Note: Hello again! This is Meet the Animagus, which is the 5th story in the Meet the... series. The other stories in reading order are: Meet the Lupins, Meet the Muggles, Meet the Marauders and Meet the Order of the Phoenix. As with the other stories this can pretty much stand alone, anything of importance from previous stories will be explained fully in this 'fic.

This is an AU 'ficverse in which Remus and Tonks survived the final battle. Caroline "Carrie" Winters is a muggle whose family moved in next door to the Lupins and she subsequently befriended Teddy and found out about the magical world. Currently she lives with her Aunt Susan, as explained briefly below.

This story is rated M for the adult scenes in future chapters. Consider yourselves warned!

I shall take this moment to admit that I have managed to confuse myself with the timeline, since I never put a precise date upon Carrie's birthday and merely suggested it was towards the end of the summer, I have managed to confuse myself dreadfully regarding her age during this story. For now I shall claim she is eighteen, due to be nineteen later on in the year. I think that's correct...if not, simply feel sorry for my lack of mathematical brilliance!

This story is dedicated to the wonderful reviewers of Meet the Order of the Phoenix, for making it the most reviewed story I've ever written, with a current count of 325 reviews! Thank you so much for your feedback and I hope you enjoy Carrie's latest adventure!

Anyway, after this, the longest Author's Note in the world, we join Carrie once again at the beginning of her most favourite time of year, and yet again we begin with glorious sunshine, because I'm wonderfully unoriginal when it comes to my opening sentences...

1: The Sneak

It was a gloriously bright Saturday afternoon in the town of Eddington, and upon the gravel driveway of a large semi-detached house set in the town's sleepy outskirts, a great crowd of rather unusual looking people were gathering, all dressed up to look their very best.

Inside the house itself, in a bedroom upstairs away from all the excitement, Carrie Winters was in the middle of a crisis. Locked away in the privacy of her boyfriend's bedroom, having expelled both said boyfriend and his meddlesome tie that he had been busy tying into increasingly baffling knots, she stood before the bed, glaring furiously down at the two dresses that she had carefully lain out half an hour previously. She was pondering an age old question that she was pretty sure had been plaguing the minds of people the world over for centuries:

What should I wear?

In truth, Carrie wasn't really the sort of girl to spend hours fussing over her appearance and if she were entirely honest with herself she would have to admit that she felt a little silly for spending such a long time deciding upon her outfit for the afternoon. In all honesty it didn't really matter what she wore for this, the most exciting event that she had been counting down to for the past few months, because the most important thing was that she was going to be there in the first place.

She very nearly hadn't made it. She had very nearly failed to persuade her boss Peter to give her the day off from work.

"How do you suppose I'm going to cope," he'd demanded to know the previous Saturday when she had finally broached the subject with him, "running this place all on my own?"

Carrie had wanted to point out that running an on-campus bookshop stocking textbooks for the students of her University when the majority of said students had already left to go home for the summer holidays was in actual fact a complete and utter doddle, indeed that day they had only had a couple of customers, neither of whom had actually bought anything. But she had known better than to point this out to her melodramatic employer. Instead she had explained:

"But it's my boyfriend's parents' twentieth wedding anniversary, Peter! They're going to have a blessing and a huge party and I promised everybody that I would be there!"

Peter had spent a good few minutes grumbling under his breath about how he didn't understand the point of blessings and how people should simply have their wedding and that ought be the end of it, but Carrie had ignored him and offered to have her wages docked in exchange for being allowed to go home a week early.

She hadn't bothered attempting to explain that if she had gotten married in the same circumstances and the same manner that Remus and Dora Lupin had done some twenty years previously, she would probably have wanted a second shot at the whole wedding thing too.

Because there was absolutely no chance that Peter would understand the perils and difficulties of getting married during the middle of a war he probably didn't realise had even happened, whilst being on the run from the authorities of a government that he had never heard of, and getting married with little if no ceremony at all because your marriage was in actual fact an illegal one under a set of laws that as far as he was concerned hadn't even existed.

Besides, Peter wasn't allowed to know any of that, whether he would believe it or not. Indeed, there were a whole lot of things about Carrie's boyfriend Teddy's family, friends and general existence that she was obliged to keep secret.

Because the Lupins were magical.

