Note: I had no idea what to call this one shot! Anyway, here it is, an extra epilogue of sorts to Meet the Order of the Phoenix! It's been forever since I've managed to post anything, or indeed get round to writing, so I hope somebody enjoys it!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Meet the Wounded

As she felt the ground materialise beneath her feet, the pull of apparation fading to leave her churning stomach in knots, Carrie Winters' painful grip upon her companion's arm did not immediately slacken.

"Here we are," Remus Lupin announced after a sizeable pause when the muggle teenager failed to stop digging her fingernails into his forearm, "safe and sound."

Carrie merely swayed a little.

"Are you going to throw up?" the werewolf inquired conversationally, and his son's best friend hastily released him, her cheeks tinged pink as she mumbled:

"No..."

"Excellent." Remus reached to straighten his jacket, their abrupt mode of transportation had left it a little ruffled. "You'll like a spot of lunch then, won't you? Before I drop you home..."

"I might...might walk home..." Carrie mumbled as she shuffled along behind him out of the alleyway and onto the road beyond, her stomach twisting uncomfortably at the thought of yet more apparation, and the wizard gave a chuckle and told her:

"Suit yourself, then!"

Carrie felt so rough that she wasn't even sure she fancied lunch, either. But overall it wasn't the churning of her stomach to jelly that was making her feel particularly ill. No indeed, it was her head.

It was throbbing relentlessly. Unbearably.

It always did, after she had been for her appointments at St. Mungo's Hospital.

Remus, Dora and Teddy had been taking it in turns to apparate her to the hospital in London, where healers from the Spell Damage ward were slowly helping Carrie to regain what little memories she could of her life in the muggle world, memories that had been obliviated from her mind by the now-dead Ambrose Kraft some six months previously. Overall Carrie had been making good progress, she could recall most basic facts about her muggle relations and was even beginning to recall significant events from her childhood. Her memories of her parents in particular, however, were still hazy, especially given that they themselves had been obliviated and she was not in regular enough contact with them to help her lost recollections stir. She had lost count of how many times she had sat in the healers' office answering question after question, having a wand pressed to her temple...

And it always gave her a headache.

Quite frankly, Carrie was growing tired of the whole thing.

Especially after what the healer had said to her as she had left the office that morning.

There are still gaps in your more recent memories, the healer had told her, before patting her reassuringly upon the arm, but we can fix that! We'll have this whole past year recovered in time for you to go to University next year, mark my words!

It was funny, really, Carrie mused as she shuffled up the driveway of the Lupins' house, glancing sideways at the vacant property next door where she had lived just six months previously with her family. Nobody ever asked her if she wanted to remember...

What Carrie Winters did remember about the Order of the Phoenix's uprising and the knock on effect it had had on her life was blighted by a series of painful, difficult memories that she would happily forget in a heartbeat, and those were just the ones relating to the Magical world that she had been thrown into. What had happened to her in the short period of time leading up to all of that was probably equally as awful and quite frankly being ignorant was a relief.
She didn't want to know about it.

Not a single thing.

"Somebody's rather quiet this afternoon." Remus observed some ten minutes later as he strode purposefully into the kitchen, heading for the stove having just bellowed Teddy's name up the stairs for the third time.

Carrie, sat at the kitchen table and gazing blankly out of the window, blinked.

"Hm?"

"You're terribly quiet, Carrie."

"Oh."

"Sickle for them?"

"Um..."

"I could stretch to a Galleon!"

"Well..."

Remus lit the gas with a deft wave of his hand across the hob and a moment later a saucepan had come soaring out of a cupboard. The werewolf seemed momentarily preoccupied as he opened a few cans of soup and set about emptying them into the pan, only to glance over his shoulder to observe:

"Thoughts worth over a Galleon! Goodness me..."

Carrie was silent for a long moment, watching the wizard retrieve a loaf of bread from the bread bin. By the time the loaf had been set down upon a chopping board and Remus had retrieved a knife with which to slice it, the muggle finally wondered:

"Did you ever feel something so...so painful...so awful that you...that you couldn't ever forget it? Something so dreadful that it won't go away...something that's changed you forever? Changed you for the...the worst?"

Remus paused in his preparation of lunch to look up and gaze out of the window, and after little hesitation he murmured:

"Yes I have."

It dawned on Carrie almost as soon as the question had left her lips that really it was a stupid question. She felt her cheeks tinge pink, but ploughed on nevertheless.

