseplants and rearranging a few of the many piles of books that the two of them owned – so many, in fact, that they had overflowed from the bookcases that lined the walls and formed stubborn colonies around the room. The contents of these stacks fluctuated regularly, but their size and position rarely changed.

Any space that wasn't occupied by books was taken up by his fiancée's houseplants.

Remus was on much less certain ground with these; he had never been particularly good at gardening, and had only been allowed to water them because Amelia had been away on an excavation for the previous five weeks. He would be greatly relieved when they were no longer his responsibility – he had taken an intense dislike to a cactus Amelia had had since her University days.

Apparently its name was 'Bob', but Remus privately preferred to refer to it as 'that spiky bastard'; apparently the enmity was entirely mutual.

He was on much firmer ground, so to speak, with the miniature allotment that they were keeping on the kitchen windowsill. It had been a Valentine's present to Amelia and Filius Flitwick, one of their colleagues, had taught him a spell that kept the plants inside in top condition.

It probably ought to be pointed out at this juncture that Remus Lupin was a wizard, and a Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Britain's premiere (well, only) magical academy. It was there that he had met his fiancée, Amelia Brown, just under a year previously. Amelia had been relatively new to the concept of witchcraft as a profession and Remus had taken her under his wing to some extent.

He really hadn't expected anything to happen between them – things like this generally happened to other people – but happen it had, helped along by the furtive encouragement of their colleagues (and some of their students), and to a greater extent, Amelia's own personal brand of stubbornness.

Putting away the last of his slightly frayed shirts, Remus gave up on the cleaning and went to shave. Shaving quite easily ranked among his least favourite activities, and he put it off for as long as he could. He had flirted with the idea of a beard in his youth, but had been forced to see reason by his old school friends: beards, like shaving, did not work well with facial scarring. He surveyed himself in the mirror, contemplatively.

He really couldn't understand what she saw in an aging werewolf, but Amelia was difficult to argue with. He ran a hand through his hair uncertainly before returning to the living room and selecting a book from one of the drifting piles.

Still, he reflected, things are a good deal better than they were last summer.

Where a year ago he had been pale and underfed, he was healthy and well-rested; where he had been unemployed and living out of a suitcase in one room of a thoroughly unsavoury hotel, he now had a steady job and a flat. It was really Amelia's, but she had told him not to be stupid when he'd pointed this out to her, so he'd given up arguing, which was simpler. He was also a good deal happier than he had been the previous summer, and Amelia was a very large part of that.

She had wandered into his life, smiled at him in that entirely disarming fashion that she had, and proceeded to turn every single bit of it upside down. And then, at the end of the last school year, he had come face to face with the man he had thought had betrayed his best friends, Lily and James Potter, over a decade previously.

Through a rather convoluted series of events it had transpired that Sirius was, in fact, innocent – all of them having been betrayed by another old friend, Peter Pettigrew.

Rat-bastard traitor, thought Remus, bitterly.

With the help of Amelia – and the somewhat less likely help of Severus Snape (Potions Master extraordinaire, and one-time hated enemy) – they had managed to convince the Ministry of Magic of Sirius's innocence, and he had been granted a full pardon. He now lived in a sizable cottage in the Warwickshire countryside, where his beloved godson Harry would periodically visit him. It had been a very reluctant Sirius Black that had agreed to Dumbledore's insistence that Harry should remain at his Aunt and Uncle's house – at least for the time being; something about protective spells, Remus recalled. Harry had been equally unimpressed.

So here he was, one year older, a little wiser and a good deal happier… things were most definitely looking up.

He glanced at the calendar. There was still nearly a month before term would resume at Hogwarts – the pair of them were due to attend a staff meeting in a few days time. He sighed. His next transformation was due in a fortnight… Not that it worried him so much anymore; his new friend Severus was an excellent brewer, and had perfected the production of the Wolfsbane potion. Oh, it still hurt, of course – his body entirely rearranged itself, after all – but with the Wolfsbane potion he could keep his mind.