Not magical as glittery costumes and top hats sort of magical, nor magical as in inhuman super heroes, the action figures of which Carrie's older brother's had collected when they had been teenagers. No, the Lupins were magical as in real, proper magic.

Yes, Carrie was dating a boy whose family consisted of a couple of wizards and a witch. Two shape-shifters and a werewolf, to be even more precise.

Carrie had first met the Lupins many summers previously, just prior to her eleventh birthday when she and her family had moved into the house next door to them, and it had not taken Carrie long to realise that there was something unusual about her new neighbours. She and Teddy had soon become firm friends and every summer since Carrie had spent more time at the Lupins' house than she had done her own. She had revelled in the magical little world that she was privy to for many years until one summer when she and Teddy had been seventeen, when Carrie's life had been turned upside down in more ways than one.

For one thing, she had become Teddy's girlfriend. That had been a development that Carrie hadn't really seen coming, despite growing suspicions that she wouldn't be entirely happy with life until she and her best friend became an item.

She hadn't seen her parents having their memories wiped and being landed in the magical hospital St. Mungo's, either. Indeed, that had been possibly the most shocking and downright tragic occurrence of Carrie's life thus far. Since then her older twin brothers Thomas and Timothy had gone to live with their cousins in the neighbouring town of Moorbrook, whilst Carrie had moved in with their Aunt Susan who lived in a small flat in a tower block, the other side of town from the Lupins' house. Carrie would have preferred to have gone with her brothers to Moorbrook, but the rest of the family, who were under the impression that Carrie's parents had suffered irreversible brain damage after a terrible car crash, had decided it better she stay in Eddington so that she might complete her A Levels at the nearby Goodwin College.

She'd asked Dora if she might just move in with Teddy's family instead, but the witch had regrettably told her that they didn't have the space. Teddy had offered to sleep on the sofa so that Carrie could have his bedroom, but Dora had told him not to be daft.

Carrie hadn't really thought this a daft idea, but Dora had disappeared off to work before they could argue with her any further and when they had posed the question to Remus instead he had told Teddy to ask his mother.

Don't be a wuss, Dad! Teddy had demanded when the werewolf had disappeared behind the refuge of his morning newspaper. Tell Mum Carrie can stay with us!

But Remus had simply laughed and told Teddy that he had a lot to learn about how marriages work. He'd then consented to echoing Dora's excuse: there simply wasn't room.

And so Carrie had gone to live with her Aunt Susan for a year before heading off to study History at University, returning to her aunt's during the holidays and to the full comfort of her secret magical little world.

It was a good thing, Carrie mused as she stared down at the dresses upon the bed with a frown, that she was so well practiced at keeping secrets, because it just so happened that the true nature of today's grand occasion was exactly that: a secret.

Dora had absolutely no idea that she would be renewing her wedding vows in just a hour's time. As far as she knew, her husband had arranged a "little anniversary party", much the same as the one he had thrown the year beforehand. Carrie was very much looking forward to seeing the look upon the witch's face when she found out the truth, when she saw the explosion of flowers and the marquee and the archway and...!

Carrie positively beamed at the very thought. It was going to be brilliant, fantastic, just wonderful!

When she'd expressed to Teddy just how amazing and romantic the whole thing was when he'd picked her up from her aunt's that morning, he had rolled his eyes and told her not to be such a girl. But Carrie hadn't taken much notice of him, since Remus had unexpectedly dragged his son out of bed at half past five that morning to start conjuring flowers, which had left Teddy indigent to say the least.

He came out to check on me at eight, once he'd bundled Mum into the floo to Grandma Molly's, took one look at all the flowers all over the garden...and d'you know what he said? Teddy had ranted as he had led Carrie by the hand down the stairs towards the tower block entrance. He said: They're not big enough! NOT BIG ENOUGH!

Carrie had expressed her disappointment that evidently Teddy had not inherited his father's zest for disproportionately huge romantic gestures, to which Teddy had looked mildly offended before pointing out that unlike Dora, Carrie was by no means comfortable with being the centre of attention and therefore if her accusations were true she should probably thank her lucky stars.

When it came to Teddy and his family, Carrie certainly did count her lucky stars, and as she stood scowling down at the dresses upon the bed she began to suspect that it was due to this fact precisely that she had developed the sudden urge to be picky about her attire.

