A/N: Thank you for the reviews!
Disclaimer: All JKR's.
Missed
by: carpetfibers
-nine-
There is no time for guilt or loss; he is a single father now. He is mother and father, and his son is desperate for both. The days melt one after the other, passing with the rising of the sun and the breaking of the moon. Nappies, bottles, coos, and precious warmth guide each of his days, and in the heaviness of repeated task, slowly he remembers his wife.
Remus picks at the feelings his heart offers when he considers her, mousy hair and crooked smiles. His few memories of her true face are spare ones; he sees more of his wife in their son than in his dreams. He prods at his feelings, poking and testing the heat of them to weigh the damage her death has caused. Gratitude remains when he is finished, unstirred.
He holds his son close, listens to the baby's soft breath. Gratitude is a separate warmth, just as dear, and it is at night that he tells Dora, whispering mutely to her non-present ghost, of how much he owes to her.
Remus does not think of anything beyond Teddy and the full moon. He ignores the invites to holiday dinners, reunion gatherings, and memorial services. Harry writes him often, and he keeps the letters, unopened, in a box by the hearth. Members of the Order send owls with packed meals; Molly Weasley leaves baskets of steaming soups and warm bread every Sunday. She's learned not to knock; he does not answer.
Kingsley forces a visit on him, monthly, to watch as Remus downs his wolfsbane and locks himself in the basement, chains latched on his ankles and wrists. Remus never knows who stays with his son during his monthly illness, but he has his suspicions. He wonders if there's an agreed upon rotation, and then the traitorous part of his mind wonders if she is part of it.
In those few moments before sleep fully finds him, when Teddy is quiet beside him in the crib, Remus wonders if she has slept there, restless between his sheets, bare skin wet in the heat of the too small apartment. He imagines her there, in his bed, laying where he laid, hair strewn across the pillow and impossibly tangled.
When he dreams on those nights when he thinks of her, gone are the nightmares of the last battle. Gone are the memories of his hate and anger. Gone even is his gratitude. When he dreams, he dreams of her limbs as a tangled puzzle against his own, her hair fragrant and heavy and thick in his fingers. He tastes her and knows her, and because it is his dream, she wants him there, needs him there. He feels no shame and no guilt, only that fullness that he's only ever sipped at when she chanced to be near.
When he wakes, he is spent and he is hollow. He kisses his son, sets the kettle, and presses his head against the roughness of the wall. The minutes melt into an hour, into a day, and once again the weeks become months, and Remus finally wakes to a morning that does not press him with apathy. He wakes and see the brightness of the morning, the flush blue of a ripe summer dawn.
He kisses his son, sets the kettle, and sits at the table with the box from the hearth. Nearly a year's worth of letters, and at the end of it, as the last one waits, its postmark only dated from the day before, he feels something more than just gratitude. Remus touches the parchment, holds it to his chest, and speaks to his son.
"We've been invited to a wedding, Teddy."
-nine-
Her dress is a pale green, with orange daisies stitched along the hem. She found the dress in the back of her mother's closet, hidden behind decades of barely worn skirts and blouses. Her mother had been more than pleased to give the forgotten gown to the sweet girl who kindly helped in the garden every other week. Hermione is a gifted witch, but human memory is slippery; it flickers and evolves, and what is lost cannot be remade. The twice monthly visits are enough, she has convinced herself; she sees more of her parents now than she ever had while at Hogwarts.
And as her father and mother often tell her, over glasses of cool lime water and cucumber sandwiches, they always longed for a daughter of their own. She is welcome to the dress and to the pears that grew in their backyard. She's welcome to everything, they always insist, and each time, she feels her heart twist a little more tightly.
A wind teases her hair, pulling at the clip that barely holds the busy strands back from her throat and cheeks. A Weasley jostles her elbow, offering up a brief apology with a freckled grin and spark of sadness. It's layered throughout, the sense of loss. The family dines and sups in celebration- another son is married and promises of grandchildren flit through the conversation. But the empty seat beside her remains, and Fred's ghost leaves his plate untouched and wine glass too full.
She hears the cry of welcome long before her eyes take in the full sight of him: hair stung with flashes of gray, eyes that wrinkle as he smiles and greets each of the Weasleys who take his hand and pull him near. He's dressed in blue, a dusky twilight shade that makes her breath rattle near her lips and draws a warmth to her center. Too quickly, Teddy is taken from him, passed from one eager embrace to the next.
"Congratulations Ronald," she hears him say, his voice lighter than she remembers. "And you, too, Luna."
Ron clutches his new wife's hand, and Luna kisses her new husband's cheek. There is a peacefulness to Ron now, a settled contentedness that Hermione had never seen in him before. She remembers when she once imagined herself as a Mrs. Weasley, long before she ever knew the strange choices the heart made in the mind's stead. In all of her imaginings, she never envisioned Ron quite like this: loose and happy, unburdened and pleased.
She is happy for her friend, happy for both of them. The wind pushes again, and her clip breaks.
Remus is there before she can turn, before she can prepare herself for the right words, the right reaction. She can only watch him as he kneels, retrieving the broken clip; she studies his scarred hands, the slight limp as he rises. She thinks of his apartment and his son, the smell of his bed and the scent of Teddy's downy hair. Remus seems to see some of this in her gaze, and when he hands her the clip, his fingers linger.
"You look lovely, Hermione," he tells her, an echo of the past- a past at once so ancient and so near that her nightmares and daydreams share it still.
She cannot manage the words; she nods and holds the clip ever tightly in her lap. He moves on to a seat further down the table, questions following him about Teddy, about life and the weather, a football match and then quidditch. Mundane words, the flotsam and jetsam of a life post-war, when rose trees and card games can be remembered again. Her eyes never leave him, not as he eats and smiles, brief chuckles following hushed words. She drowns in the fatigue near his mouth, the tension in his shoulders. She bobs and weaves, unmoving, as he comes to life once more- as she feels alive once more.
The music starts slowly, something nondescript and vague, with a muttering guitar and a charmed keyboard. The tune is not one she knows, yet she edges carefully through the dancing couples, minding their feet and elbows and soft sighs. Hermione finds him where she once found him, seated and playing with a ring on his finger.
"Professor, won't you dance with me?" she asks him, remembering her words from a summer so long before, back when she was young and hopeless, back when she was desperate and untried. She holds out her hand, and shudders when he takes it. Has he ever touched her like this, with purpose and intent? She cannot remember.
He is silent as he holds her, the occasional twirl and side-step reminding her of the audience that surrounds them. She wants only to huddle deep into his chest, disappear into his warmth and arms, and never step back. She trembles as the song ends, her arms and lips too stiff as he lets go of her. He smiles as he always does, a passive expression that she hates and loves both.
"Thank you for the dance," he says. "You've improved."
He's turned from her before she can muster up a response, his longer legs already retreating back to his chair, back to his world beyond hers. Hermione steals after him, no plan in place, no mind to what her pursuit hopes to achieve. She can only tug at his sleeve and grasp at his hand.
"Remus," and she feels the way his name makes him warm, feels the heat that pools beneath his skin when her lips drop the simple syllables. "Remus," she repeats, forcing him to turn and look at her. She waits until he reaches her gaze, waits until he drops the guard of formality he always forces when he's with her.
She waits, too, until his fingers comb between her own, and then she manages the words that have followed her for so long. "Remus. . . I missed you. I'm always missing you."
He doesn't reply then, and not later when he gently extracts his hand from her own. He leaves her to stand, watching as he disappears back into the guests and well-wishers. The band begins another song, louder and heavier than the last, and in its volume, her quiet longing is made all the more silent.
-nine-