"What if you could forget it?" she asked, leaning eagerly forward in her seat. "What if you could...could wave a magic wand and forget what it felt like?"

Remus gave a grim chuckle.

"Obviously I would do no such thing, Carrie."
"Why not?"

"Because I've been waving a magic wand for a number of decades now, and I can remember the night I was bitten perfectly vividly."

"Well yes but...why? If you could make it go away..."

"We can't just go around Obliviating ourselves every time something unpleasant occurs, Carrie." Remus chuckled, giving himself a bit of a shake and returning to slicing bread. "The world could work like that, but it doesn't. Because it shouldn't. We need to remember these things. They make us who we are."

"But don't you hate it? Remembering?"

Remus sighed heavily, abandoning the knife upon the countertop before coming to sit opposite Carrie at the table.

"I asked Dora to Obliviate me, once." he recalled, leaning back in his chair, gaze drifting up towards the ceiling.

"Why?"

"I did something stupid. I wanted to forget it had ever happened."

"What sort of thing?"

"I...reduced Dora to tears in the middle of an Order meeting whilst Snape was in the middle of giving a report."

"What did you say to her?!"

"I didn't say anything...that was the whole point! But I felt utterly wretched, I'd never seen her shed so much as a tear in all the time I'd known her and there she was sobbing into a tea towel...thanks to me! I felt so awful that the next day I asked her to Obliviate the whole incident from my mind."

"And did she?"

"No. She said she wanted me to remember full well how much of a git I was! And of course no sane person outside of the Obliviator Squad just goes around modifying memories like that...as we well know..."

At this nod to the events of the uprising six months previously, Carrie gave a little shudder. She very nearly flinched when Remus asked:

"Where's this come from? Did something happen at Mungo's today?"

Carrie frowned down at her shoes, kicking her feet back and forward under the table in consideration before choosing to simply ignore the question.

"Tell me what happened." she said, looking up to fix the werewolf with imploring eyes. "After the Phoenix Day Parade. What happened to...to me? When you were gone?"

"You don't remember..." Remus observed, and Carrie failed not to sound a little bitter to point out:

"Of course not. You weren't there. Except...you were there. You were watching me. What did you see?"

Remus shifted in his chair, reaching to rake a distinctly guilty hand through his hair before shaking his head a little.

"Not much, really. You got up each day...watched a little television...ate meals...sat in the garden every once in a while...nothing noteworthy..."

"Did I go out?"

"You...went to Cleo's birthday party. It was a barbecue...Dora tripped on the hem of her invisibility cloak and knocked over a glass, it smashed and gave you a fright! You were rather jumpy...following you home was a nightmare, you kept turning round every time you heard our footsteps."

"I only went out once? To Cleo's birthday?"

"You went to the cinema. A boy took you...I don't remember his name..."

"And how was I?"

When Remus only frowned, Carrie pressed:

"How was I when I thought you'd all abandoned me without so much as a goodbye?"

Remus' frown deepened.

"Carrie..." he began carefully, wetting his lips deliberately, "Dora and I simply did what we felt was best for you at the time..."

"I know all of that." Carrie interrupted impatiently, to his clear discomfort. "And I'm not saying it was wrong...or right...or anything! What it was doesn't matter! What matters is how I felt about it, and I bet I felt awful! I bet I...I bet I cried buckets! I...I can't even imagine how awful I would have felt to think you'd left me like that!"

"You...were not yourself, that I would admit..."

"And what about when you told me my parents had been Obliviated and they couldn't get better? What did I say?"

"You don't remember that...?"

"What did I do? Did I cry?"

"You...well..."

"Was I angry? Did I tell you and Dora that it was all your fault?! Did I tell you I hated you for it?!"

For once in his life, Remus seemingly didn't quite know what to say.

There was a dreadful silence, before Carrie wondered:

"Why would I want to ever remember all that?"

It took Remus some time to find his voice, and when he did it was somewhat mumbled.

"Because, Carrie, it's...that's what happened...it's what happened to you..."

"So?"

"You need to know the entirety of your own life, Carrie."

"Then tell me about it. You tell me all about it and we'll leave it at that."

"I can't tell you what was in your head..."

"But you can tell me what happened. That's enough, I think."

Remus squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, as if the whole conversation was painful, before drawing a deep breath and deciding:

"I disagree."

Carrie gave a frustrated shrug.

"What does it matter what you think about it?" she complained as he got to his feet and returned to preparing their lunch. "It's not...it's not your mind! It's mine! I can...I can put in or...or not put into it anything I want!"

