Monty snored and settled deeper into his armchair.
                          
"Give it to slim, there," Renz said, nodding at Remus. "He's grown enough to be able to hold it."
                          
Toby passed the glass to Remus who eyed it warily. From across the room, Sirius gave him a thumbs-up signal. So he shrugged and he swallowed it down before realizing how badly it would burn. Toby beat him on the back as he hacked and broke into a sweat.
                          
The lads had drunk enough to have to go back to school through the Floo instead of risking apparating under the influence. Sirius and James arrived in the empty Entrance Hall red in the face and loud. Peter was beyond that, extremely silly, chattering and threatening to transform and go on a skittering rat rampage all over the school. Sirius and James were shouting him down, making much more noise than he had been. They wound up having to hold him by the arms, forcibly leading him to the stairs.
                          
They had thought Remus was following, but, thanks to the Leviathan horn whiskey, he was drunker than they knew. Smashed or not, he was quiet and happy, but finding his long legs and arms impossibly complicated and hard to manage. As he came to the bottom of the marble staircase, he wasn't sure how to get his limbs to climb it. He stood clinging to the cold, smooth bannister, staring rather longingly up toward where he could go to sleep.
                          
This was what he was doing when Severus Snape and Narcissa Black found him. They were coming back to the Slytherin dungeons late after a night in the library, not expecting to see anyone - certainly not seventh year's most upstanding prefect.
                          
"Well, well," Snape sneered. "It's Lupin, legless, and roving about down here at the stroke of curfew."
                          
Narcissa clucked her tongue. "By the stars, Lupin. What are you thinking? It's a school night."
                          
At the sound of her voice, he gasped, like a stage actor hamming an aside. "It's her," he said out loud as he pushed himself against the bannister to stand a little straighter.
                          
Snape's features twisted into a greedy smirk. "Yes, stay here with her while I fetch Professor Slughorn to help you upstairs," Snape said, swooping away.
                          
Narcissa heaved a mighty sigh and took Remus's arm, tugging. "Come on, you. We've got to get you out of here before Snape gets back with a teacher and you lose your prefect status."
                          
He let her pull his arm until it was fully extended, but his feet stayed rooted to the bottom step. His eyes followed the length of his sleeve. "Look at that angle. The perfect mannequin."
                          
"Honestly, Lupin," she scolded, ignoring his words, stepping under his arm, draping it over her shoulders, and wrapping her arms around his torso. Tugged him upward, hoping to trigger his stair climbing muscle memory. "Come on. Slughorn will be slow, but Snape will make sure he comes for you in the end."
                          
Remus bent his neck to stare down to where she appeared to him to be tangled in his body, curious. His face bowed against the top of her head, inhaling deeply, making no attempt at hiding how much he enjoyed her smell. "Mm, she's here with me."
                          
"Yes, but I'm going to give up and leave if you don't come upstairs with me right now," she said, shaking her head to dislodge his face from her hair.
                          
He grumbled but he also began to lift his feet.
                          
"There we go," she cheered, patting his stomach as they went. "There's a good boy. Stars, Lupin. What've you got into tonight. Where were you?"
                          
"Potters'" he said. "Fitting. Getting clothes for James's wedding."
                          
"James's wedding?" she said. "What - "
                          
Remus had taken her face in both hands, hushing her. "Don't speak of it. You don't know. No one can know. This is a secret soulmates' wedding. Shh..."