As long as you still love me

This is set after As long as you love me, after Lupin leaves and as he returns. Please be nice.

The numbness sank into my bones the day he left me. It was such a cliché but it was true, it felt like lead weights holding me down. I was so lethargic it was unbelievable, and it wasn't just because I was pregnant. With his child: that's why he left.

He said he couldn't condemn me and his unborn child to a life of an outcast, regardless of the fact that if the baby was "cursed" it was too late to do anything about it now. Why are men such fools?

Why let it grow up without a Dad?

I wish I wasn't thinking about this now, the witching hour. That's what muggles call the time between midnight and 1 in the morning. What they didn't realise that most witches (and wizards) were in bed by now, just like them.

But weren't witches considered evil and this was an evil time of night, my dad told me that. I could see their point.

The moonlight seeped through the window, illuminating the mess of someone who spends a lot of their time shut up in their room moping. That's what my mother said, not me.

I looked around the room; the light gave everything a ghostly dead essence. Like my life now, dead with no colour, and I felt like a ghost now a days. I can't morph anymore. And not being dramatic I doubt I will ever again. I have lost my purpose.

I used to scoff at the girls in my year while we are at school, who cried their eyes out when their boyfriends dumped them, but I kinda see their point now. It hurts more than anyone can imagine until they experience it for themselves.

I couldn't sleep anymore, so at night I ended up gazing blankly out of the window. This was going to be a long sleepless night. I returned to my world weary contemplation of the view of out of my bedroom window. I could see the front garden and most of the lane that we lived on.

Usually I couldn't see a living soul moving around at this time of night: but tonight there was a figure walking purposely towards the house. It was a man it's obvious by the way he stood. But there is something familiar about this man. I have met him before somewhere, even though he is all bundled up in a hat, scarf and coat like that muggle book character, the invisible man.

Why am I thinking about this now? It has finally dawned on me who the man is. I should have recognized him in an instant. I did marry him after all. I hate trying to get up from a chair while being pregnant.

I stand up, I need to see better, he might be leaving again. Remus is now walking back up the path. He is leaving again. He can't do that, not again. I sprint down the stairs and pull open the door. It bangs against the wall possibly leaving a dent in the wall. I don't care I have always been clumsy and I can always fix it later. If only everything was that easy to fix.

I flew out of the front door, down the garden path and out into the lane. He has nearly reached the end of the lane and then he will vanish into the dark and who knows when I will see him again, if ever. I have to say something; I try and shout his name. It comes out as a hoarse croak. I try again.

"Remus, wait!" there I actually got the words out this time. He stops and turns round to face me and so he should. The coward, he looks incredibly sheepish.

"Dora?"

He turns and walks back towards me, quickly until he is standing in front of me. We are in the middle of the street but no one is watching because no one is awake.

"You look terrible" he says very softly his eyes roaming over my face: the mousy, greasy hair, the spots and the inability to morph.

"You think" I replied, what I stupid thing to say. "Yeah my husband left me pregnant without a warning didn't you know? You must have, you were there." He ducks his head and looks at the ground, a blush colouring his pale cheeks, ashamed and so he should be.

He looks at me again, and I notice that he's thinner, much thinner. His hair seems greyer, eyes sadder. Basically he looks as crap as I feel. My anger fades away, what has happened to him? I decide to voice my thoughts.

"Remus what has happened to you, you look awful, you aren't ill are you?" I ask. I can't help stroking his face, caressing the latest scar on his cheek.

He smiled sadly and laughed without mirth. "You happened, that's what," he reached out stroked my cheek mirroring my own actions.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, dreading the answer, hoping to anything that is out there that he isn't going to say something like I came to get the stuff I forgot when I moved out but then I realised it was really late so I decided not to bother.

"I came to apologise, but I am a coward and backed out at the last moment. I think we should discuss this somewhere warmer," he said "it's bitterly cold tonight".

As soon as he said it I suddenly how cold it is. Even though it's spring it is still freezing. "Come on; let's go back to Mum's" I turn and walk back towards the house, hoping that he will follow. When I reach the gate I chance looking behind me, praying that he has followed and not just taken off into the night. To my relief I see that he is still behind me, like an apparition from one of my favourite dreams. In these dreams, Remus returns and everything is alright again.

I show him into the living room, and we sit together on the sofa like we used to when we visited Mum and Dad and feels like a lifetime ago.

To my surprise Remus grabbed my hand and squeezed. "Dora, I came here to apologize, and I am going to. I am sorrier than you can imagine for leaving you and I regret this more than you will ever know. I love you and that will never change. And I came to ask for you to take me back, and if you could find it in your heart to forgive me someday I will be eternally grateful."

My mouth falls open at these words, the words that I have dreamed of all these long months. I couldn't speak, I was going to cry. But not with sadness but with joy this time. I fling my arms around him squeeze as hard as I can with a huge pregnancy bump. His arm encircle me: and hugs me back.

I pull back and smile and him. He grins back. "What made you change your mind?"

"Harry pointed out how stupid I was being"

"Clever boy,"

"Also, I realized that you were right about something. I remembered what you said one night."

"What did I say?"

"As long as you love me, we could be starving, we could be homeless we could be broke"

Fin

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