"Certainly."

"Then tell me what you know!"

"Certainly not."

"Why not?!" Carrie cried, failing to resist the urge not to raise her voice, shifting furiously in her seat, and Remus informed her:

"Because one day when you are older and making your way through life, you'll want to know exactly where you came from and how you trod your path in this world. You'll want to know precisely who and what you are, Carrie. Because if you don't know something as fundamental as that, you'll hit a bump in the road and suddenly you'll find yourself lost, mark my words!"

"Maybe I know perfectly well enough already who and what I am!" Carrie protested, failing not to sound furious, and to her annoyance the werewolf gave a grim chuckle and murmured:

"Maybe I know perfectly well enough already who and what you were going to become."

Carrie opened her mouth to retort, only for no words to come out. Instead she found herself giving a huff, rising from her chair before turning to stride off into the hallway, making for the stairs.

She hadn't meant the whole move to come across as so childish, but she knew that there was no escaping the fact that childish was precisely what it was...

...but it was difficult to know quite how to react at all, Carrie realised as she reached the end of the hallway and turned to stomp her way up the stairs. After all, whenever Carrie posed requests to Remus or indeed his wife, 'no' was rarely part of their vocabulary...

At this thought, Carrie wrinkled her nose at the realisation that this only made her feel yet more infantile. By the time she had reached the top of the stairs and stepped forward to push open the bedroom door in front of her, the muggle's mood had taken yet another turn for the worst.

Despite her pushing the door open with much more force than was necessary before shuffling into the room, Carrie's mood was quite lost on her boyfriend, who was hunched over the desk by his bedroom window, frowning deeply at a lengthy roll of parchment, a quill pen poised ready in his hand.

Teddy Lupin did not look up. Instead, he merely said:

"Hm."

"What're you doing?" Carrie asked, flopping down upon the bed, and the wizard mumbled:

"Homework."

"What sort of homework?"

"Essay."

"What subject?"

For a long moment Teddy merely frowned down at the work in question as if he wasn't quite sure, only to abruptly straighten up and turn to offer his girlfriend a broad grin.

"Muggle Studies."

Carrie found her mood instantly lightened, her lips pursed together against a snigger.

"That must be fascinating." the muggle said, and the wizard snatched up the parchment, turning in his chair so that he could face her properly, grandly offering:

"It is! Perhaps I could educate you!"

Carrie rolled onto her side, leaning eagerly towards him.

"Please do." she grinned, and Teddy made a show of clearing his throat, raising the parchment up so that he could read it.

There was a long pause, Carrie leant even further forwards until she found herself in danger of falling off the bed.

"Go on, then!" she said with a giggle. "Don't leave me in suspense!"

Teddy ducked his head a little, peering at the parchment from behind his fringe.

"Well it's...it's um...a first draft..." he said, uncharacteristically self-conscious, and Carrie made to snatch the parchment out of his hand with a snigger, only for him to hold it out of her reach.

"What's the title?" she asked, eying the work keenly, and Teddy looked almost as if he was going to blush.

"Um...it's called um...Muggle Perceptions of Magic and the Impact of Subsequent Stereotyping on the Statute of Secrecy."

Carrie blinked.

It didn't sound like a subject she knew anything about at all.

"Wow..." she began uncertainly, only for Teddy to tell her:

"It's about how muggles think magic wands are only any good for pulling rabbits out of hats and how they think all witches are wicked and want to turn people into frogs." Before Carrie could snigger, the wizard added: "Mum says you're an expert when it comes to that last bit..."

At this reminder of a particularly humiliating prank Dora had pulled on Carrie some years previously, an event that had for near on half an hour left Carrie quite convinced that the witch had turned her husband into a frog on a whim simply for being occasionally annoying, Carrie found that it was indeed her turn to blush. She wondered if Dora had suggested Teddy use the whole ridiculous tale as a case study.

"It's not really about that, is it?" the muggle wondered hopefully, and her boyfriend frowned deeply and wondered:

"Well what else do you think it would be about?"

"I don't know..." Carrie mumbled, and when Teddy sniggered she insisted: "Read it, then!"

"All of it?" came the doubtful response, and Carrie instead decided:

"The latest paragraph."

Teddy eyed the text in question rather doubtfully, before beginning:

"Stereotyping has on occasion led to a number of extreme attempts by past wizarding governments to disassociate magical communities from muggle expectations. For example, the Ministry in Denmark once attempted to enforce a ban on the ownership of black cats by Danish witches..."