Carrie Winters wanted to be perfect.

She wanted to fit in seamlessly with everybody else at the party, not stick out as The Muggle Girl. She didn't want to be in any way shape or form an embarrassment to Teddy or the rest of the family.

And it was this realisation that at long last solved her wardrobe dilemma.

Because as stunning a dress as the one she was currently eying was, bright red silk and the occasional glittery bead or two was hardly likely to aid her in her mission to blend in with the crowd. Indeed, she was pretty sure everybody would see her a mile off.

Mind made up, she reached instead for the other option; a mottled handkerchief dress of earthy browns and greens that she had last worn the previous summer to a family wedding that had been a far more dull occasion than today's, and set about getting changed.

She had just finished attacking her carefully arranged chestnut locks with a can of hairspray when it suddenly occurred to her that she had forgotten to pack the necklace and earrings that she had carefully selected the evening beforehand.

"Bugger..." she muttered, looking rather wildly around Teddy's bedroom as if they might magically materialise before her eyes...

Sadly for Carrie, there were many random acts of magic that she had witnessed over the years in the Lupin household, but the appearance of missing jewellery out of thin air was not one of them.

The muggle pursed her lips together in irritation and, glancing over at the clock upon Teddy's bedside table and noting that she was fast running out of time, decided to take drastic measures.

She hastily made for the bedroom door, flinging it open and with the briefest glance down the staircase towards the hallway to ensure nobody was looking, she dashed along the landing and reached to throw open the door to the master bedroom, stumbling across the threshold in a manner that was nothing like the covert fashion she had been hoping for. Nevertheless she hastily turned to push the door carefully closed, only to freeze at the sound of a voice behind her.

"You might try knocking next time, Carrie. My heart's not getting any younger, after all."

Carrie felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment and for a moment she remained staring at the door as she mumbled:

"Sorry...didn't mean to make you jump."

Not that Remus Lupin had jumped, the muggle mused as she finally consented to shuffling round to face the man in question, because of course such a thing was entirely unheard of. There was not, as far as Carrie was concerned, a man who was calmer or less easily startled than Teddy's father, indeed had she managed to wrench the door off its hinges and hurl it across the room it was entirely likely that the werewolf would not so much as flinch.

And, judging from the raised eyebrow that she found herself offered when he turned his back upon the window he was staring out of, Remus knew this fact about himself all too well.

She should probably reframe from reminding him on a daily basis just how an impressive a trait she felt this was, Carrie mused as she offered him a rather abashed smile, because as Dora had reminded her only yesterday, such comments only made him even more of a smug git than usual.

"Were you after something?" Remus asked, gaze back upon the pocket watch he was midway through winding, and Carrie sucked in a deep, considering breath before concluding that she might simply just admit to her intended crime.

"Um...Dora's...Dora's jewellery box...?" she mumbled hopefully, and felt quite relieved and yet, when she took a second to think about it, not at all surprised when he simply pointed vaguely over towards Dora's bedside table and informed her:

"Second drawer down. Take what you want."

As she hurried over to pull open the door in question, triumphant at the sight of the large wooden box within, she shot a bright smile over her shoulder and asked:

"Are you nervous?"

"Should I be?" Remus wondered, eyebrow creeping up towards his hairline again as he slipped the carefully polished watch into his pocket, and as she reached to push the lid of the jewellery box open Carrie told him:

"Maybe...most people are, aren't they? When they get married."

The werewolf turned his attention back to the window again, gazing down at the gathering crowd upon his driveway with an amused smirk.

"Perhaps...but then again if she doesn't say I do this time it doesn't really matter, she's already stuck with me."

"Good thing she will though, isn't it?" Carrie pointed out as she reached to push aside a few bangles to squint at a rather elaborate golden necklace hidden underneath. "Because if she didn't married life might get terribly awkward." As he gave a chuckle of amusement she reached to extract the necklace from the box, holding it up to the light for closer inspection. "Were you nervous first time around?" she asked, marvelling at the light dancing upon the gold, making it glitter grandly.

"Utterly terrified." Remus confirmed, drumming his fingers absently against the window frame. "Single most frightening experience of my whole life..."

"Worse than the Battle of Hogwarts?"

