A/N: Hurray for reviews. It's so nice to have feedback. I'll have to admit, the whole RLHG pairing, while interesting, never really gripped me. It wasn't until I was rereading the books, and someone (Harry I believe) mistakes Tonks's patronus for a dog, in memory of Sirius, that sparked the thought: What if it was for Sirius?
Disclaimer: All JKR's.
Missed
by: carpetfibers
-ten-
Dora's mother insists on the house, insists on the little yard with its warded fences and notice-me-nots to nudge off curious neighbors. Remus resists the offer throughout the tour, ignoring the visions of possible futures the bright parlour and high windowed rooms grant. The brick embankment, the frosted panel doors- even the cellar that comes equipped with impervious cushions and an unbreakable lock; he shakes his head and repeats, again and again, Thank you, but we're fine where we are.
Yellow tiles and a stretch of green counter ruin his resolve; he can barely speak, his breath stolen so quickly and finely with a brief glance at the sun-strewn kitchen. Too easily he can paint a table there, a crooked chair just there, and between them both, the most important- the most critical. His dead wife's mother claps and smiles when he relents, and she promises him with kisses to his cheeks that all little boys need a yard to grow up happy.
The house, she promises, will mean happiness for both of them.
He is not the one to send the invitations; a lifetime's habits built on solitude are not so easily discarded. His new home, with its newly painted walls and unhindered windows, swell with the arrival of so many. He learns only a few bewildered minutes later that the house-warming party has been brought to him. Teddy laughs and points; Remus vanishes his irritation and lets the tide of voice and warmth rush through him.
Molly Weasley fills his yellow and green kitchen with the heavy scents of roast beef and rosemary; Kingsley pushes a glass of wine in his hands, the red liquid bitter and soft against his tongue. The taste lingers long after he's swallowed, and when he sees her arrive, tiptoeing past the parlour to stand near the fire, Remus drinks deeply.
Her dress is wrongly sized, the shoulders meant for a taller woman and the waist for someone larger. She smoothes down the edges, playing with an embroidered hem, and the look of brittle fondness she gives the cloth forces him forward.
"It's a pretty dress." She avoids his gaze and settles on a space beyond his shoulder. Her smile is forced and her eyes smudged with sleeplessness.
"One of my mother's; I couldn't quite get myself to adjust the size, so it's a bit. . ." Her fingers poke at the air, gestures that speak of wrongness and something more lonely.
"How are your parents?" he asks, pushing at the silence that sits between them too easily. He has vague notions of Muggle dentists and brand new house windows. His nights passing watch at the Granger house were spare, and his fruitless mission with the werewolves soon removed him altogether. It was all so long ago now, he realizes, so long before this thing that rasped and pulled between them started.
"I'd rather not talk about them." Her eyes, warm and bright but missing something now- lacking that touch of happiness and belief he was used to finding in her gaze- flit briefly to his own, daring a further question.
"Then. . . what should we talk of?" He knows it an even worse question; he knows that it's dangerous and stupid and cruel for him to speak so easily to her, to act as if he had forgotten her confession at the wedding. Remus can only remind himself of the age and distance that separate them and insist that the longer he pretends to be unaffected, the more of a chance it might become real.
"We needn't talk about anything, Professor." He flinches at the word, hating the sound of it when his ears have now heard so much better. "I only came because Harry insisted, and I could hardly explain to him why I would want to avoid you."
She sighs, weariness and exhaustion heavy in the sound. "I appreciate the politeness, but it'd be better altogether if you just ignored me like before. It would be-" and she hesitates, chancing another glance of tired eyes against his own, "-kinder."
He feels the strum of it, the violent tide that sits beneath his skin only to burrow forward when the moon is full, when she slips away from him, pushing into a full kitchen and disappearing into the flow of body and sound that is now his house. He considers throwing them all out, his uninvited guests, tossing each and every soul out past the door and into the street. He can imagine better uses for his green counters than Molly Weasley's confections; his blood rushes, and with a brittle weakening, he admits to it.
He loves her; he has long loved her. It is not just the thrum and boil of animal lust and a pretty girl. It's her hair in the sunlight, and her eyelashes when she sneezes. It's the loneliness in her voice when she sits by the hearth and sighs over arithmantic equations. It's the warmth of her hand and true, unfettered frankness of her gaze. He loves her, undeniably and awfully.