"What?!" Carrie interrupted, struggling not to dissolve into laughter, only to fail when Teddy informed her:

"It's true. It was a long time ago, they say the Danish Minister for Magic at the time was completely off his rocker..."

"No kidding!"

"...except the Dutch didn't think so. Their Minister said it was fine to have a black cat, just as long as you transfigured it to look more like a tabby."

By now Carrie was laughing so hard that she was not entirely sure that she could breathe.

Teddy stared down at her, grinning widely, before turning to throw the parchment back down upon the desk.

"Look at you," he said, dropping into a crouch beside the bed so that they were practically nose-to-nose, "lying there...going slowly purple..."

"I can't help it that wizards are so ridiculous!" Carrie choked, eyes growing wide, and Teddy told her:

"And I can't help it if we do it to fit in with muggles so well."

Carrie aimed a half-hearted slap at his chest, only for him to catch hold of her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. The young wizard sighed heavily, leaning forward until their foreheads were pressed together.

"I shall never get any work done with you here." he complained happily, and before she could say a word he had leant forward to press a kiss to her lips...

"TEDDY!" an unexpected voice bellowed up the stairs, and the atmosphere was instantly shattered as Teddy mumbled one expletive or another against Carrie's lips. Drawing back just far enough to look despairingly up towards the ceiling, the wizard shouted:

"YES MUM?!"

"What the bloody hell have you been doing to my gold scales?! Dad says they're a ruin!"

Teddy's face contorted in irritation and he wondered:

"What's she doing home from work at this time of day, anyway?"

"What did you do to them?" Carrie wondered as he heaved himself reluctantly up onto his feet.

"Nothing much," he mumbled evasively as he went to throw open the bedroom door "I just...melted them a little..."

"Melted them?!" Carrie echoed, flinching at the prospect of his mother's fury, but Teddy had already disappeared out onto the landing.

The exchange that followed was brief but brutal.

"It was an accident, Mum! Obviously..."

"You're not to touch them, Ted! That's the rule!"

"Well it's a stupid rule, I'm perfectly old enough to..."

"Don't give me that! You've reduced them to a congealed blob of metal, don't you try and tell me you're old enough for anything! The only thing somebody your age is old enough to be is incompetent! You can go straight to Diagon Alley after lunch and buy me a new pair! Yes?!"

There was a long pause before a distinctly defeated Teddy answered:

"Yes, Mum."

Carrie flopped down upon her back upon the bed and stared idly up at the ceiling for a long moment, her amusement slowly dulling until her brow creased into a frown.

As was frequently evident, the muggle mused wearily, Dora Lupin was without doubt one of the most stubborn people that Carrie had ever met, and the chances of meeting somebody yet more stubborn still over the course of a lifetime was no doubt exceptionally slim.

With Dora around, Carrie had never really given a whole lot of thought to Remus.

In terms of stubbornness he fell short of his wife by several miles at least. That much was evident from the fact that Dora was his wife in the first place...

But when she thought about it, when it came to things he felt mattered, his wife aside, Remus Lupin had never given in to anything or anyone in his entire life.

Carrie had no doubt that winning their earlier debate was entirely out of the question. There probably was very little point in trying, not when he seemingly felt so strongly about it...

"Carrie!" At the sound of Teddy's voice, the muggle was jolted out of her thoughts. "Lunch!"

Carrie passed Remus and Dora at the bottom of the stairs as Dora shrugged off her Auror robes and abandoned them upon the bannister.

"Why can't we just pack him off pack to school a few days early?" the witch was complaining to her husband, who failed to suppress a snigger as he leant to press a kiss atop her head. Spotting Carrie's shuffling progression down the stairs, Dora managed an impressively bright: "Alright, Carrie love?"

"Mm." Carrie mumbled, and Dora immediately pulled a face.

"Somebody else is having a sterling day too, I see." she observed as she followed the girl down the hallway towards the kitchen, and behind her Remus agreed:

"There's no doubt."

Carrie barely resisted the urge to shoot him a scowl over her shoulder, such was her continued despair, and she looked distinctly displeased a moment later when, the three of them having joined Teddy at the table, Remus informed Dora:

"Carrie and I have had a difference of opinion this afternoon."

"Oh yes?" Dora said, sounding infuriatingly curious, and Carrie failed not to sigh, slumping forward to rest her elbows upon the table as Remus said:

"Yes, she does not want to go back to St. Mungo's for any more appointments. She would rather be selective in what memories are recovered."

