A/N: Sorry for the long hiatus. I really have no excuse, so if you can bear to forgive me, here's the next chapter.

---

The weeks of term slipped by. Cold, snog-filled winter days gave way to warmish, snog-filled spring days. Remus, Patricia, Sirius, and Cassandra all racked up their share of detentions. For some reason, "I'm sorry, Profesor, I was too busy snogging to do my assignment," was not an acceptable answer. However, despite the detentions and ever-mounting pile of homework, life went pretty well.

Then something horrible happened.

Exams.

At the traditional Career Advice for the fifth years with their Head of House, Auror was by far the most popular among Gryffindors. It got to the point where Professor McGonagall put away all the leaflets besides the Auror one.

"So, what'd she say to you, mate?" Sirius asked James at dinner.

James looked glum. "She said I might have a chance, but I need Potions help." He glanced longingly at Lily, famed for her Potions brilliance. "How 'bout you, Wormtail?"

Peter shook his head.

"Well, you can always train security trolls," Patricia remarked wryly.

"She said my magic ought to be fine, but I'd have trouble with the character tests."

"Now, why on earth would that be?" Cassandra smirked, and Patricia laughed.

---

"What's up?" Fred asked. "Why'd you stop?"

"There's nothing," said Harry. "There's a load of pages torn out, see?" He held up the book, where a good half-inch of binding was exposed. He waved the book, as if he was hoping that the missing pages would appear. A folded piece of paper fluttered out of the diary.

Lupin picked it up. "Patricia's O.W.L.'s. And Cassandra's are on here, too."

"I remember that," Sirius laughed. "Cassandra was mad for weeks."

Remus passed the sheet around to everyone, and was amused to not that only he and Hermione could read Patrica's miniscule script.

For Patricia,

Ancient Runes-E

Astronomy-A

Arithmancy-E

Care of Magical Creatures-A

Charms-P

Defense Against the Dark Arts-A

Herbology-A

History of Magic-O

Potions-P

Transfiguration-D

Cassandra had fared slightly better at the exams. Her grades ran,

Astronomy-E

Care of Magical Creatures-E

Charms-O

Defense Against the Dark Arts-O

Divination-E

Herbology-E

History of Magic-P

Potions-E

Transfiguration-O

"So why was Cassandra in a swot?" asked George.

"Yeah, she ought to see our O.W.L. grades," agreed Fred.

"Well, obviously," said Ginny with an eye roll, "Cassandra cared. Cassandra wanted perfect grades. Or at least to Exceed Expectations in everything. And a P in History…"

"It was more that Patricia got an O, when Patricia didn't care. At all," said Sirius. "Once Cassandra got over it, it was actually hilarious. Patricia had almost no classes. Remember?"

Lupin smiled at the memory. "Yeah. Slughorn wouldn't take her, Sprout wouldn't take her, Sinistra would take her, whoever was teaching Defense that year, I don't even remember, well, they wouldn't take her…"

"And do you remember that vein twitching in McGonagall's eye when she did Patricia's schedule?"

---

"What now?" Cassandra asked.

"Hmm?" Patricia looked up from her old History of Magic textbook and a blank sheaf of parchment.

"What now?" Cassandra repeated. "We've got our perfect men, I've got my perfect job—"

"If you pass the Auror tests."

"When I pass the tests. I've got my perfect job, and you'll get rich without doing any work."

"Am not! This takes a lot of—"

"Whatever. I'm serious. We've got everything we've ever wanted, and we're not even twenty. What now?"

"Well, you and Sirius will get married. And so are Lily and James. Probably in some nauseatingly sentimental ceremony."

"And what about you and Remus?" What will you do?"

"We're fine the way we are. Moony and I don't need that stuff. We don't need some pompous wizard to tell us that we're in love."

Cassandra—a great believer in all things traditional—tried to steer the conversation away from Patricia's more peculiar ideas. "How come you call Remus Moony like Sirius, James, and Peter do?"

Patricia's smirk spoke volumes. "Because you don't want to know what I call him in private."

"Excuse me while I vomit."

"Exactly"

---

"So, Moony, I had no clue you were such a stud," Sirius said, shoulders shaking with laughter.

Two spots of color burned high on Lupin's cheeks. Unlike the rest of them, he knew what the nickname was. He really did not want any of them to guess. "Shut up."

"Pass me the dustbin," said Ron, urgency in his eyes. Apparently he had received the gift of an active imagination. Poor Ron.

---

Patricia thought that her writing had two main strengths. However, these two strengths were also her two main weaknesses. When she needed to get a point across, she could focus on it to the exclusion of all else. Sometimes, though, this made her seem overbearing and obnoxious. Also, she could see connections between everything, enabling her to draw many astute conclusions. Except that she tended to ramble. Her finest moment was when she was writing about early broomstick travel and let her mind drift. Three and a half feet later, she was on the subject of ravioli.

Despite the huge sections of random rambling and overstating of some points that she crossed out of each chapter, the book was going well for Patricia. She had completely abandoned her idea of revising Madam Bagshot's A History of Magic and decided to write a competing textbook entirely her own. She thought the title was very creative.

"Magic: The History?" Cassandra asked skeptically.

"No."

"That's what you just said."

Patricia rolled her eyes. "It's not like Hogwarts, A History, where there's the same emphasis on every syllable. You have a dramatic pause after 'Magic,' and sort of lower your voice and stretch out the end, like 'Magic…The Hisssssstory.' A cymbal clash is optional, but encouraged."

"You'll have to put that on the dust jacket."

Patricia pouted. "Moony liked it."

"When are you marrying him?" This issue was coming up more and more often, and was beginning to drive a wedge between the two women, who had been best friends since they were eleven.

Patricia shrugged. "Sometime. Maybe never. It doesn't matter. We're happy the way we are."

