20

Chapter 20: Give Dating a Go

Thanks for all the reviews. I hope your holiday was a good one.

This one got away from me and I had to rewrite it a few times. Don't worry I'm not bringing in any new main characters. They will be side characters to keep the men folk happy.

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Days went by and they were all happy with the schedule that was set. The boys thought it was a bit much at times, but they were learning so much. The private secondary school was a lot more taxing than their old primary school had been. A lot more was expected of them, in terms of homework and classroom participation. For magic they were doing practical stuff more than theory, which they were to study in their limited free time. At least there weren't any essays assigned. For that the boys were thankful.

They heard that Hogwarts had some assigned every day, for every class. They both shuddered at that thought, and that they had to be written in quill and ink instead of pen and paper like they used for their homework for school. Or even better on the computer, which the boys were prone to do when they were allowed.

Still, everyone was okay with the workload, even Sirius and Remus. Who taught the boys on top of their day jobs.

Sirius was still working in the wizarding world with the Wizengamot and his role in the government, which meant he had to go to the ministry daily to keep up on the news and happenings. If he missed a day, there was a chance that someone like Umbridge would try to pull another of her hair brain schemes in tying the werewolves up further than they already were. She was on a leash right now because he held her family over her head. He was still debating on making it public and just doing away with the bitch completely. He was leaving that up to Remus, who was content on sitting on it for the time being.

Remus was still going to his shop every day. His business was booming as he made a name for himself. He made sure to turn away some customers who came in with things that would be beyond repair for a normal non-magical person. He didn't want to be seen as a miracle worker. He just wanted to be known as a great handyman, who got the job done on time. So far it was working out great for him.

It was the first weekend of the first week of school and they just finished enjoying a Sunday brunch, which was a full English breakfast. They only had that on Sundays when everyone was home. Neville went to see his parents Friday night, right after school, through Sunday mornings, when he came home to eat with the family. They would then use Sunday nights to practice magic. This way he was home for school Monday morning. It worked out for everyone.

It was around that time that they got their morning bags of post from the PR company. Who were still going through the mail for them. That way nothing could be tracked to the penthouse. The family was expecting more letters because of Harry's 'defection' from the wizarding world. Not that he was ever a part of it, but that's how people saw it according to a great deal of the letters they received, even the 'good luck' ones. The Public Relations people would take care of the death threats, as usual, but they would still have to deal with the hate mail.

The adults would tend to most of it. However, if there were any private letters for the boys, they would be handed over. Case in point, there was one for Harry from Hermione in this morning's post.

"Well, what does she say?" Lily asked, wanting to know if the girl still had on her rose-colored glasses. She didn't think there would be anything private in a letter from an eleven-year-old girl. Or was she twelve now? Lily didn't remember when her birthday was, only that it was in September. "You don't have to tell me anything private, just what she thinks about Hogwarts," she added, not wanting to sound pushy.

"She says that Hogwarts is a wonderful piece of architecture, and that Dumbledore is larger than life," Harry said, skimming over the first paragraph. "She said that there was quite the hubbub when my name was called, and I didn't show. The whole hall was in an uproar. They were demanding to know where I was," he said, there was a smirk playing on his lips.

"I don't get why they called your name. They knew you wouldn't be there," Neville said, looking at the letter like it had offended him. "Did they call my name?" he wondered aloud. He knew they probably had not. He was not the 'hero' that Harry was, which he was completely okay with. He had seen the messes that Harry got into when he went out into public. Heck he'd been caught in the middle of them often enough to know that he never wanted to trade places with his foster brother.

"She doesn't say anything about you, so I'm going to go with no," Harry said, reading the rest of the letter. "She was sorted into Ravenclaw and says there are a lot of like-minded people in that house," he said, continuing to read. "She says there's a lot of snooty people too. She didn't know there would be that many pureblood snobs in Ravenclaw. I don't know why she would think that. They're everywhere, even in Hufflepuff," he said, finishing the letter and tucking it back in the envelope.

"I wouldn't say there were that many in Hufflepuff," Lily said, while Sirius and Remus nodded in agreement. "If there were, then the last war would have ended much sooner and the other side would have won. Don't underestimate the hard work and honesty of the Hufflepuffs," she added, thinking of how soon the war would have ended if Voldemort had been a Hufflepuff and used his loyalty and hard work to get things done. His followers would have been more efficient as well. It gave her the shivers just thinking about it.

"Yeah, if they put their minds to it, the Hufflepuffs could rule the world. It's a good thing they see it as something bad," Sirius said, quite seriously.

All three adults took a moment to see if they could envision a world that was ruled by the Hufflepuffs. Lily found it to be a nice place, as long as they weren't Voldemort, or like him. Sirius and Remus found it to be something completely boring. All that lovey dovey stuff would chaff their manliness.