Carrie buried her face in her hands. Then Dora merely said:

"Hm."

There was a sizeable pause as the witch dunked a generous hunk of bread into her bowl of soup, before her son put down his glass of orange juice and began:

"Well, wouldn't we all like to..."

"No we wouldn't, Theodore." his father interrupted frankly, and Carrie might have taken a second to be surprised that Remus had chosen to jump in when she had entirely expected Dora to do so.

Instead, the muggle found herself dropping her hands to the table with a slap, complaining:

"You don't know everything, you know!"

Remus raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed, I certainly don't know as much as you do." he agreed, reaching to retrieve his spoon. "After all, I am not blessed to be in my late teens..."

"Remus..." Dora muttered, frowning deeply at his abrupt sarcasm, and Carrie opened her mouth to retort, only for the witch to suddenly fix the girl with a stare that made the words die upon her tongue. When she found herself looking away, Carrie caught sight of Dora's hand reaching to press carefully against her husband's arm. It was without doubt some sort of warning to hold his tongue. Carrie knew this because she had seen the same gesture on many occasions over the years...

Except it was usually always Remus doing the warning.

The reversal was...odd...

"You know, Carrie love," Dora said as Teddy frowned down into his bowl of soup, "I like sunshine and daisies as much as the next person. But the truth is sunshine'll leave you blind and daisies...well they'll make you sneeze..."

"I'm not going back there, and you can't make me!"

"Of course we can't. We're only...giving our thoughts, that's all..." Dora trailed off with a sigh, returning her attention to her bowl, though her hand remained pressed to Remus' arm as she suggested: "We'll talk it over later, love, alright?"

As Teddy immediately jumped in to change the subject, Carrie felt her heart sinking in her chest, and it remained bitterly that way through the rest of lunch and even afterwards as she half-heartedly helped Teddy tidy everything away. For the first time in what was probably forever, Carrie was keen to go home to her Aunt Susan's flat and sulk in the peace and privacy of her bedroom.

"I think I might walk home." she told Teddy as the last plate was slid carefully back into place and the kitchen cupboard door swung shut behind it, and Teddy immediately offered:

"I could apparate you, if you like! If you and Dad are...well..."

"We're fine." Carrie lied, despite knowing that the falseness of the statement was downright blatant. "I just...fancy the fresh air..."

"If you're sure, Sweetheart." Teddy said, moving to envelope her in a firm hug, and Carrie buried her face in the front of his jumper, very nearly sighing.

"You've got homework to finish off, anyway." she reminded him, and the wizard gave a groan, only to stifle it into her hair.

"You're right. I should get straight back to that. Here," Teddy reached to cup her face in his hands, prising her away from the front of his jumped. "I'd better steal a kiss, it'll be the only joy I'll get the whole afternoon long!"

"You don't have to steal one..." Carrie began, only for him to crush their lips firmly together so definitely that it almost made her jump. Though brief, the gesture seemed to leave him slightly flushed and surprisingly breathless.

"Merlin, I think I could write ten essays off the back of that!" he exclaimed cheerfully, grinning widely. "Take care walking home, won't you?"

"Mmhm." Carrie sniggered as he finally released her and turned to head back towards his room, only to pause in the kitchen doorway when she told him: "I love you, you know."

"I do know!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms up dramatically, causing her to giggle again. "And the thought of it...!"

And with that he turned upon his heel and half-skipped off down the hallway, his comic elation leaving Carrie to dissolve into yet more laughter.

Carrie took a moment to clear away a wayward few pieces of cutlery that had escaped their notice, before heading for the front door, her pace slow and cautious as she attempted to think of a suitable goodbye to Remus and Dora...

They were in the sitting room, seemingly so engrossed in conversation that their son's noisy ascent of the stairs a few minutes earlier had gone entirely unnoticed.

They certainly didn't notice Carrie coming to a halt uncertainly by the doorway.

"It'll work itself out." Dora was saying as husband and wife stood before the sofa, arms carefully around one another as they talked in hushed voices, her forehead gazing his chin. "We'll tell her what she wants to know..."

"We'd hurt." came Remus' wary protest, and his wife sighed and murmured:

"We already hurt."

"Not so much as before."

"No, not so much. We're healing, love."

"Then let's not open old wounds. I see no point in it..."

"The point is, Carrie wants..."

"I don't care what Carrie wants!"

There was a long pause before Dora leant back a little, looking up so that she could meet Remus' eye.

