Disclaimer I don't own Potter, wish I did, but I don't.
Summery Last year, she returned from a work assignment in Greece to make her mother's old house a home again. Eight years ago, her mother and step-father left to tour the world. Twelve years ago, she stopped feeling sorry for herself. Nearly thirteen years ago, she learned she had never truly known him. Tonight, he's back. SB/OC.
A/N This is a companion to S.L.O.Y: same universe, prequel, Renee's POV. Feel free to think of this as what Renee is thinking about during the events of chapters eleven and twelve (which will be posted as soon as I get this story out of my head and safely contained on my computer).
Warnings ANGST! (Especially ch 1) There may also end up being some spoilers for book six; though they are entirely unintentional.
I'll Be Seeing You
Chapter 1 June 11, 1993, 2:48 A.M.
Renee Walker was sound asleep and sprawled wildly across her double bed when she heard a small sound like tiny nails on a chalkboard. The sound bore its way into her eardrums and took on a very surreal quality as it interrupted her dreams. She kicked and flailed about in a panic that only her own sub-conscience could induce in her. The sheets became tangled around her body becoming snakes in her dream, and then she and the snakes rolled off a cliff and... She fell hard on the floor of the master bedroom of her childhood home.
She looked around frantically, trying to figure out where she was. The scratching sound came again. She jumped up, kicked and shook the sheets from her, and swept the curtains of long blond hair away from her eyes. Her pajamas felt sticky, and she realized she was doused in a cold sweat. "Oh for crying out loud!" she exclaimed at her overreaction, "It's just the wind rubbing a tree branch against the window." She moved to look out the window above her bed, but before she'd moved two inches, the noise came again from the direction of the sliding glass door. "Odd?" she thought, "There's no tree over there." Curious, she moved to the door, flung open the drapes, opened the door six inches or so, stuck her head into the gap and looked out at her backyard.
It was exactly as she had left it the evening before. The old tire swing still hung from the mulberry tree. She smiled, remembering when her step-father put it there. The still broken shed door lent in on the contents, revealing a push power mower through the space. It didn't matter; there wasn't anything worth stealing in there. The weeds were still in the vegetable garden. That was something she needed to do tomorrow. The grass stood still, reflecting the light of the moon that had been full only two nights ago. "Strange," she thought. There were no rustling leaves or bending bows either. The night was utterly still.
Then, she heard an altogether different sound from a spot just in front of her on the ground. It was a soft whine, a whine she recognized. She looked down and immediately gasped and stepped back in surprise.
An over-grown, flop-eared, jet-black mutt was sitting on her back doorstep and staring up at her with enormous grey eyes. That was what had scared her. There was no color in those eyes anymore. She glared down at the familiar shaggy head, and growled, "You."
The dog let out another whine in answer and made a sudden jerking motion as though thinking to slip through the space between her leg and the doorway and into the house.
She stepped forward to block the opening and let him know, through body language, that under no circumstances was he allowed in her home. Technically, the house belonged to her mother, but, as her mum and step-dad were off touring the world at the moment, she was queen of this particular castle. "You shouldn't be here, Padfoot," she told the mangy canine. "I'm going to give you exactly ten seconds to make yourself as scarce as you have been for the past twelve and a half years, or," she snarled, "I'll do it for you."
The dog just stared at her, begging silently for her not to turn him away.
"One."
The dog didn't move.
"Two!"
He whined.
"Three!"
He whined more desperately.
"Four!"
There was a rush of movement, a soft thudding of paws on concrete, a rustle of leaves, and the dog vanished into the bushes that lined the corner of the house.
She stuck her head out the door again and looked around for him. "Could it really have been that easy?" she wondered. She pulled her head inside and looked at her clock; it read 2:51 AM. She suddenly felt as though she were asleep on her feet. Maybe she truly was, and this was all part of that dream with the snakes.
Her last thought before she fell back onto her bed, without bothering to recover the covers, was that he was lucky he'd come in the middle of the night, when her brain wasn't completely functioning, or he would have found himself packaged to become soulless before he could get out his first whine.
