Title: Where the heart is
Rating: PG 13
Characters/Pairings: Remus/Sirius, Remus/Tonks
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters is to JK Rowling and associates.
Summary: It wasn't yet the time.
Notes/Warnings: Set in DH, which means lots of character deaths. Un-beta'd as always. The first part of this owes a lot to Susanna Clarke's 'Stopp'd-Clock Yard' (If you've read that, you'll know what a hack I am). I'm trying to wean myself off these epithets, but this fic would be nothing if not for that line by E.M. Forster, and I thought I'd leave it in.

Abram and Sarai were sorrowful, yet their seed became as sand of the sea... But a few verses of poetry is all that survives of David and Jonathan.
-The Longest Journey, E.M. Forster

I.

Remus Lupin sat for dinner in the Leaky Cauldron, a bottle of Ogden's finest, half-done steak, and virtuous tub of greens. He savoured his drink before looking at the man sitting across the table from him.

'Shall we go home, Sirius?'

'No, Moony,' said Sirius. 'I'm dead.'

'Indeed,' said Remus, with mild surprise. He wondered how he could have forgotten. 'This is a dream then?'

Sirius shrugged, cheeky grin that was a remnant of their Hogwarts days. In fact, now that Remus began to pay more attention, Sirius appeared to look not a day older than the boy that Remus remembered teasing James about his Head Boy badge. Sirius's hair was shorter, falling in careless waves down his pale neck. 'If you like.'

'I'm tired,' said Remus, rubbing at his eyes. 'I want to go home.'

Sirius reached out a hand, fingers resting on the edge of Remus's sleeve. 'Soon. But first, this.'

The child's cry woke Remus up, blinking at the weak light of the struggling dawn. He felt the warmth beside him shift, heard a complaining moan.

'Remus?' Dora's voice was low, husky with sleep. 'Please?'

'All right,' said Remus, getting out of the bed. He was careful to tuck the blankets around Dora again, before leaving the room. The nursery was just across the hallway. Little Ted pushed all the blankets away and glared at him from the crib. Remus smiled. 'What's the matter now, Teddy?'

Teddy made ferocious faces when Remus bent over to pick him up. Months, and they still couldn't tell whom the child resembled: the father or the mother. Sometimes, meeting his son's sombre look, laced with all the arrogance of the very young, Remus could see a different face in Teddy. Hair that changed colours; sometimes pink, like his mother's, turquoise, black.

II.

Time passed, somehow. In the real world: the turning of the clock's hands, the change in the colour of the leaves, moon traded for the sun and back again. In his dreams, the endless conversation.

'You are punishing me,' said Remus. 'Because of her.'

'Do you love her?' said Sirius.

Remus looked at Sirius, and said nothing.

'If you do,' Sirius went on. He did not acknowledge Remus's silence, 'If you do, then what I do should mean nothing to you.'

Remus smiled thinly, and shook his head.

Sirius moved his hand, fingertips touching the inside of Remus's wrists
.

'Remus.' Kingsley, who was standing behind him, touched a hand to his shoulder. 'It is time.'

Remus's grip tightened on his wand. During the first war, he had been so afraid. There had been so much to lose: the slight, almost lanky figure moving across the dark alleys, skin so pale he was almost luminescent, touched by the moon. Too long ago, and all that was lost, replaced by the look in Sirius's eyes, the Dementor-haunted dreams that made him scream at night. And now, there wasn't even that.

At the back of Remus's mind: Dora and Teddy. They were safe. Let them be safe.

He stepped down the sweeping staircase, the same one that he had climbed up, decades ago, to a new life. To his friends. To him.

Across the grounds, with Kinsgley and Arthur. He ran, and whispered a name.

III.

She was the last thing that he saw. Dolohov's curse coming from behind, and Dora, hair so pink against the green light. Horror, resignation, hatred on her small, heart-shaped face. Remus wanted to hold her close, one hand almost reaching out. 'It's going to be all right', except she's always been the one who said that.

How come, he thought, you never listen to anything I say? Both of you?

'I do,' said Sirius.

'And you do the complete opposite,' Remus pointed out.

'You never know what's good for you,' said Sirius. 'That's why.'

'I wanted her to be happy.'

'I'm sorry.' Sirius's hand slid down, fingers finally tangling with Remus's, gripping tightly. He stood up. 'It's time, Moony. Let's go home.'