---

Harry was shaking the diary again.

"Don't tell me more pages are gone," said Ginny.

Harry sighed. "Yeah. Not as many as last time, but still a bunch."

Sirius and Lupin exchanged a glance. "Well," said Sirius. "One thing led to another, and they just…stopped being friends. They were both so passive-aggressive about it, and claimed it was because they were both devoting so much time and energy to work and never got to see each other—"

"But that was total nonsense," Lupin finished.

"So what did happen?" six voices demanded.

The men shifted uncomfortably. Neither wanted to speak and implicate themselves. Lupin looked at Sirius, waiting for him to speak first. Sirius looked back, waiting for the same thing. Lupin sighed heavily. He looked shabbier and more world-weary than Harry had ever seen him.

"Essentially, it came down to a ring."

"I proposed," said Sirius.

"And I didn't," Lupin said bitterly. "I should have. I knew she wanted me to, despite all her 'we don't need any of that,' talk. But I waited. And now it's too late."

"But surely you don't still want to!" Fred exclaimed in disgust. "She was a bloody Death Eater! And she offed your best friend's fiancée!"

Lupin's face appeared to collapse in on itself. A hooded and cloaked elephant wandered into the room. It had been so easy to become caught up in Patricia's antics and forget her eventual fate. They all wondered silently, not daring to say it aloud: did the diary describe her falling-in with Voldemort's lot, how someone so close to the Order could have turned on them so viciously? Harry sought what had happened to her. It would enlighten the why of his parents: betrayal by another Order member close to them. Was it a lust for power, Harry wondered, or was it fear? Or some other, more convoluted, reason that drove Wormtail and Patricia to Voldemort? Only the diary would tell.

---

The Earl of Liechtenstein hadn't looked so happy in nearly a year.

Patricia was instantly suspicious. "Have you been sneaking extra owl treats?" she asked severely. "'Cause if you are—"

---

"Whoa whoa whoa," George interrupted Harry. "I want to hear about her going over to Voldemort and going on a killing spree, not about some dumb owl."

Lupin's face was hard and pinched. He knew what was coming. "We'll get there when we get there. Can't you give her this last happiness?"

George rolled his eyes, and Lupin looked so fierce that Harry feared a fight would break out in his bedroom. He resumed reading in a loud voice.

---

"'Cause if you are, you'll end up fat and ugly like that one." She jerked her thumb at a cage across the room, where an ancient owl—who was indeed fat and ugly—sat, watching them with huge yellow eyes.

"Hey!" Remus' raised voice carried from the next room of their flat. "You'd better not be insulting Proudfoot!"

"Your owl is fat and ugly," Patricia taunted, then, forgetting both Remus and Proudfoot, returned to the matter of why the Earl of Liechtenstein looked so self-satisfied. He offered his leg, and she untied the letter there that she had missed earlier. The envelope said only, 'Patricia.'

The letter fluttered from Patricia's nerveless fingers as she slid to the floor.

Her thud brought Remus at a run. In those dark times, everyone feared the worst. He was afraid, deathly afraid, that the thud had been her falling corpse.

"What is it, Patricia? What's wrong?"

Patricia, still unable to speak, pointed. She had recognized the handwriting on the envelope.

Remus picked up the letter, unsure of its significance.

"Open it." Her voice was the merest whisper.

Dear Patricia,

It sounds so weird saying that. All formal. We've never been formal with each other, not from the moment an eleven-year-old me marched over to you after Transfiguration and announced that you were my new best friend. I'll never forget the look on your face…

Which is why it's so odd saying "Dear Patricia" at the beginning of a letter to you, like you're my batty old Granny and I'm writing you a thank-you letter for the birthday present of the mismatched socks.

You know, it's been so long since we communicated at all, aside from the necessary niceties that come from being Sirius and Remus' significant others, that writing you should feel odd, but it feels natural. More natural than my life has been for a long time.

I love Sirius with all my heart, but I can't live on Sirius alone. You are my best friend, no matter how long it's been. I miss you so deeply that words can't even express it.

I remember our graduation afterparty. Both of us had put away what seemed like barrels of firewhiskey, just because we could. You used to claim that you were Irish and had, "the alcohol tolerance of the gods," but your heritage was not apparent that morning. I claimed that I had been sneaking into the Hog's Head from midway through fourth year, even though you knew this was totally baloney. If anyone else had seen me that morning, they, too, would have known what a liar I was. I remember at breakfast the next morning, all we had to do was look at each other and groan in unison. Everything else was understood—that you'd tell nobody that I'd lied about the Hog's Head, and if I made one crack about leprechauns, I'd be hexed badly.

That was my favorite part of our friendship. The effortlessness. How we both just knew. That's the part I miss most.

What I'm trying to say is that I want it back. I'll do anything you want. No more snippy remarks about you and Remus, no more flashing my ring, no more "thinking out loud" about the effectiveness of contraceptive potions. I realize now how wrong that particular topic was. It's your life, Patricia. Live it how you want. I was an idiot for even trying to meddle. I know I don't deserve your forgiveness, but I would like to ask anyway.

Dinner, tonight, the Leaky Cauldron (only because it's a wide-open place, and known to be Order-sympathetic)? Just us?

I want my best friend back.

Love,

Cassandra

"You're going," said Remus, tolerating no protest.

Patricia tried anyway. "But—"

"You're going." Remus knelt down next to her and took her face in his hands. "Don't try and say that we need you. Proudfoot, the Earl, and I can manage for one night. Go. Get your best friend back."

Patricia tried again. "But—"

This timed Remus silenced her with a kiss. Nothing passionate, just a peck. His eyes burned into hers. When he drew his lips back, she whispered, "I'm going."

"Good girl." Remus kissed her properly, then.