She was just nodding off, when she heard the nails scritch on the blackboard again. She sprang from her bed, snatched her wand out of the special pocket in her pajama pants and ran to the back door. She stood with her back to it, James Bond style, for a second. Then, she flung the door open and jumped into the gap, pointing her wand directly between the eyes of the dog.
He didn't even look at her. The instant the door was open, he skidded between her splayed legs and into the room. She followed the motion with her eyes and wand and turned to face the mongrel. She reached behind her to close the door. She should have bound him by now! Why hadn't she fired the spell? Why was she worrying about the door? What was wrong with her? She convinced herself it was because he hadn't tried to attack her yet.
She noticed he was holding something in his mouth. It looked like a rolled up bit of parchment. He dropped it at her feet and backed away, whining. His head jerked from the parchment to her to the parchment again. He whined a little louder.
Glaring still and keeping her wand on him, she bent down to pick it up. "What's this?" she asked, directing her question at what only a second earlier had been a shaggy, flea-bitten cur.
"It's a note from a friend of ours," the man, who was still a flea bag, still shaggy, and still a cur despite his change in appearance, told her, in a gruff voice that was very different from the rich base she had been expecting.
"No friend of yours could ever be one of mine, traitor," she told him. Icicles hung on her every syllable.
"Please," he begged with as much honesty as a scumbag traitor could muster, "Just read the note and give me the chance to explain."
"Why should I do that?" He didn't seem to have an answer for her. "What I should do is tie you up and hand you over to the dementors. I've heard that a snog session with them is rather unforgettable."
True fear registered on his face. "Please," he tried again, "Give me five minutes. If you don't like what I have to say, I'll..."
"You'll what?"
"I don't know. What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to still be the man I fell in love with," she thought, but there was no way she could tell him that. "First, give me your wand." He looked surprised. "The one in your pocket."
"How did you-"
"You'd be amazed," she dead-panned. "Out with it," she ordered, "Slowly."
Painstakingly, he moved his hand to his pocket and inched a long straight piece of dark wood out from it. "Now," she continued her instructions, "Hold it by the wrong end, drop it on the ground, and kick it to me." He complied.
"Incarcerous," she ordered. Thousands of flexion chords flew out of her wand and wrapped themselves around the man's wrists and ankles, binding them together and pulling his hands behind his back. He fell backwards as his ankles became to tightly tied for him to keep his balance. "Alright, Black," she told him as she pocketed both wands. "You wanted five minutes, so I'll give you five minutes, but you'll have to take them as you are. Fair enough?"
"Beautiful," he agreed from his spot on the floor. "But I have one question first."
"What's that?"
"Why didn't you just use the disarming spell?"
"I wanted to see if you would do it," she said before she could stop herself as she set a timer on her watch. "Your five minutes have started."
"You have to read the note first."
"Very well," she said as she turned on a light, broke the seal on the note and read. It was a long, very official note, was not addressed and was signed Remus J. Lupin. It was in his hand writing. She raised her eyes slowly from the parchment. "Do you honestly expect me to believe any of this?"
"I expect you to believe the truth."
"And what is the truth?"
"Well, I haven't read it, but I assume what's written on that parchment. I don't think Remus would lie to you about something like this."
"No, Remus, unlike you, is a decent, trustworthy person, and Remus, unlike you, wouldn't lie, but Remus, unlike you, did not write this note."
"What are you-"
"OH COME OFF IT, BLACK! YOU WROTE THIS NOTE IN REMUS' HANDWRITING AND SIGNED HIS NAME! DO YOU THINK I WAS BORN YESTERDAY?"
She was fuming. She paced the floor in front of him, breathing hard through her nose and reminding herself of a wild bull rhinoceros. All the pain and frustration built up over the course of twelve and a half years was escaping from her. She wanted to teach him the fate of traitors, but no that chore would be saved for the dementors.
"Renee, I..."
"Don't say that!"
"Your name?"
"MY FIRST NAME, YOU IDIOT! THERE YOU ARE SAYING IT LIKE WE'RE FRIENDS!" She paused to let that sink in, then continued. "WE'RE NOT FRIENDS, BLACK! WE'RE NOT EVEN ACQUAINTANCES!" She forced herself to find a measure of control and then spoke in a heated whisper, "I don't even know you."