He was no longer a ravening monster once a month, but a proper wolf, with a human mind. Amelia had told him that he made a cute wolf, and had threatened to start calling him 'Fluffy', when he hadn't accepted that as fact. Remus had given in, and simply opted for calling her weird in return. There weren't many witches or wizards who would have so calmly and completely accepted his condition; he was lucky to work with a few of them, and felt intensely privileged to wake up with his favourite one each morning.

The only downside of the potion was the taste, which was god-awful. Not taking it wasn't an option; not taking it had nearly got Amelia killed a few months previously. Remus tried not to think about it – it tended to make him want to jump off tall buildings. Yet another reminder of why Amelia didn't deserve him…

He shook his head and smiled slightly; if Amelia had heard these particular thoughts she would have smacked him.

Wolf that he was he smelled her scent before he heard her key in the door: an enticing combination of beeswax, flowers, linen and (unusually) soil. This wasn't entirely surprising, given her recent occupation. Amelia might be a bloody good Muggle Studies teacher, but she was first and foremost, an archaeologist.

The door opened as he stood up, laying his book on the sofa. His heart leapt: Amelia was just as beautiful as ever, if a little more tanned; her hair had lightened in the summer sun, causing near-white streaks to appear in her dirty-blonde hair. Her blue eyes sparkled as she abandoned her bags and rushed over to him, putting her arms around his neck, and kissing him fiercely. He suspected that her steel toe-capped boots were the only things that had prevented her from taking a flying leap at him.

When they eventually broke apart, he beamed at her.

"I missed you too," he said, softly, rubbing a thumb against her arm. She grinned back.

Somewhere behind her, someone cleared their throat. Leaning against the door frame was a formidable woman with bright blue dreadlocks and a t-shirt with the name of some angry, Muggle band on it. Her arms were crossed and she was carrying Amelia's sleeping bag over one shoulder; she also looked greatly amused.

"Sorry Lexie," Amelia trilled, and Alex stuck her tongue out at her. He, on the other hand, blushed.

"Er, Hello Alex," he said, embarrassed. "Blue this month – did you get tired of green?"

She shrugged and grinned at him.

"Fancied a change," she said, in her Glaswegian brogue. "We wanted teh do Mel's while we were at it, but she wouldn'ae let us."

Amelia rolled her eyes.

"It's a good job I run a lot faster than you buggers."

"Er – do you want a drink, or something?" Remus asked, remembering his manners.

"No thanks – I've got teh head, actually – have to get teh Gretna by eight or the service station will shut."

She dropped the sleeping bag on the pile of luggage and gave Amelia a tight hug.

"See you in a couple o' weeks, hen!"

She looked at Remus for a moment, came to a decision, and – much to his astonishment – hugged him too.

"You keep her oot o' trouble, eh?"

"Unlikely," Remus chuckled.

"Bye!" she grinned, and turned to go.

"Love to your Mum!" yelled Amelia, as the door shut.

She turned back to Remus and gave him the kind of smile that made his knees go weak.

"Now," she said. "Where were we?"

0o0o0o0

Sometime later, Remus watched his fiancée drying her hair after a much appreciated shower.

"What?" she asked, noticing his attention.

"Just glad to have you back," he said, giving her a small smile. "I was beginning to worry that I'd lost you to a bunch of unwashed students."

"Oy – I was one of them once, and I washed!"

"And there are always exceptions to the rule, I suppose," he chuckled. "I thought we'd order in Chinese for tea – thought it might make a change after a month of dig food."

"I knew there was a reason I loved you," she said, playfully. "Although I'll be happy if I never see a cheese sandwich ever again."

Remus made a face.

"That bad?" he asked.

"Well, they tried hard, at least," she allowed.

Having placed their order, they happily settled into one another on the sofa, Remus having rescued his book.