"Merlin, yes...you have no idea..." he trailed off with a snigger at himself, turning back around to face her, only for a muffled voice to shout his name from somewhere downstairs.

"It sounds like utter chaos down there." Carrie observed, replacing one necklace in favour of a golden choker adorned with dangling emerald coloured beads, and as he hurried towards the door Remus paused to shove a hand into his pocket, pulling out an envelope and leaning to set it down upon Dora's pillow.

"I like to think of it more as organised chaos." he told the muggle, and then he frowned a little as he added: "Or at least I hope for my sake that's what it is..." and with that, casting one last smile over his shoulder at his son's girlfriend, the werewolf hurried out of the room and down the stairs. As Carrie listened to the sound of his fading footfalls, Carrie reached to slip the choker around her neck, fiddling with the clasp for a long moment and as she did so her eyes came to rest upon the envelope upon Dora's pillow.

She instantly began to fight the urge to reach forward and pick it up.

Carrie Winters had known ever since she was a very small child that it was rude to be nosy, however she seemed to have developed an uncanny ability to overlook or entirely forget this fact when it came to the Lupins. Originally she had put this down to her thirst to know about magic, then to the idea that, despite being relatively private people, they really didn't seem to mind her probing...

And Remus had left the envelope open...

Carrie couldn't quite help herself.

Glancing over at the bedroom door to ensure she was entirely alone, the muggle reached to pluck the envelope from the pillow, sliding the small piece of parchment out from within. She recognised Remus' carefully formed script at first glance, printed in bright scarlet ink.

Attempt 2 at a Honeymoon,

After Attempt 2 at a Wedding.

2 weeks away together,

At the place where the 2 of us

Undertook our 2nd joint Order mission,

Which lasted 2 days,

In which we spotted 2 of every animal,

Except the 2 we were looking for.

You tripped 2 times over the same tree root,

In the space of about 2 minutes.

You told me at least 22 times not to call you Nymphadora.

It was 2 days after full moon,

And probably barely 2 degrees outside.

I went to sleep having given you our only 2 blankets,

And woke up to find you had given me 2 blankets back.

And by the time our 2 days were up,

I'd attempted to tell myself at least 200 times,

That I hadn't fallen for a girl I'd barely known for 2 weeks.

It took you the best part of 2 years to make me see sense.

And though you'll tell me I'm being at least 2 hundred times more soppy than you can stand,

I must confess that since then I can't stand to think of the 2 of us being apart,

Not even for a moment or 2.

So let's get away for 2 weeks.

Because you deserve as much after 2 lots of ten years being married to me.

Just the 2 of us.

Scrawled across the bottom corner, seemingly an after thought, Carrie read: And Ted obviously, but we can leave him with Edwin and the others, call it Work Experience.

Carrie was just wondering who Edwin and the Others were when she heard Teddy's voice shouting up the stairs.

"CARRIE? QUICK, THEY'RE ON THEIR WAY!"

The muggle scrambled to her feet and hurriedly replaced the note in the envelope.

"I'M COMING!" she called, dropping the envelope back upon the pillow, and with that she hurried downstairs.

She found Teddy waiting at the bottom of the stairs for her, his earlier mood apparently lost for as she picked her way carefully down the steps he was grinning broadly.

"You look like a nymph." he announced as she reached the bottom, and when he reached to take hold of her by the hand, the muggle sniggered.

"I suppose nymphs are real then, are they?" she said, and as he leant to brush a kiss to her knuckles the young wizard rolled his eyes at her.

"Obviously. Where did you think Mum's name came from?"

As they set off down the hallway towards the kitchen, Carrie gave his hand a firm squeeze.

"I shouldn't bring that up right now, Ted. If we don't hurry up she might be within earshot...and firing range!"

They hurried through the kitchen and out of the back door into the garden, and almost as soon as she had stepped out onto the patio, Carrie came to a slightly stunned halt.

The garden was bordering on unrecognisable. Carrie had never seen so many flowers in her whole entire life. They were draped across the garden fence, sprouting in enormous clumps upon the lawn, bursting from bushes and climbing their way up and around an archway in the middle of the garden, a great collage of vibrant colours, every dazzling shade of the rainbow.

"Wow..." Carrie breathed, eyes widening at the sight as a flood of guests set about taking their seats upon a long set of benches that had been set down upon the grass.