She stopped pacing to glare at him some more, but when she noticed his face, it gave her pause. He looked... lost. Renee could see pains she did not understand swelling in him and surfacing on his once overly-handsome face. She'd loved that face once, but no, the man she loved was dead. This one had killed him.
"R-" he started but cut himself off at the look she gave him. "Look, I don't know how I can prove that Remus wrote that note, but I can prove that what was written is the truth."
"I thought you said you hadn't read it," she mocked.
"I know the general idea," he informed her.
She crossed her arms and glared some more. "Alright, you say you have proof. Let's hear it then."
"It's..." he broke off, looking rather lost again. "It's in my pocket."
"What?"
"The proof is in my pocket."
"I don't understand," she sighed.
"Look in my pocket and you will," he encouraged, shifting his weight to his right side to indicate she should look in his left pocket. "Or you could untie my hands?" he said questioningly when he saw the look on her face.
"Nice try." She knelt next to him and put her hand in his pocket. She felt something thin and papery. "More parchment?" she asked, giving him a confused look.
"Yes."
She pulled it out. It appeared to be a newspaper clipping folded over once. "This is your proof?" she asked skeptically, "An article in a twelve-year-old paper?" It was almost laughable.
"It's not a twelve-year-old paper," he told her. "It's an eleven-month-old paper."
Now, she was actually curious. He'd only broken out of Azkaban ten months ago. "How'd y-"
He interrupted her, "Work with me will you."
She stood up and unfolded the paper. It showed a very large family of people smiling and waving in front of a pyramid. "The Galleon Draw winner took his family to Egypt with the money. So?" she asked, now highly skeptical. "How does that prove Lily and James would switch secret keepers without telling Dumbledore or any of the other nonsense you want me to believe?"
"IT ISN'T NONSENSE!" he bellowed, then took a few slow breaths to calm himself. "It's the truth. The whole point was to keep the switch a secret. The more people we informed, the more likely it was to get out. Yes!" he added at her look, "Even Dumbledore."
"So what does this picture have to do with it, then?"
"R- Walker?" he started a hypothetical question, "If Peter Petigrew were sitting right in front of you alive and well, what would you ask him?"
"Peter is de-"
"Answer the question."
Feeling affronted, Renee told him sardonically, "Oh I don't know. Maybe I'd be wondering how he managed to survive a curse that completely disintegrated him except for his finger!"
"Funny thing, disintegration, isn't it," he commented, dryly. "It's the only type of death that leaves no body behind on which to take a pulse for proof that the person is dead." Renee just stared at him. "You can't search for a pulse on a severed finger, Renee, nor would you find on that finger any indication of the location of the rest of the body. The only proof to be had is the suspicious lack of said body. But if you found the rest of the body somewhere, it would be easy to see where the finger should be."
"You're insane," she gasped.
"Am I?" he laughed, undeterred. "The boy in the center, he has a rat sitting on his shoulder."
She gaped at him for a solid minute. She looked at the newspaper clipping in her hand. She studied the picture closely, searching for the boy he'd mentioned. She dropped the clipping and stood frozen for a second. Then, she bent down to pick up the clipping and look again. He was still there. The only rat in the world she would recognize at a glance was sitting on the shoulder of a blissfully unaware teenaged boy. As she looked closer, pressing her nose right against the parchment, she could see that one of the toes that would correspond to the index finger of a human was missing completely.
Renee looked at Sirius Black as though seeing him for the first time, the gaping look still firmly planted on her face.
"You see it?" Sirius asked.
After a long pause in which Renee tried to make her mouth work, she whispered, "Yes."
This was the proof she'd been searching for, hoping for, begging for, through years of being told the man she loved had betrayed her best friend and his own best friend to Voldemort. This was a photo of Peter, the real traitor, alive and well more than eleven years after his supposed murder, and only those who knew his illegal animagus form, Wormtail, would ever know.
Renee dropped to her knees beside Sirius. The alarm on her watch had gone off while she had been studying the photo, but she was liking what he had said too much at this point to care. She continued to stare and gape. "S-Sirius," she gasped, "H-how?"