"She loves all her classes, even History and Potions. That's shocking, knowing who teaches those classes. I know for a fact that they are the worst classes in that school. I wonder if she's trying to convince herself that they are good. Anyway, she still thinks that Hogwarts is preferable to tutoring and that Neville and I are missing out on a good education," Harry said, patting the pocket where the letter was. "I don't have the heart to tell her she's incorrect." He knew it would be hitting a brick wall to try and talk her around now. Maybe in a few months she would see that Hogwarts was not all that it was hyped up to be.

"She'll find out for herself when she sees that you are learning more than her. She'll feel very left behind when you talk about your regular studies as well. Hermione is the type of person that likes to know more than the people around her. She'll demand that she take summer school for muggle courses, you just wait and see," Lily said, seeing as that was what she did when she was that age. Her parents let her even though it cost them a pretty penny. Hermione's parents could afford it, thank goodness. Not all muggleborn parents could.

"Any thing else interesting in the post?" Harry asked, changing the subject away from his friend. He really didn't have that many friends that would send owl mail, only Hermione, but who knew maybe there was some from kids his age that were looking for a pen pal.

"The normal, 'we hate you', 'we love you', or 'good luck', mail," Sirius said as he perused a 'we love you' letter. He loved how these people thought they affected them one way or another with their words. Not even the other piles did that. However, they made sure to answer them all because they couldn't afford not to. One day Harry would be on the Wizengamot, and he would need supporters. If they offended people by ignoring them now, those supporters would disappear now and would be harder to obtain later.

"More of the 'good luck' letters, I hope," Harry said, reaching for one of the letters in the middle of the table. Neville grabbed one too.

"Yes, surprisingly," Lily said, pointing to the pile that had those letters in it, and it was larger.

"We are getting less hate mail than before," Remus pointed out as he grabbed his teacup and took a fortifying sip. He had just finished reading one of those hate letters. It never ceased to amaze him what people would write to an eleven-year-old. Some people were just full of hate.

"This one has a picture in it," Harry said, looking at a woman in a very skimpy outfit. The picture was also moving weirdly and making moaning noises. "Why is she wearing that?" he asked, turning the picture this way and that, trying to make sense of it. "What is she doing?" was the next curious question.

"Give me that," Lily said, snatching the picture out of his hand. "Don't you have homework to do?" she asked, moving all the letters out of their reach. She didn't want them to run into anymore of the racier ones. She took the one Neville was reading as well. It was only a 'good luck' one, thank Merlin, however the next one might not be.

"No," the boys said, looking at each other and grinning. They were getting that talking at the same time thing down pat. Not that they were trying, but they seemed to be doing it more and more. It was kinda cool.

"Go play then. It's going to get cold soon, enjoy the sun while you can," she said, shooing them away.

"Fine," Harry said, getting up from the table. He nodded to the adults and left, Neville trailing behind him. His mum was right, the sun would be fading soon, so they'd better enjoy the outdoors while they could.

"Damn those women," Lily said, tearing the photo in half. She didn't care that the woman inside was screaming when she did it. The woman should have known better than to send a risqué picture to her son. Everyone knew Lily was around by now. They should know how the mother would react to such tomfoolery.

"Ah, Lily, I wanted that," Sirius whinged, picking up the now inert picture. He tried a repair spell on it, but while the two pieces did glue back together, the picture didn't move. He threw it in the bin. There was one that he would not have fun with. Bummer.

"Pervert," Lily said with disgust, but it did make her think of a question that had been bothering her. "Why aren't you dating anyone?" she asked both men.

They both had when they first got together as a family, then they just stopped. In the last few years, they had been off the market. At first, she thought it was because they were keeping everything a secret. Then she realized that they were just not dating. Now she wanted to know the reason why.

"You know why I'm not," Remus said like it was obvious, which to Lily it was not.

"Why? Because you're a werewolf? That's just stupid and you know it," she rebuked, wagging her finger at him. As far as she was concerned, he was a good-looking man in his prime, if a bit rough around the edges. "It's not a gene, so it can't be passed on to your young," she explained to him as if he didn't know, which he bloody well should. "It's a virus that can only be spread via saliva and only during the full moon," she added, poking him in the chest.

"I know all that but finding a woman who is willing to take that risk is not an easy task," Remus stated, slumping his shoulders. He really hadn't been looking. He was quite content to die a bachelor.

"Try dating someone in the muggle world," Lily said, tapping her upper lip in thought. "You don't have to tell them until you get serious," she stated, still trying to muddle out ways that would work for her friend. "Or you can ask some of the squibs that you know, they already know you're a werewolf, and accept it," she finished her thought.