"So, how was it?" he asked. This had been Amelia's first training dig for a while; Alex, Amelia, and their friend Penny had been in charge of the trainees. He had felt rather sorry for the students, when he had heard.

"Same old stuff," she said, expansively. "Lots of soil, lots of people, lots of alcohol. Alex found a mosaic floor though, that was pretty cool – and Penny got to play with the skel's from the cemetery in the next field. I was mostly working on the hypocaust system – it was in really good condition."

Remus smiled: Amelia always got really excited when she was talking about the past. It was rather endearing.

"We took tons of samples, too – I'm glad I won't be sorting them all this time, I can tell you! Nearly lost my eyesight in placement year. Mind you, tesserae are a bit bigger than fish spines, so it might not be too bad. And I found a comb."

"A comb?"

"Yeah, a carved bone one – it was really cool."

Even though he couldn't see her face he could tell she was beaming. The corners of his mouth twitched up slightly.

"I thought you hated the Romans."

"Oh, I do. Bloody Empire builders, leaving Samian ware all over the continent and making the place untidy," she grumbled, good-naturedly.

She could feel his chuckle reverberate through his chest and across his back; she wriggled against him, comfortably.

"Still, a bone comb, eh? Not bad," he teased. "But wait, where were the dinosaurs? No gold? No Woolly Mammoths?"

Amelia hit him.

It was good to be home.

0o0o0o0

It was a mark of how close Amelia was to her cousin Hermione that the girl called around the very next day. They had arranged a 'girly' day, and were meeting Hermione's school friend Ginny Weasley somewhere in town, which was quite a feat given that Ginny was from a wizarding family, most of whom were clueless about navigating around the Muggle world.

Probably a pub, Remus thought.

It seemed that archaeologists seldom communicated outside of taverns. They had a weird affinity for them that was difficult to break, and instantly made themselves at home in them, much to the amusement (and probable annoyance) of a wide variety of landlords.

Remus spent the day with Sirius, reminiscing about old times and helping him to reorganise his cottage. Twelve years in Azkaban, the wizard prison, had left their mark on his old friend: his once handsome face had grown gaunt and pale as time wore on. A few months being mercilessly fed by Amelia and her aunt Beatrice (a formidable woman with an excellent right hook) had begun to bring him back to health. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, this meant that his youthful exuberance was also fast returning.

Although Sirius was, for the most part, confining his bursts of restlessness to decorating his new home, Remus was painfully aware that it couldn't be long before Sirius would be trying to enlist his help in some scheme that would sound excellent at the outset, but would probably end with one or both of them getting arrested.

He returned home that evening with a sense of amused trepidation; it had been too long, really, and if he were honest, he was rather looking forward to it.

It was fairly late in the evening when he got back to the flat, and the girls had reached the depressingly giggly stage. He wasn't certain what they had been discussing before he arrived, but Hermione and Ginny both blushed scarlet when they saw him… he took this as a bad sign.

Amelia left the two girls choosing a film to watch and joined him in the kitchen under the pretence of preparing some popcorn.

"Have a good time at Padfoot's?" she asked, shutting the door to the microwave – a strange Muggle cooking box that Remus generally avoided (it had a few too many apparently random rules governing its use).

"Not bad, moved a lot of furniture," he paused, startled, as the bag in the microwave began to pop and expand. "Sooner or later he's going to get tired of decorating though, and then we're all in trouble."

He was still eyeing the microwave, warily. Amelia chuckled at him.

"I've no doubt," she said, reaching past him for a bowl. "Town was fun, haven't had a proper 'girly' day in ages."

He grinned.

"I can't imagine Alex enjoying clothes shopping."

"Depends on the clothes, really, she's a happy bunny around burlesque dresses and corsetry."

Remus, who had got quite a good mental image of this, flushed and raised his eyebrows. Somewhere behind him, the microwave 'pinged'.

"Does she ever take you?" he managed.