"What d'you want?" she whispered, and his grip upon her tightened a little as he told her:

"I want my wife. I want her to sleep soundly in bed and not...not wake me up kicking and screaming from...from night terrors!"

Dora, Carrie thought, looked distinctly embarrassed, but Remus seemingly didn't notice, for he went on:

"I want things to keep getting better, I want us to be normal as we were before all of this and I want...I want..."

"You want...?" Dora prompted, unfathomably almost smiling, and Carrie thought then that perhaps Remus grew embarrassed.

"I just want normality, that's all..."

"No, you want...?" Dora insisted, rising imploringly up upon tiptoes, and he seemed to need to close his eyes in order to tell her:

"I want you to be mine."

Dora sighed.

"I know, love." she said, as out in the hallway Carrie frowned in bemusement at the phrase...surely she had been his their entire married life and probably before that? Surely...

"I think you're more worried about it than I am." Dora confessed, as Carrie's bemusement rose to ever greater heights.

"Perhaps..."

Dora shifted until her head was resting against the werewolf's shoulder.

"It was...in the paper yesterday...M...Mortell's been..."

"I know."

"It's going to be next month...the appeal, I mean..."

"Yes."

"They'll write to us."

"I expect so."

"Kingsley says they will. He told me this morning...wanted to warn me..."

Remus' grip upon his wife visibly tightened.

"You don't have to do anything."

"I know."

"He'll never win. They don't need you to say anything, they won't release him."

"I know. Are you going?"

"Am I...?"

"To court. You'll get summons the same as me, are you going to go?"

Remus let out a grim huff of amusement.

"Not unless you want me to get thrown in Azkaban in his place on murder charges."

"Don't joke, Remus. Don't joke about...that place..."

Remus squeezed his eyes shut, a prolonged flinch.

"You must let Mungo's sort Carrie out." he insisted quietly, "That's their job, after all, and..."

"But..."

"...we're not ready, Dora. I know we feel responsible for her but we're not ready for any of that! Especially with court summons and Merlin knows what else that'll show up in the Prophet..."

"Nobody's going to make us open those summons or read the Daily Prophet." Dora interrupted sharply. "We can handle this, we can cope! We'll cope because we have to cope. Carrie is our responsibility..."

"We can't just tell her those things! She should know things for real, Dora! She shouldn't have gaps!"

"Then we'll help make sure she fills them properly! But packing her off to Mungo's with no other comfort than 'because you should know' isn't right! We'll rip off the last bandages holding us together, let the scars see the light of day, and do what's right no matter how it feels!"

Remus gave a distinctly wary sigh.

"I'm only worried for you, Dora..." he murmured, and his wife admitted:

"So am I. I'm waiting to fall apart. But we have to keep moving forward, we have to keep getting better, we have to be normal..." Dora paused, drawing back a little so that she could gaze up at him, expression steely as she insisted: "I have to be yours again."

"You don't..." Remus mumbled, his mouth having apparently grown so abruptly dry that his voice cracked, only for Dora to whisper:

"Try me."

"Not...now..."

"Then when?"

"I...another time."

"That's what you said last time."

"Yes, and I said it because..."

"I know why you said it. I wasn't ready, I was...I couldn't think straight! But that was then! This is now..."

"That was only a few weeks ago."

"A lot can change in a few weeks."

"A lot can go wrong in a few seconds."

The couple stared at one another challengingly in silence for a long moment.

Carrie thought perhaps they had both gone mad...

Dora's jaw clenched in irritation.

"At least give me a kiss." she demanded, sounding rather as if, had they not been wrapped tightly around her husband, her hands might just fly to her hips, and Remus gave a huff as if this really was all a bit too much...

He kissed her anyway. It was an exceptionally convincing one that made Carrie's face warm and she was just carefully turning away from the doorway when she caught sight of Dora's hands reaching to craftily grasp the werewolf by the wrists, manoeuvring his hands until his fingertips skimmed the waistband of her jeans, then out of the corner of Carrie's eye she saw the fingers disappear abruptly under denim and...

Carrie very nearly choked on embarrassment as she bolted for the front door, only to somehow manage to trip over her feet and stagger sideways into the wall with a loud thump.

She heard movement back in the living room, before Dora's voice muttered:

"Sod it..."

Carrie ran for the door, just in time for the witch to call:

"Carrie, love?!"

"Don't mind me!" the muggle called back hurriedly as she flung open the front door. "I'm walking home! So um...just...carry on!"

"Merlin..." she heard Remus utter, quite mortified, only for Dora to cheerfully call:

"Great, thanks love!"