"That's true," the werewolf said, thinking of the people that knew of his shop and visited his employees often. There was even a few that were quite pretty. He would have to feel them out. There were quite a few muggleborn that came in to see what his shop was all about too, and if they could do the same thing. They would ask him for pointers on how not to get caught breaking the Secrecy law.

"What about you, Casanova?" Lily asked, turning to the quiet Sirius. He had dated heavily when he first got out of Azkaban, but then just stopped.

"All I've run into are gold-diggers, or those that want to date a 'bad boy'," Sirius said, a bit of anger in his tone. "I've gone through most of the available female population my age, and if they don't want my money, they want to meet Harry Potter: the Boy-Who-Lived," he sneered, tossing another 'we hate you' letter in the small pile. "Then there's those that want to be seen with an ex-con. I do my best to stay away from them. They just don't get that I was innocent." Those were the women he hated dating the most.

"Have you tried the squibs and muggles?" Lily asked, wondering why they were sticking to the wizarding world where the pool of available witches was so small, thanks to the last war. If it wasn't Voldemort killing off the purebloods that didn't follow him, he was killing the muggleborn for sport. Or the muggleborn were leaving the wizarding world for safety reasons. Most of her muggleborn, or raised, classmates had opted out, and were now living in London or other cities in the UK. Or even in other countries.

"I can't marry a squib," Sirius said, ignoring the muggle part. That was completely out of the question. Lily should know that. He wasn't sure why she even suggested it. There would be too much of a cultural difference for him to adapt to or vice versa. Even after all these years living among the muggles, he still preferred to date his own kind. "I would lose my entire fortune if I did," he explained, holding up his hand in defense. "It's written in grandfather's will, the person I marry has to be magical. Preferably pureblood, but any magical would do."

"What about a muggleborn?" Lily asked sweetly, like she really wanted to hear his answer and it had better be the correct one. She knew he was prejudice even after all this time, but she hoped he was not so against the muggleborn.

"I don't know any," was his weak answer. "I truly don't," he said, defensively. "When we were in school, they stayed away from me because of my last name," he stated, which was completely true. If one came up to him, they were soon chased away by someone pointing out that his family was dark and hated the muggleborn. It ruined a lot of budding relationships.

"There's a matchmaking agency that you can owl. It specializes in magical folk, though there is a foot note for squibs," Lily said, getting up and getting the Daily Prophet. There was a classified ad in there just for the lonely muggleborn, and those that were seeking them. It was quite a classy ad, but it was done up in a standard business style. Something that a normal pureblood wouldn't pay attention to.

"Must I?" Sirius said, not liking the thought of going through an agency to find a woman. However, he hadn't been lying when he said he had gone through all the available purebloods, and half-bloods in his age group. Maybe it was time to widen his net.

"Oh, don't be such a big baby," Lily said, finding the ad and shoving it at him. He pushed it away. "If Remus doesn't start stirring his own potion, I'm going to force him to as well," she said sweetly, making the werewolf vow to find his own female companion. She took the paper and looked at the ad again. It wasn't scary.

"Why are you pushing this? I would think you would want less people to know about us?" Remus asked, not sure what her motive was.

"I just don't like that you've put your lives on hold for me and the boys. They are getting older and settled, it's time to get some resemblance of a life back for you guys," she said with a sigh.

"Aren't you worried it might be a trap?" Sirius asked, looking at the paper like it was going to bite him.

"No, I would look at someone setting you up from the wizarding world as a trap. I don't trust anyone there, but this is an agency run by muggleborns. It's different," she said, handing him the paper and showing him the ad again. This time he took the paper.

Sirius and Remus looked at the ad, and they had to admit it didn't look tasteless. Maybe it would be alright after all. What could go wrong?

Hphphp

The matchmaking agency did its job, eventually, and both Remus and Sirius were dating people that accepted them for themselves. Both couples had been going strong for just over two months now. The dating didn't go well for the first couple of months. There were a lot of bad dates, until they each met the women they were with now. They were friends of friends, who were from original dates and such. So it was still technically from the matchmakers, just in a roundabout way.

Remus was over the moon that he found someone who didn't care that he was inflicted with lycanthropy. She was more concerned that he had a safe place to change and that he took his potion on that day. She, herself, was not a potions mistress, but she was friends with one, so she made sure he was set for the full moon. She was fundamental in keeping the store open during that time. Her name was Sally Kesler. She was a small redheaded woman, who had a temper to match Remus'. Which is to say, none at all. Both were easygoing and laid back. Nothing seemed to faze them.

Sirius found someone who liked his sense of humor, which was rare. She liked to play practical jokes on people as well, though she was coyer about it than he was. She also had her own money and didn't care about his. He didn't have to buy her expensive gifts to keep her happy, since she already provided for herself. The only issue was that she was barren, meaning that Harry would be his heir for good. Sirius was okay with that. Her name was Mandy Brown. She was as tall as Sirius with hair just as black as his, only much longer.

