No one but he would have realized what was going on. So many things had to coincide for that particular penny to drop--so many tiny bits of information, lying just so in the mind, had to be waiting there, ready for this one last bit.

He couldn’t move. He stood there, looking down into the amphitheater, looking at the children playing, running in circles, and he knew, although it was not his best subject, that it was a potion stirring sequence they were playing at.

Oh, they didn’t know--he was sure they didn’t know. What fun it would have been, at that age, to run around in such exquisitely particular circles, run around six and three-quarter times to the right, then two and half left, another five and a quarter right, with a pause while they sang some little rhyme, and another two and a half, followed by 22 and three-quarter swirls left.

He didn’t catch the pattern the first time he watched it. He didn’t catch it the first half a dozen-- if she had not been haggling over postcards, if they had not been discussing Remus this morning at breakfast, if, if, if… He had sat there, bored out of his mind, and started noticing.

Children playing were a subject to him these days. She thought he had no idea. He had the idea, the whole idea, and he was both terrified and excited and full of the sense of something being right. He’d never told her, but he had trouble really feeling married--it had nothing to do with feeling bonded to her, he was, in the soul, there was no question, but married…married was what his parents were, and he could not remember his parents without all of his brothers and sister. Even now, their seven children were with them, part of them, wherever any of them momentarily were.

That was why he had started watching. They were children. They were playing. It was some sort of running and singing thing, more like what he would have expected from girls, but it was all boys playing it. He had tried to figure it out. That was when it hit him.

She was standing next to him now. “Come on, Ronald, we’ll be late for our reservation.�

He stood there, staring at them. “We’ll have to be late.� He said, simply. “We have to talk to those children.�

She had no idea what was going on, why he would want to talk to them, but he was looking serious, and she felt indulgent. He knew. She hadn’t told him, but he knew-- how, she had no idea, but he knew, and it was growing him up further, when she’d thought that the war, and their losses, and the adjustment to peace, and their losses, had pretty much finished whatever growing up he was going to do--and been satisfied. It was enough. He’d only needed a bit of fine-tuning to begin with, really; if he hadn’t been sound at the core she would never have loved him the way she did-- the way his mother loved his father, truth be told, although if anyone had told him it hadn’t been her. Finding that he was growing further, rounding out in ways she hadn’t even realized he had been flat, had charmed her yet again. They could veer from the schedule. She had done some growing, too.

“Fine, Ronald. This way, I think. There seems to be a faint path.�

It was faint, very faint; it led down the slope from Fiesole’s promontory site to the amphitheater on the side of the hill, meandering a bit through the vegetation. Odd, wasn’t it, that she couldn’t seem to focus on the grass, or weeds, or whatever it was.

“There’s magic here,� she said. “Careful.�

“That’s why we’re going down here. I waited for you. Hopefully they’ve been taught better than to carry on conversations with strange men.� Ron was firm, determined, but not worried. Whatever magic was down there, he did not fear it. Respect it, yes, but he had gone beyond fear so often, he had learned when not to bother beginning.

The children were gone when they reached the flat stage area where they had been running. “Well, it Is dinnertime.� Hermione said. She stood there, calm, tensed, but not tense. She stilled herself entirely, stilled her movements, her thoughts, her breathing, every sense open, and waited. She felt nothing until Ron tapped her on the shoulder. She turned to face him, and he pointed. There was one child, at the edge of the field.

“We have to follow him.�

He wasn’t hard to follow, and they looked at each other. He was leading them, no question of it. They reached a pile of old stones and walked between them, suddenly seeing that where they had seen only bushes and grass before, there was actually a courtyard, and they were in it. A teen-aged girl in muddy-colored robeswith long, chestnut hair was putting a bit of grass on the fire. Over it was suspended a cast-iron cooking pot. It was not a cauldron exactly, but something that looked like Napoleon’s troops might have left it behind. Napoleon’s, or Caesar’s. In fact, everything looked more or less like that.