"He used me," Sirius growled, "He knew we hadn't told anyone of the switch. He knew the ministry would be coming after me, not him." He looked away from her and his eyes glazed over. "He knew I'd be coming after him." He was silent for a long moment, his eyes haunted and far away.
She reached a hand out as though to touch his arm, but stopped herself. Instead, she prompted him, "Sirius?"
He looked at her. Then, he shut his eyes and turned away in shame. She knew that look. She'd worn it herself more times then she could count. He was crying, but he didn't want her to know. "I'm sorry," he murmured so quietly she thought she had misheard him.
"What?"
"I'm sorry," he said again. "I didn't think. I didn't even consider what I was doing and what it might do to you. I just acted." He looked thoroughly miserable and choked hard on his words as he said. "When I saw... the house, and... their bodies,... and Harry... Hagrid was taking him... to live with his aunt and uncle, and I... lost it!"
She stared at him some more as his body shook with suppressed sobs. She made a decision, pulled out her wand, and severed the bonds on his hands. He looked at her with wide, wet eyes. "I forgive you Sirius," she told him plainly. "I probably would have done the exact same thing." His eyebrows knit. "Though I would have gone after him in tiger form. It would have been more fun that way." She offered him a quick, evil, toothy grin, then, cut the bonds on his feet and said firmly, "I believe you."
"How?"
She took a second to compose herself and her answer. "I'd suspected for the longest time that Peter was the one among us most likely to be the spy, but I never said anything. There were too many fingers pointing as it was. I didn't need to point one at my own step-brother." She shook her head dejectedly and clamped her eyes shut to hold back the tears. "You aren't the only one who's sorry, Sirius. I am. I'm sorry for not speaking up sooner." Her voice broke on the final word, and she had to look away. Why did she always do this? She hated it when she cried, especially in front of people. It made her feel weak, needy. Renee Walker was many things, but she was not needy. She clenched her fists and let out a frustrated growl through her clamped teeth. She felt like hitting something. Her anger only made the tears flow harder.
Renee felt a pair of arms wrap around her firmly. She vaguely recognized that they belonged to Sirius. "Don't," he told her, leaving no room for argument. "Don't do that. Don't get angry with yourself for crying. You have every right to cry." Then as though he had read her mind, he insisted, "You are not weak, Renee. You are the strongest person I know."
"What a load of bull!" Renee thought, but she felt herself relaxing into his arms anyway. She wrapped her own arms around his neck and sobbed into his shoulder. He moaned softly and held her just a little tighter.
"Forgive me," she murmured when she was able to control her breathing again.
"You don't need me to forgive you, Renee," he murmured back. "You need to forgive yourself."
She pulled back from him. "You, Sirius Black, are a hypocrite!" She rose to her feet and turned to leave the room.
"What are you talking about?" She turned back to see he was also on his feet and staring after her, completely bewildered.
"There you are, spouting all this 'forgive yourself/allowed to cry' stuff! Did you ever consider taking your own advice?" she almost yelled.
He gaped at her, dumbfounded, "Renee, I... That's different."
"No, it isn't," she argued, "It's not in the least different!"
"You don't even know why I was crying."
"I don't need to know. You should be allowed to cry if I am."
"Alright," he conceded, unwillingly, "I'll let myself cry next time. Will that make you happy?"
"No!" He stared. "You still have to forgive yourself."
"You're the one I hurt; yours is the forgiveness I need."
"And you have it, but you still have to forgive yourself."
He lowered his eyes to the floor, "I don't know if I can do that just yet."
"That makes two of us, then."
They stood in silence for a minute, each thinking what to say next. Renee spoke first, "Sirius?"
"Hmm?"
"You stink," she told him honestly. He sniffed himself and made a sour face, agreeing with her. "And you look terrible."
He glanced down at himself and laughed out loud. "I do look rather worse for wear, don't I?"
"Yes, you do," she stated flatly. "I'm going to give you..." She checked her watch, which now read 3:27AM. "Half an hour to be in the kitchen ready for breakfast. That means washed, dressed, and clean shaven." She motioned in the direction of the door to the attached master bath.