Apparently Teddy was once again unimpressed.

"Five bloody thirty...!" he muttered, only for somebody in the back doorway behind them to let out a low whistle and announce loudly:

"Sweet Merlin, would you look at that!"

Positively beaming to find somebody who shared her awe, Carrie turned to face to speaker, a tall olive skinned woman dressed in scarlet Auror robes.

"It's wonderful, don't you think?" the muggle exclaimed, causing Teddy to look exasperated, only to swell with sudden pride when she added: "Teddy did it almost all himself!"

"Nice work, Ted!" the Auror praised, and the young wizard brightened again as he said:

"Thanks, Jasmine..." Eying his mother's work colleague's attire he asked: "On a lunch break, are you?"

Gesturing to the man stood just behind her, who was also wearing the uniform of the Auror Department, Jasmine grinned mischievously.

"Isaac and I are doing a bunk!" she announced, sounding immensely pleased with herself. "Boss won't notice..."

"Boss, as you so rightly name him, is staring at us." Isaac mumbled rather apprehensively under his breath, and Jasmine glanced over Carrie's shoulder searchingly before observing:

"So he is!" Raising a defeated hand in the air, she waved enthusiastically at Head of Aurors Harry Potter, who had paused in his conversation with Ron Weasley to frown at his two rogue charges, and stood just to their left was..."Sod it! It's Minister Shacklebolt! Just...just smile and wave, Isaac love...smile and wave..."

"Didn't Robert sneak over here too?" Isaac asked as he obediently raised a hand to wave, and Jasmine winced as she muttered:

"Yes..."

"So...Harry's here, Ron's here, Robert's here, we're here, Tonks is going to be here, and everybody else is out on raids or at lunch...?"

"Yes..."

"Who's manning the office then?" Isaac wondered worriedly, only for his girlfriend to snap cheerfully:

"Shut up, Isaac! Let's sit over here in the shade..."

Carrie shuffled aside to let the two Aurors squeeze past her, and as she watched them take their seats, notably those that were the absolute furthest away from Harry and the Minister that they could possibly be, Teddy sniggered.

"Unbelievable." he muttered, only for a blur of dark hair and rumpled shirt to streak out of the kitchen, coming to an abrupt halt just in front of them.

"EVERYBODY BE QUIET!" ten year old James Potter bellowed to the garden at large. "AUNTIE DORA'S COMING!"

As instant silence descended over the garden, disturbed by the odd excited murmur from the younger guests, Teddy reached to grab James by the elbow and set about marching him up the make-shift aisle towards their seats.

"Shout that loud and she's probably heard you!" the metamorphmagus chuckled, and he had barely deposited James in a chair beside his sister Lily and hurried with Carrie to their seats at the front before everybody heard movement back in the doorway. The entire crowd turned eagerly to look over their shoulders.

"Mind the step..."

"This is mad, I mean come on love...me in heels and a bloody blindfold! I..."

"Careful!"

Carrie had to grit her teeth against a giggle as she watched the guest of honour trip her way non-too gracefully out onto the patio, saved from a tumble by her husband throwing a well practiced arm about her middle.

"Sweet Merlin...put me out of my misery, Remus, I can't take it anymore!" Dora cried, shaking with barely suppressed laughter, and behind the pair Molly and Arthur Weasley slipped past and hurried down the aisle towards their seats.

"You have to wait...a couple of seconds..." Remus murmured, chin coming to rest atop her head, which was today adorned with quite possibly the brightest pink hair that Carrie had ever seen, and the witch shuffled rather impatiently.

"Just...one more second..." the werewolf decided, and no sooner had Molly dropped down into her seat he concluded: "There...ready!" And yet he failed to reach for the blindfold just yet. Instead he took a long moment to gaze around at the garden, at the beaming faces and the flowers, as if to check everything was exactly as it should be...

"Ready?" Dora echoed, and with that a broad grin broke out across Remus face and he reached to pull the blindfold from her eyes.

The crowd let out a wildly enthusiastic cheer.

Dora blinked. And then blinked again. She reached to put a hand to her mouth as she took in the noisy scene before her, slumping back against the wizard stood behind her with a suitably stunned chuckle.