The girl turned and looked at them. She had a wand in her hand, but did not raise it. A large cat bearing an amazing similarity to Crookshanks got up from where it had been resting near the fire, stretched, and meandered over to them, twining itself around their feet.

“Er, Buon Giorno� Hermione said, a bit hesitantly.

The girl smiled, and Hermione felt her mind entered--entered, but not to be probed. Rather, something was being deposited. It was a picture of the full moon, and the sound of a howl.

“Yes, we do – Si, Si, noi – Ron, how do you say “We Do� in Italian?�

“Frate Lupo es nos frate. That ought to do it, Hermione – I ‘m sure I got it wrong, but she knows what I mean.�


The girl pointed to the table.On it was a series of little piles. There were four piles of greens, one of which was mint, but the others…

“Neville.� Ron said sadly, and in frustration. How often did they still do this--refer to one of their departed friends? They had no need to say more, no need to say “I wish he was here,� or “she would have loved this;� the name was enough to say everything.

Hermione did not even need to nod. Yes, mint, and celery, dried leaves with little bits of purple, Belladonna, perhaps, and some ratty looking straw-colored dry bits-- things Neville would have known at a glance--sitting there on the scarred old slab of wood. She looked up and the girl said “Chamomile�

Sedatives, poisons, spices… what had they in common? What could they do for a werewolf--or a really bad case of PMS? Hermione was still not entirely clear on what was being offered.

“Garlic and cinnamon. I’ll have to get mom to try that combo sometime. Although why the four white pebbles…. Are they moonstones, Hermione?�

She looked. “No, just white pebbles. At least, to me they just look like white pebbles. And a piece of paper with “Frate� written on it in pencil�

“Capelli meglio,� the girl said, almost apologetically. The girl pointed to the pot. There was water boiling in it, and she made a sign of the cross.

“I think she has Muggle Holy Water in there, Ronald, I’m not sure I like this one bit.� Hermione was trying to keep her voice even and her smile bright as she murmered through clenched teeth. Ron could feel her tension. “This is a little too Shakespeare for me…�

“No, Hermione, not Shakespeare, Assisi. Don’t you remember the story the guide told us two days ago, about that St. Francis chap calling the wolf “Brother Wolf?� He was a big religious guy. I think it’s like that.�

The girl spoke a second time. “Francesco, si.�

The ingredients went into the pot then, first one pebble, then a stir, a green, another pebble, a stir, two pebbles, two greens, the garlic and the cinnamon, a stir, the last pebble, along with the slip of paper, a stir and the final green, followed by the twenty-two and one quarter stirs left.

She brought it to a simmer, held it there while she hummed to herself for seventy three seconds (Hermione timed it on her wristwatch), and abruptly grabbed the pot by the bail and swung it up off the hook that held it over the fire. She waved her wand with her other hand while doing so, and the potion immediately cooled.

Sucking up a bit with her wand, she it into an old Coca Cola bottle that was waiting for it on the table, popped a cork into the bottle’s opening and handed it to Hermione. She smiled and looked her in the eye. “Per Frate Lupo� The courtyard slowly faded back to the vision of grass and bushes which were all any Muggle would ever have been able to see, and wordlessly they turned and made their way up the hill, the precious bottle held carefully in Hermione’s hands.

******

“In Fiesole, you say?� Remus Lupin looked intrigued. “That’s an ancient Etruscan town. I suppose it is possible they have something there the rest of us don’t know about--maybe something they keep secret. Some of the ancient wizards were like that. They didn’t have a wizarding economy; they could only pass on cures and potions from friend to friend.�

He was looking a bit like old Mad-Eye Moody these days; missing a bit of an ear he’d lost while transformed one night when there had been no time, no expertise, no ingredients, even, to brew him Wolfsbane potion. A significant chunk of his left calf muscle was gone, too, and his former wand arm was totally useless. He had had to learn to cast spells with the left. Still, he had survived. He had survived, and his mind was sharp as ever. Tonks had been less lucky.