"Clean shaven?" he asked, scandalized as he rubbed his beard defensively. "Surly not!"
"Don't call me 'Shirley.' Yes, Sirius, clean shaven. You look like an escaped prisoner."
He laughed, "If the shoe fits..."
She shook her head. "Not in this case. Innocent prisoners don't get to keep their beards."
"Who says?"
"I do."
"And who put you in charge?"
"Let me put it this way," she reasoned, pointedly, "I don't kiss bearded faces."
The playful smile dropped from his mouth and his eyes bulged. "You-"
"Half an hour," she repeated cheerily as she slipped out of sight. She shut the door behind her and leaned against it, trying to catch her breath. Whatever had possessed her to say that? Now he had the wrong idea. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized how likely it was that it was she who had the wrong idea. She pushed herself off the door and went in search of some of Patrick's old clothes to offer to Sirius to wear instead of the twelve-year-old prison garb he was currently dawning.
Catherine Chambers Pettigrew and her second husband Patrick had decided to travel light and, consequently, left much of their wardrobes behind. Renee doubted very seriously that Patrick would miss a single set of plan, work robes. After she found what she had been looking for in the attic, Renee returned to the spot of hallway outside the master bedroom.
She listened for the sound of running water, and, on hearing it, cautiously opened the door and slipped inside. She crossed to the bed and laid the clothes out where he could clearly see them. Then, she slipped out again and let out the breath she'd been holding.
After that, she went to make that breakfast she'd mentioned. It was still not even four in the morning, but, considering how thin he looked, she knew it wouldn't matter what time of day he ate next, just that he ate. She opened the refrigerator and cupboards and pulled out anything and everything she could turn into a breakfast food. She searched the items she had available and her memory for an idea of what to make. Her eyes slid from the large bag of hotcake mix to the slightly over-ripe bananas in the fruit basket by the window. She set to work.
Twenty-five minutes later and forty-two minutes after she'd left him, Sirius announced his arrival in the kitchen and living room end of the house by saying, "Hmm, that smells fantastic."
"You are late," she told him, not bothering to look up from her work.
"I'm sorry," came the statement from a location much closer to her own than the last. "I didn't intend to be. How late am I?"
Renee checked her watch and told him, "Twelve minutes and twenty-three seconds." She glanced up to see his reaction. His hair was still long and mangy and dripping from the shower but clean. His body was now, thankfully, grunge-free and dressed in the robe she'd found for him. His face was red from copious amounts of scrubbing and bore a look of slight exclamation at the exactness of her answer. His beard was, just as she'd requested, shaved. She turned back hastily to focus on not burning the hotcakes she still had in the pan.
He moved to stand next to her and asked, "What are you cooking?"
"Banana Ramma Hotcakes," she told him expertly as she slipped the finished ones from the pan and poured in more batter.
"Banana...?"
"Banana Ramma Hotcakes," she repeated turning to him curiously. "You remember them, right? I only made them for you a million times." His expression was lost again. His now colorless eyes were frosted over as he stared at the bubbling batter in the pan. "Sirius?" she asked cautiously.
He walked away and faced the counter. "I can't remember," he said guiltily. "I want to remember." He turned back furiously and his voice broke. "But I can't."
"Sirius, it's alright. You don't have to remember. They're just hotcakes." She tried to sound understanding as she flipped said cakes; she truly did not understand what he was getting so upset about.
"It's not just the hotcakes, Renee! It's everything!"
She turned to him again spatula in hand. "How do you mean?"
"I don't remember anything!" Sirius virtually shouted in his frustration. He calmed a bit and explained, "When Remus handed me that note, I had no idea what he wanted me to do with it. He told me that if I needed a less obvious place to stay for awhile, that note might get my foot in the door. I didn't remember you at all until I was flying over and saw the school... and then the house." He started pacing.
"The house?" Renee asked, confused. "Sirius, my house looks exactly like every other house on the block, especially from the air." Then, she thought of something else odd about what he had said, "What do you mean you flew over?"
"I saw the school first," Sirius said, ignoring her other question. "And I had a vague feeling that I knew it somehow. I flew lower, and then I saw the oak tree."