"Oh I should have known!" she laughed when the cheering finally died down. "You've been threatening to do this for at least twenty years..."

"It was never a threat, it was a guarantee." Remus corrected, and she promptly turned to throw her arms around him, hugging him tightly.

"All those flowers worth it yet, Teddy?" Carrie whispered after a moment into Teddy's ear, and as he watched his parents turn and begin to make their way arm in arm up the aisle, the youngest Lupin gave rather defeated sigh, before grinning broadly.

The ceremony itself took very little time at all, yet for that short period of time Carrie found herself utterly fixated by the bindings of glowing light that had materialised around the couple's entwined hands with a wave of the Ministry official's wand. She didn't catch much of what was said, for she was much too busy gazing in wonder at the scene. How wonderful it was, the muggle mused, to be truly bound together by the magical bindings marriage and not by the mere ceremony of exchanging rings. By the time it was all over and she was brought back to reality by the crowd's whooping and clapping at the couple's kiss, Carrie was feeling altogether rather girly and foolish.

Which was precisely the reason she went on to embarrass herself so terribly just a short while later when the party had began. Looking back on the incident, Carrie supposed the main reason she hadn't seen the whole cringe-worthy incident coming was because she had been concentrating too hard on not embarrassing herself in front of the wrong people.

Indeed, come the evening she rather wished she hadn't been so worried about the Lupins' guests and had instead been a little more mindful of the Lupins themselves.

"Do you know," Carrie asked Teddy as the two of them sat down upon the bench that had been placed in the shade of the large tree that stood at the end of the garden, having both just fetched themselves a cool glass of lemonade, "where it was that your parents went on their second Order mission together?"

"The Six Sisters' Vale." Teddy recalled knowingly. "They were attempting to track down the Carrows or something."

"Six Sisters? Why would it be called that?"

"It's named after the six sisters who lived there, they were all magizoologists, some of the oldest on record, and they lived in the valley and studied all the wildlife there. It should be a hotspot for tourists, what with all the magical creatures and the scenery, only the people who live and work there now – descendants of the original six they say – they aren't too keen on visitors."

"Have you ever been there?" Carrie asked, enchanted at the mere thought of such an idyllic place so crammed full of magical creatures, but Teddy shook his head.

"No...Dad's been there quite a few times, the locals all know him because he used to go there to collect animals for his classes when he was teaching. That's probably why Dumbledore sent him on the mission, come to think of it."

Carrie took a sip of her lemonade, gaze wandering over to where the lawn had seemingly been transformed into a make-shift dance floor, music drifting out from a record player that had been set down upon the patio table.

"It sounds wonderful." the muggle murmured, shifting until she could rest her head against Teddy's shoulder. "I would give anything to visit a place like that..."

The party stretched right through the afternoon and on into the evening, and by the time the light had started to fade and the guests began to think of going home or at least migrating into the sitting room, Carrie had eaten and danced so much that she thought she might very well drop. She had barely spoken to Remus or Dora all day, they seemed to be far too busy being whisked off to the drinks table or engrossed in cheery banter to offer her much more than the odd smile. Before Carrie could quite recall where the hours had gone, the remaining guests had crammed themselves into the sitting room and Dora had announced to the room at large that, since she had contributed absolutely nothing to the planning of the day, she ought probably take one for the team and give the obligatory speech instead.

"I always knew I'd be standing here some day," she said, glass of champagne in one hand and Remus' hand in the other. "With Remus, and all of you, celebrating the fact that we've been married for far too long not to make me feel old. And I've known for even longer that I couldn't possibly have ended up with anybody else in the whole world..." she paused to offer Bill and Fleur Weasley a wink before adding: "Except for Bill, obviously, but Fleur got there first..." She took a generous gulp of champagne as everybody laughed in such a raucous manner that it was all too obvious that the champagne and wine had been flowing for much too long. "No, but seriously," the Deputy Head of Aurors turned to beam up at her husband as she admitted: "I've had such a wonderful day, it's been absolutely perfect and I could go on and on about how much I've enjoyed it, or how I feel like I'm the luckiest witch alive...except I won't because some merry soul keeps refilling my glass and I think I must be far too drunk for this sort of thing..." And with that she trailed off with a unusually high pitched giggle and leant to bury her face in Remus' shoulder.