Carrie was halfway home and was just passing the newsagents on the corner of Eddington High Street when a voice in the shop doorway very nearly made her jump out of her skin.

"You don't walk terribly fast, do you love?" Dora Lupin said from the shop doorway, reaching to tuck a newspaper under her arm, and Carrie stumbled to a halt, her face flushing. Her walk had only marginally dulled her sense of embarrassment, and she had not yet deciding what had been worse – spotting the couple in a compromising position or having made such a mess of sneaking away that they had discovered her presence.

Or maybe even how ridiculously flustered she had managed to become by it all. It seemed a bit silly, really, after all...they were...well...married...

"What're you doing?" the girl asked the witch, quite mortified at the sight of her, and Dora quirked a distinctly unabashed eyebrow and said:

"I was just buying a newspaper."

"You don't read muggle newspapers." Carrie pointed out suspiciously, and as she took a step forward and reached to usher the girl on up the street, Dora shrugged evasively.

"I glance at them every once in a while."

When Carrie only continued to look disbelieving, the witch was forced to add: "Anyway, had to amuse myself somehow whilst I waited for you, didn't I?"

Carrie eyed her shoes with extreme interest. When she failed to speak for a few seconds, Dora announced conversationally:

"I've been obliviated three times in my life so far...or is it four times now? I can't entirely remember..."

"You seem alright to me." Carrie mumbled, folding her arms firmly across her chest.

"So do you." Dora shot back, one eyebrow again creeping up towards her hairline, and despite herself Carrie failed not to sound irritated to ask:

"What's your point?"

Dora slowed her pace until she was very nearly still, and for some reason Carrie found herself slowing down too.

"The first time I was Obliviated was during my second year of Auror training. Mad-Eye was demonstrating a trick or two one afternoon after the other cadets had gone home, trying to make sure I passed my Stealth and Tracking exam. He tripped over his own feet and dropped his wand...it wasn't very stealthy and I laughed so much he went bright red, lost his temper and the next thing I knew it had never actually happened..."

"Then how do you know about it?"

"He let it slip about two years later during a rant informing me that I didn't know everything, indeed I didn't know my own mind quite as well as he did. When I found out I didn't speak to him for about a week. The second time I was Obliviated was during my...sixth year as a fully fledged Auror. We were rooting out the last of the corruption at the Ministry after the War, everybody was beginning to think everything was in good order until I accidentally stumbled over some incriminated papers some dodgy blokes in Magical Creatures wanted kept secret. I threatened to tell the Minister what I'd seen and the next day I was working late, last to leave Auror Headquarters, and they jumped me in the corridor, bundled me into the lift and Obliviated the mere notion right out of my head!"

"What happened then?!"

"I don't know...I got spotted by a Security Wizard wandering around the Atrium in a daze...wound up with a disciplinary hearing because the idiot thought I'd been sat in my office downing fire whiskey half the afternoon thanks to the state of me! I got off in the end, but nobody ever seemed quite sure what I'd been up to that evening...especially not me...took them ages to figure it all out! They didn't catch the tossers who did it for almost an entire year! Anyway, the first and second time aren't really important, what matters is what happened the third time I was Obliviated..."

"What happened?"

"I don't know."

Carrie glanced sideways at the witch with a frown.

"You don't know?"

"No, I can't remember a thing about it. But it must've been messy, I was in hospital for three days and when I woke up in that hospital bed Remus was sat there staring at me with tears in his eyes. I didn't know what to say to him. I didn't know why he was on the verge of crying or what we were even doing there. I couldn't tell him what had happened, I couldn't reassure him in the slightest. I had no idea. I still don't. And I'll tell you something, Carrie, I don't care if I'd been hit repeatedly with the Cruciatus curse before some dark wizard wiped it all clear out of my memory, I wish I could remember it."

There was a long pause before Carrie set off walking again, insisting:

"You're mad."

"I thought I would be, not knowing something like that!" Dora insisted as she hurried after the girl.

"You're mad to want to know."

"Everybody wants to know, Carrie! That's human nature!"

"Well I don't."

"Perhaps not now, no. But it'll eat you up, the blankness. It made a mess of me for ages, I'll tell you that much! They think I was hit with Unforgivables and that my mind's utterly shut it out and won't let the memory of it back in! That can happen after Obliviation, whether you like it or not. Maybe that's human nature too..."

"Wanting to know and not wanting to know can't both be human nature."