“She seemed to know we knew a werewolf.� Ron looked out the window at the rainy English sky. “She brewed it for us. Well, actually, she showed us how, and then just faded to green, so to speak. We wrote it all down right away, we think we got it right and yet… it doesn’t look quite the same.�

“Hmmm. Did you use the Holy Water?� Remus asked.

“Hermione said it’s been conclusively proven that it makes no difference in potions if the water has been blessed by a Muggle, or if it hasn’t. She doesn’t want to go messing with other people’s religious stuff, either. She says it’s just too much like all the awful things they say about us.�

“I agree with her myself. The only possible difference would be if the water had been treated by a priest who was also a wizard, but there are very very few of those, and we think we know who they all are.�

“Well, this girl didn’t seem to be on the Wizarding map, so to speak.� Ron said. “I just don’t want to leave any possibility untried. What she did seemed almost more like my mum’s cooking than potion making, and yet, in another way…� Ron lapsed back into silence. He was sure Remus was thinking the same name he was, but neither of them mentioned it.

“Why is this so important to you, Ronald?� Remus asked. “You’re not a werewolf and it’s the least of my problems, really. Don’t break your neck on this on my account.�

“Don’t be an idiot, Remus. I could forget your problems just about as fast as I could forget Ginny’s or Bill’s. The thing is, I am sure it is going to work. I couldn’t tell you why I’m so sure, and I couldn’t tell you why it was given to us, but it was, it was given to us for “Frate Lupo� and you’re going to get it. I’m so sure it’ll work, I want it be duplicated, because you’ll never have any rest until we give it to the rest of the werewolves. Well, all the ones who want it, anyway.�

They each looked at their feet. In perfect accord with each other, they weren’t really arguing. Ron understood that if Hermione was the one lying insensible in St. Mungo’s just down the aisle from the Longbottoms he wouldn’t care much either. Remus understood that Ron had dealt with the peace, with the echoing silence of peace, by never giving up on whatever was left to be done for anyone he knew. The silence lengthened, but it was not uncomfortable.

Finally, Lupin cleared this throat and spoke. “Let’s go over the process again, shall we. Holy water boiling in a cauldron.�

“Not a cauldron, exactly, now that I think back on it. More like an old cooking pot.�

Remus sat up straight in his chair. “A cooking pot? Not a standard pewter cauldron?�

“Oh, no, it was ancient. Hermione was muttering about Napoleon. Had it swinging from a tripod that�

“Could it have been iron?� Remus interrupted eagerly?

“Could have been. Probably was, in fact. Why, is that important?� Ron replied.

“It may be. It may be very very important. Muggles are very particular about what they cook their food in. A lot of them won’t use aluminum, for example. We’ve been standardized to pewter for so long now I never thought to question it.�


They looked at each other, and wordlessly moved to the kitchen. It was tidy, but a little sad feeling, as if very little actually got cooked in it. “He’s living on what you can get onto a toasting fork,� Ron thought, but said nothing as he moved to the cupboard to the left of the stove, which he knew was where Remus kept his potions things. “I haven’t got a cast iron pot.� Remus was considering the problem.

“No trouble. We do. I’ll just pop home for it.�

Ron was back with the large kettle before Remus could stop him. He brought with him all the ingredients Hermione had stockpiled for this brew as well. She never forgot anything. Well, at least it seemed to him that way. Most of the time, in his mind,
she was just his Hermione, the friend of his youth, the lover of his present, the mother of their child. At moments like this he recalled that she was, as Remus had said so long ago, “the brightest witch of her age,� and marveled, yet again, that she should have chosen him. It was a random thought, it flew through his mind in an instant, and he never knew that she knew he thought this from time to time, finding it both endearing and ridiculous that he should forget just who he was to the wizarding world himself.

“How much of each?� Remus was asking, clinically.

“Twenty seven grams. She says that’s as close as she can get it. They were just piles on the table, Remus, I have no idea how she does it.�

“Nor I. Potions aren’t my strong point.� It was said ruefully.

They were done with the potion, which this time looked exactly like what they had in the bottle, just as Hermione knocked at the door.