"On that note," Ron Weasley announced as he rose to his feet, reaching to offer a hand to his wife as she too got up from the sofa. "Some of us have work in the morning, so..." He cast a rather worried glance to his right to find Isaac sat upon the sofa, Jasmine sprawled across his lap, seemingly snoring softly.

"She'll be there." Isaac insisted, face reddening a little, but Ron merely gave a snort of disbelief, only for Hermione to give him a tug towards the door, pausing to murmur cheery goodbyes and thanks to their hosts before going off in search of their children.

Once the guests had begun to leave, Carrie and Teddy set about helping those who remained clearing up the garden, and yet Carrie found her mind was somewhere else entirely.

The Lupins' upcoming trip to the Six Sisters' Vale.

She desperately wanted to go with them, more than anything in the world. Indeed the desire was so strong that she had quite forgotten that she wasn't supposed to know about it in the first place.

Remus and Dora had never taken Carrie on holiday before, indeed they very rarely went on holiday themselves because as Deputy Head of the Auror Department Dora had very little time off, the majority of which was taken up by the days following the full moon because Remus had a habit of being terribly weak and sickly after his monthly transformations.

Carrie had spent several hours attempting to remind herself that this latest trip was by no means a normal family holiday, indeed it was a second honeymoon (not that they had ever had a first,) and consequently it would be more than a little cheeky to attempt to invite herself along...

It wasn't as though she would be any trouble, though. She didn't need babysitting, they could go off and do their own thing and she and Teddy could go off and do theirs. Remus and Dora need barely even notice that Carrie was there at all...

And they were always saying that Carrie was as good as one of the family anyway...

Carrie abandoned the tray of glasses that she was carrying beside the kitchen sink and turned to glance sideways at Remus as he set the increasingly huge mound of washing up to begin scrubbing itself clean...

The muggle chewed thoughtfully upon her lip for a moment before venturing:

"Remus...?"

"Carrie?" The wizard glanced sideways at her as he reached to pocket his wand, and for a moment Carrie simply studied him, reaching to bite a nail.

She wondered if he were even half as inebriated as his wife had admitted to being back in the sitting room. Looking at him she suspected not, but hoped he was perhaps at least a little merry because it could be beneficial to her cause.

"I...I was thinking..." she began hopefully. "If...well...maybe..." She trailed off at the raised eyebrow she was offered and instead drew in a deep breath and babbled: "I-was-hoping-that-well-since-I'm-like-well-like-one-of-you-guys-I-could-maybe-if-you-didn't-mind-that-is-take-me-with-you-when-you-all-go-on-holiday-for-two-weeks!"

There was a long, slightly stunned pause and Carrie felt her cheeks burn scarlet in embarrassment. She was about to mumble an apology and attempt to repeat herself because clearly she had been utterly unintelligible, but then the werewolf asked in a whisper:

"How do you know about the holiday?"

Carrie opened her mouth to utter the immortal words: I read your letter...

Only to promptly close it again.

Because of course you aren't supposed to read people's private letters, let alone the sort of letters husbands leave their wives upon their pillows and...

Oh Merlin...

What did I say that for?

He's going to hate me...

She watched, utterly mortified as Remus' eye widened in apparent realisation and she very nearly flinched when he drew breath to speak again...

"Remus!" Dora's voice called from back out in the garden, and the werewolf swallowed a lump that had formed his throat.

"We'll...talk later." he said, staring for another horrified moment, and then he turned and fled out through the back door.

Carrie couldn't quite believe how stupid she had been, how she had managed to open her big mouth...

Utterly furious with herself, she made a run for the stairs and went to hide in Teddy's bedroom, locking the door firmly behind her. Flopping down onto the bed and kicking off her shoes, she gazed forlornly up at the ceiling, heaving a heavy sigh.

"You're so stupid!" she complained aloud. "You shouldn't have gone snooping around in the first place...who does that, anyway?"

You do, she thought miserably to herself. And you won't grow out of it, either. Not like everybody else.

Carrie had for some years managed to curb her desire to stick her nose into every corner of the Lupins' lives, having concluded that really she was old enough to know better. But ever since a particularly troubling incident during a previous summer, she had reverted to her probing ways.