Neither lady lived in London or near it. They always met in Diagon Alley for their dates, which could be reached from anywhere in the United Kingdom. They took the Knight Bus to their date venues, or a portkey if they were running late. The only location they knew belonged to the men was Remus' repair shop, which was in Surrey.

"Lily, can we bring our lady friends to the flat?" Sirius asked one day when they were all home. He had wanted to bring Mandy home for awhile now, but Lily's paranoia had kept him from asking. She was quite adamant about keeping Harry and Neville safe. He had been completely surprised when she suggested they date in the first place.

Both the boys were doing their homework in the kitchen, so it was the prime time to talk about this.

"It's your house too," she said, tilting her head to the side, like she didn't understand why he was asking her permission. He was a grown man after all. He should know what precautions to take to bring someone into the penthouse.

"Yes, but we didn't want to bring someone here that you didn't know," Remus said, looking at his best friend for confirmation. He too wanted to bring Sally here, but he was going to defer to Lily's wishes.

"Do they know and understand our situation?" Lily asked, split between hoping they did and wishing they didn't.

"Sally knows about the boys, there's no hiding that Sirius and I are related to them in some way. However, she doesn't know about you," Remus admitted. "She knows that we are not pro-Dumbledore, which is good because she can't stand the man," he added, remembering the tirade that his girlfriend went on over the headmaster. He didn't think his opinion could get lower until she put her two knuts in. "She knows we are hiding from him," he added, still thinking about his girlfriend's rant.

None of the muggleborn that he had dated had a good opinion of the man. Most saw him a main part of the problem with today's wizarding world's bias problem. He was too forgiving to the wrong people and tended to punish the victim. They had all either been a victim or known one. Dumbledore was not well liked in the middle and lower parts of the wizarding society. He liked to think he was because of the Weasleys but truly they were rare in that social class.

"Same," Sirius said with a nod of his head. "I am kind of well known," he explained. "So, she guessed who the boys are as well. She doesn't completely know about you. Mostly hearsay," he said, holding up his hands. "She does know what's going on. She keeps abreast with the news."

"Well, that's all fine and good, I guess. As long as you get vows from them, I have no issues with them coming over," Lily said, happy they finally got some good ladies in their lives. It was about time. She would be keeping a close eye on them of course. But they were welcome to come with the vow.

"What kind of vow?" Remus asked, not sure if they could ask someone they'd only known for a few months to take an unbreakable vow. It seemed rather pushy of them.

"An unbreakable one, of course," Lily said, making both men groan. "What? It's the only safe one," she said with genuine confusion. "You said they understood the situation. I would think they would expect it," she added.

"I'll ask, but I have a feeling that will not go over well," Sirius said. Remus nodded his agreement. Well, Sally might not mind, she might not be ready to take an unbreakable vow, but she wouldn't throw a fit about it either. Mandy might though.

"It's the only way to keep the boys safe," she insisted. She wasn't going to back down on this. "I know it's asking a lot, but I would do the same if I were dating," she said, firm in that belief. Not that she ever gave thought to dating anyone. James had been enough for her, and with him gone, she was content to have just Harry around. Maybe it was because she was a 'ghost'. Who knew. Still, she didn't think she was asking too much.

"What should this vow entail?" Sirius asked, hoping it was simple.

"First, they can't tell anyone where Harry, or Neville, are. Anyone, magical or non. Not what city we're in or even country if it can be helped. Second, not to let anyone know what they are doing, like what they are studying. Third, to make sure they keep everything we talk about a secret. No one needs to know what is said between us. If they are to be brought in, that includes everything we tell them," Lily said, thinking that covered just about everything. It was simple enough. Most unbreakable vows covered three things; those were the three things that she could think of.

"That doesn't sound too bad," Remus said, thinking over the wording. It was simple enough that it would not be taxing for them.

"I can get behind those terms," Sirius agreed, he just hoped his girlfriend did. Mandy was an alright sort, but she was just a bit headstrong. She was the one pushing to know where he lived. She didn't like that he was keeping secrets from her. Some people were just like that.

"If you can get them to take that vow, I would love to meet them," Lily said, she had only heard stories about them after all. They sounded like lovely women. Sally was perfect for Remus, and Mandy kept Sirius in line. If she wasn't his cohort.

"We can only ask, I guess," Sirius said, hoping that it didn't mean the end of his relationship. If it did, then she wasn't the one meant for him. His priority was Harry. It always would be. Still, it was nice having female company after so long without it.

"That's all I ask," Lily said, her thoughts were with Sirius' in that she hoped that it didn't mess things up for her men. She just hoped they didn't have to run again. Or they would stand up and fight this time. Either way, these women needed to know what they were getting into before they committed further.