"The oak tree?" she echoed again.
"Yes, I spotted the oak tree out front," he stopped pacing and looked at her. "And I remembered pretending to be monkeys in that tree with you."
"Now, that's what I've always wanted to be remembered for," she laughed in her embarrassment and turned back to her cooking. "Being a monkey."
"I also remember." She could hear the grin in his voice, "That we used to pretend to groom each other." Renee groaned. "It's the first truly happy memory I've thought of since... getting out." She turned to him with pity in her eyes. He smiled shyly and brushed a lock of hair from her face. She leaned into the touch, forgetting herself for a few seconds. Then, he finished his thought with what, to Renee, was a most unwelcome idea, "Searching through your hair for all the invisible bugs I could eat."
"Well, that ruined the moment!" she thought, as she whisked around to take the hotcakes from the pan. "Speaking of eating," she changed the subject, while handing him a plate with a stack of hotcakes and two slices of bacon. "Take this, and go sit down." He took it and left the kitchen for the dining room, and she was able to breathe properly again.
She made up her own plate, poured two glasses of orange juice, and followed him. He was sitting at the table, staring at his plate, and looking awkward.
"Something wrong?" she asked, wondering if she had burned them and hadn't noticed.
"You don't have to do this," he muttered.
"What are you talking about?"
"Feeding me," he explained, "I feel like I'm free-loading."
"Well, you better get used to that feeling, Sirius, because you're sleeping here the rest of the night as well... such as it is."
"Renee..."
"There were three things I noticed in your appearance when you first arrived." She ticked them off on her fingers, giving separate emphasis to each and leaving no room for argument. "One, you needed a shower and clean clothes. Two, you needed food. And three, you needed rest. I'm going to make sure you get all three if it's the last thing I do." He started to object, but she cut him off, forcefully, "Sirius! You haven't slept in a proper bed for nearly thirteen years."
He shut his mouth and looked back at his plate. "Thank you," he mumbled.
"You're welcome."
They started eating, and the conversation turned to food. When Renee couldn't stand it any longer, she changed the subject. "How, exactly, did you fly here?"
"I rode Buckbeak."
She raised her eyebrows.
"He's a hippogriff the ministry was going to execute. We escaped from Hogwarts together." Renee could not suppress the smile that played at the corners of her open mouth. "Yeah," Sirius laughed, "I thought you might be interested in that."
"May I meet him?" she asked excitedly.
"Of course." He finished his last two bites of bacon, got up from the table, transformed, bounded over to her front door, and barked excitedly, motioning for her to follow him.
"You've got him in the front yard?" she asked the dog, incredulously.
He gave her an exasperated look and shook his head then barked again and wagged his tail.
"Alright, give me a minute," she said standing up, "You may be appropriately attired for an early morning constitutional, but I'm not going on any walks in my nightclothes."
Ten minutes later, she returned with her hair done into one long braid down her back and wearing jeans and a t-shirt. On seeing her, the 'dog' barked approvingly and stared at her with his tongue lolling out.
"Padfoot," she asked him, "Are we going on a walk or are you going to make passes at me?"
Padfoot sucked in his tongue and barked again. His tail wagging all the while, he ran to the door, jumped on it, ran to her, stopped just short of jumping on her, and ran back to the door again.
"Okay, Padfoot," she said, dawning a high exited voice that never failed to irritate him when he was being irritating, "You wanna go for a walk? Yes, you do, don't you? Come on. Let's go for a walk!" He whined. She walked passed him to the door and patted her legs, calling to him, "Come on, Padfoot, that's a good boy! What a good doggy you are! Yes."
He transformed back and crossed his arms. "I refuse to be spoken to like that."
"Hey! Don't blame me! You're the one who picked it."
"You would have found other ways to tease me if I'd picked one of the others."
"Why? What were they?"
"Never mind."
"Oh come on. I'll tell you mine."
"Maybe some day, not right now." He went back to dog form and leapt at the door again, tail wagging.
"Alright then, suit yourself," she conceded. Then, opening the door, she adopted the high voice again, "Come on, Padders! We're going far a walkie!"