"Sometimes," she tipped the popcorn into a bowl and poured a liberal amount of syrup over it, swearing when she got it over her hands. She would have gone to the sink except that when she turned, she came face to face with Remus, who was wearing that predatory smile of his. Amelia glanced at the kitchen door; the sounds of Ginny and Hermione arguing over which movie to choose filtered through from the living room.

"Rem-" she had been about to tell him off, but he'd started to lick the syrup off her fingers, and her brain ceased its ability to form coherent sentences.

He pressed her gently against the counter and began to alternate nibbling the syrup off her fingers and kissing her sweetly (and, to be honest, rather stickily) on the lips. Aware of how quickly this could get out of hand, particularly with two adolescent witches in the flat, she reached up to push him away, but he pulled her closer.

"Remus…"

He was kissing her neck, now.

"What?" he asked, barely pausing.

"The girls are here…"

"Can't I kiss my fiancée?" he asked, nibbling along her jaw. "You've been away for so long…"

"You can," she said. "When we're no longer in danger of scarring Ginny and Hermione for life…"

"They're busy," he said, softly, nuzzling against her neck.

"Do you want to explain to Molly Weasley why her daughter has gone right off syrup?"

Remus paused, and appeared to think about this; it would almost be worth it. Almost.

"You make a good point," he conceded, handing her a cloth to clean up the rest of the syrup.

He wandered into the living room with a wry smile on his face.

Ginny and Hermione were still busily reading the backs of Amelia's mysterious DVDs; they appeared to have narrowed it down to 'probably something funny', by the looks of it.

"Ladies," he said, as the two girls looked up at him; their hushed tones suggested that the reason choosing a film was taking so long was because they had been confiding in one another.

"Hello Professor," said Ginny. "Have you had a good summer?"

"Not bad, thank you," he smiled, making his way to one of the many bookcases and selecting a book at random. "You can call me Remus, you know, since we're not in school."

The girls broke off into peals of (to his mind) totally uncalled for laughter, and Remus decided to take refuge in the bedroom with his book and two inches of reasonably solid MDF between him and the two sugar-hyped teenagers.

He could still hear them as Amelia joined them and he settled down to read.

It was bizarrely reminiscent of his schooldays.

A warm smile crossed his lips as Amelia's laughter joined the girls'. Despite everything that had happened since he and his old friends had left school – what with war, and death, and betrayal, and loneliness, he was profoundly grateful for whatever it was that had eventually led him to Amelia.

At the end of the previous term, after he had forgotten his potion and fully transformed, he had tried to leave her, believing that he was too dangerous for her. It had nearly killed him to do it, and if Amelia hadn't dragged herself out of the hospital bed that he had put her into and chased him across the grounds of the school, he would have gone through with it. He still woke up, sometimes, sweating and terrified that he had done more than scratch her.

Terrified that one day he still would…

But Amelia was nothing if not stubborn, and she had more than proved to him that whatever he might think about it, he wasn't going to run away from her unless he actually wanted to. The wolf had also had his say, pining and keening for her as she bled and shivered on the ground…

No, he couldn't leave her, even if she would be safer, or better, or happier without him. And she was defiantly of the opinion that she never would be, shooting down every reason, every fact that he could come up with why young, beautiful witches shouldn't fall in love with aging dark creatures, with infallible logic of her own.

He'd given in, after a while, after realising that even if he did run, the wolf would simply run back to her whenever he could.

And he did love her, more than anything… he had gone away and thought about this for a while, while Amelia helped her aunt Beatrice with the apple harvest at her farm, and had come to the conclusion that: when it came right down to it, he didn't want to run away at all.

Upon his return, at a somewhat raucous party up at the farm, she had made him giddily happy by agreeing to marry him. She was very good at making him giddily happy, he reflected, with a wry smile.

Another burst of laughter filtered through from the living room, and he grinned.

One thing was certain: he wouldn't give Amelia Brown up for the world.