After all, one did not knock upon their neighbours door one day to discover that they, along with the contents of their house, had seemingly disappeared into thin air without a single word of warning, leaving you both startled and horrified, not to mention miserable for the following month before they reappeared in your life as quickly as they had gone, bringing all manner of danger and chaos along with them.

No indeed, Carrie liked to keep an eye on all future goings on, two eyes if she could manage it, because the thought of such a thing happening again without warning was simply unbearable to comprehend.

She had to know absolutely everything. Life felt more stable that way...

But of course this was just silly. Utterly stupid. Unreasonably paranoid...

She'd be attempting to intercept their owls next! And Remus' face...

She was going to have to apologise, of course. That wasn't a conversation that Carrie was looking forward to in the slightest, in fact the thought of it made her cringe and she reached to bury her face in her hands.

The vague, muffled sounds of people moving around downstairs began to fade and through the gaps between her fingers Carrie watched the light continue to seep away from the sky outside until a loud shriek of laughter from the garden drew her attention and she rolled over onto her stomach, reaching to push herself up and off the bed.

"Try again! Try again!"

Carrie shuffled over to peer out of the window, down into the garden where she spotted Remus and Dora stood upon grass, arms tangled tightly around one another as the witch smothered near hysterical laughter into the werewolf's chest.

"Go on, just once!" the metamorphmagus pleaded, rising up upon tip toes and his face contorted in protest.

"Can't I use magic?" Carrie heard him ask, leaning back a little in a vain attempt to escape her lips upon his jaw, only for Dora to jerk backwards, expression utterly outraged.

"Absolutely not! It's not the same!" she cried, causing his face to contort indignantly.

"But I'm not the same either! I'm too old..."

"I seem to remember you being too old twenty years ago too."

"Mm..."

"Well then, you're not too old now are you? You're bloody ancient!" At this jibe, the witch found the arms yanked from around her so that he could fold his arms firmly across his chest. She immediately began to try and tug his hands free.

"You're incredibly mean to me when you're drunk." he pointed out, fighting against a grin, and his wife gave up on trying to unfold his arms, choosing to fold her own instead, complaining:

"And you're incredibly mean to me when you're sober! Stop trying to ruin my fun!"

Remus merely laughed, reaching to run a tired hand through his hair. For a long moment, they simply stared at one another rather challengingly before he let out a resigned sigh and held his arms out to her.

Carrie watched, smiling to herself as Dora reached to throw her arms around him, and, after a deep breath that was very nearly audible to the muggle at the window, Remus wrapped his arms tightly about her waist and with some difficulty lifted her up off her feet, eliciting a small squeak of triumph from the witch. As she watched him shuffle the two of them across the grass in a poor imitation of a dance to the crackling ballad that had been left to play upon the record player, it occurred to Carrie that she was once again spying and yet she had done so without even realising it.

The couple came to a stumbling halt upon the patio, his forehead dropping to her shoulder with an mixture of laughter and exasperation and Dora leant to press a kiss to his temple, patting him comfortingly upon the back.

"That wasn't too bad, was it?" the witch reasoned, only to dissolve into laughter when he straightened up to stare at her with wide eyes. She leant to smother her amusement against his lips, reaching to drape her arms around his neck again with a heavy sigh.

"Take me to bed." she groaned, shoulders slumped. "I need to go to sleep, I'm much too drunk."

"Thank Merlin..." the werewolf murmured, and with that he glanced over towards the house and shouted: "TED? TAKE CARRIE HOME, IT'S GETTING LATE!"

As they set about stumbling towards the door, a mass of tangled arms and hands, Dora's head came to rest against her husband's shoulder as she decided thoughtfully:

"Definitely need to sleep...we'll have to do the whole second wedding night thing another night instead..."

"You think?" Remus murmured, voice the model of seriousness though he looked rather as though he wanted to start laughing again.

"Yes." Dora confirmed, giving her head a firm nod, apparently taking the whole conversation perfectly seriously indeed. "Because I'm not going to remember a thing come tomorrow morning...no point doing it now if I won't remember it!"

"That's remarkably sober logic, Mrs. Lupin."

"It is rather isn't it? I... oh bugger!"

"Mind the step, Sweetheart."

"Thanks love...try pointing it out a few seconds earlier ne..."

"Mind that chair!"

CRASH!