"Why not? People are complex, Carrie. We're all a mish-mash of conflicts and contradictions. That's what makes us who we are. Maybe not being able to remember made me who I am. But it's not who you are. Because you do want to know what's missing from your head. If you didn't, you wouldn't ask Remus to tell you about it."

Carrie chewed her lip, frowning deeply, only to look round at the witch again when Dora told her:

"Look, Carrie love, we'll tell you anything you want to know. Anything at all. If that's what you really want. Whatever Remus says, we'll tell you everything. But there's no escaping the fact that Remus is right, it's not the way to do things. You're better off at Mungo's. Won't you just give it a try? See how it goes?"

Dora's voice was utterly pleading.

Carrie felt utterly wretched.

She thought back to the conversation she had overheard, the apprehension, the worry and the frustration of things moving too fast for Remus and Dora to quite cope with...

She thought of them healing.

She thought she wanted them healed more than she wanted to feel healed herself.

"We'll strike a deal." Dora suggested, abruptly serious. "I know over half the Obliviator Squad by first name. One of them was in my year at Hogwarts...Ravenclaw, took me to Hogsmeade in our fifth year, tried to stick his tongue down my throat and when it didn't go well vowed to just be mates. We smile at each other in the corridor sometimes, he seems decent enough. If you don't like what ends up in your head, I'll bribe him to wipe it straight back out again. What d'you say?"

"Is that legal?" Carrie asked, and she felt oddly amused when the Auror confessed:

"No, not in the slightest. But I don't see how that's relevant."

Carrie very nearly sniggered.

"I'm not going to get into trouble." Dora insisted, sounding remarkably confident, and when Carrie asked her why not, the witch smiled and said: "Because I know you're brave, Carrie. I know it won't come to that. How about it, then?"

Carrie sighed heavily, scuffing her feet upon the pavement as a young muggle woman hurried past pushing a sleeping toddler in a pushchair, a mobile phone jammed to her ear. Once the woman had passed, Carrie turned to look at Dora again, shoving her hands into her pockets.

This time, she really looked.

Dora, her hair today a conservative shade of dark, deep russet brown cropped in short spiky strands against her cheeks, had been morphing again for several months. There wasn't a strand of dull mousy hair in sight. She looked healthy. Her cheeks were adorned with just a hint of healthy pink blush, her dark eyes had their trademark twinkle and her pursed lips seemed to have a cheerful sheen to them that ought not be achieved without the addition of lipstick and yet...had been. She seemed to fill her clothes rather better these days, though Carrie tried not to think too much of how awfully thin she had been upon her release from Azkaban six months previously...

But Dora's hair was rarely pink. Or blue. Or red. Or indeed any bright colour that she had always been so fond of before. She looked pale as a ghost in the morning should Carrie catch sight of her shuffling out of her bedroom before breakfast, and sometimes it didn't matter how they twinkled, meeting Dora's gaze was just plain difficult.

She seemed to have bought quite a few new sets of clothes and seemed to have been issued a few new sets of robes for work...

Carrie had a niggling suspicion that these new clothes were a couple of sizes smaller than the ones she had worn before...

"Why's your hair that colour?" the muggle asked, tone rather accusing, and the Auror frowned at such an abrupt change in topic before reaching to tug at a few strands in consideration.

"Because I fancied it that way?"

"Yes, but why did you?"

"I like the colour. Funnily enough."

Carrie was not satisfied.

"Why isn't it pink?" she asked bluntly, determined to get to the point, and to her irritation Dora gave a huff of amusement.

"Why should it be? Merlin, I hadn't realised I'd accidentally summoned the Fashion Police..."

"You don't have it pink often anymore. Or any...bright colours..."

"Yes, well! I'm not getting any younger you know, love! Sometimes you have to look your age. Not all the time, but there's a time and place for pink hair, you know!"

Coming from Dora, Carrie thought this all sounded like a load of old rubbish.

"Have you lost weight?" she asked, and the look that materialised upon Dora's face suggested that she might be on the verge of hexing the girl.

"No," the witch replied, managing to sound remarkably unperplexed, "I know exactly where all my weight is, thanks! Now, are you going back to Mungo's or not?"

And Carrie stared at her wounded fearless wonder, her beaten guardian angel who for so long she had expected everything of and never truly known any better, before quietly deciding:

"Yes, I'll go back. And we'll not mention ever again."

And with that, her mind made up, Carrie Winters turned on her heel and marched off up the street towards home.

And as she watched her go, Dora Lupin let out a huge sigh of relief.