He could step out now, call to her- grab her hand and touch her fingers, tell her the words she asked for when she confessed to missing him, to longing for him, because that's what she meant- too inexperienced, too unsure, whatever the excuse, he heard the real words behind the spoken:
I love you. I always love you.
Remus flinches as he stands, unmoving. He watches as she leaves the kitchen, never glancing his way; he watches as she leaves, only her hand lingering on the door- only her feet showing the hesitance in her retreat. She seems to wait, for a brief moment, as if knowing of his unspoken request.
He waits too long, guilt and excuse and self-recrimination all heavy anchors on his legs, and the door closes behind her. In the sea of warmth, sound and laughter, he is an island, deaf and cold.
-ten-
He is four years old today; he counts well past it, beyond his fingers and toes and long into freckles and eyelashes. He counts now the candles that dot his birthday cake, and smiles when he finishes. Four is more than three, but so very less than eleven, and it is not until then that he can go to the school his mother once went to.
His father, too, once went there.
Teddy speaks very little, and he knows this frightens his father. He knows the expression too well; he feels it on his face when he's alone at night, in his room with only the flickering faerie light to protect him. His father promises that there is nothing beneath the bed or in the closet to hurt him, but Teddy knows that there are worse things than the creatures under the bed.
He does not know the words, but Teddy knows the feeling of it. They are the things of storms in the morning and clattering winds. Too hot milk and bitter medicine. Teddy sleeps with his bear on those nights, when the creature in the closet creeps too closely- when the boogie beneath the bed bites too sharply.
Teddy heard his father cry one night, but he did not learn the reason. That feeling too, he does not know the name for, but he knows it is like soap in his eyes or a splinter in his finger.
He eats his cake carefully, counting the bites and smiling when others eat, too. Victoire and Uncle Harry, Gran and Miss Fleur. Even Miss Mione, although she does not smile and eat like the others do. He sees her lips curve, just like they're meant to, but he knows it's not the same. It's like the one door that doesn't close and the sink that drips. Teddy does know the words, but he knows it's wrong.
On the days his dad leaves on his trips, Miss Mione sometimes stays. He knows her smile then, the morning sunshine and bright yellow of it. She holds him and pets him, reads and laughs with him. He beats the eggs for the breakfast and once even cracks the egg without her hand to guide him. She rocks with him near the fire, and when he sleeps, on those nights, there is nothing in the closet or under the bed. His bear is held for softness only, not protection.
Teddy knows Miss Mione's smile, and this strange face she makes now is not it.
It is later, when the cake is finished and his presents opened, when his father thinks him asleep up the stair, Teddy sneaks back down and listens by the kitchen. Miss Mione is still there, and his father still awake.
"I'm fine to Apparate, Professor. I barely touched the wine." Teddy doesn't understand this word Miss Mione uses, this professor. It's the name she gives his father, and she's the only one to use it.
"You're welcome to the guest room. It's clean, I promise." His father seems to laugh, but Teddy does not understand the joke. Miss Mione says nothing at all.
Teddy kneels by the frame, careful to peak only through the crack between wall and door. The fire burns soundlessly, the wood and flame quiet in their conversation. Miss Mione told him once that if he listened carefully, he could learn a great secret from the fire. He listens now, but only his father speaks.
"It would be safer. At least let me call you a cab-"
"Safer? Since when has my safety been a consideration of yours?"
"Don't be ridiculous. I've always considered you with the same care as Harry-"
Now Miss Mione laughs, but Teddy knows the sound is wrong. It's missing her usual sunshine yellow, and he only feels the darkness of it, deep and black and not at all like mornings.
"Somehow, I doubt that. It doesn't matter now anyway. I think it's safe to just continue as we are; I'll be polite at the parties, and you can pretend that I'm still some wayward student. Let's keep the sham of parental considerations alone."
Teddy squints more carefully, his father is in the fire's shadow and he cannot see his face. Miss Mione, too, is caught in the shadow, but the fire is brighter there and he sees her hair and frowning mouth. He knows she is sad, but he does not know the reason.
"Then why do you continue to come here?"
"I don't know what you mean-"
"During the full moon, I know it's you who stays with Teddy. It might be Harry or Kingsley who locks me in, but it's you who sits and stays with Teddy. It's you who leaves him happy and talking. Did you know that- that he only speaks after you've come to stay? I've almost reached the point where I welcome the changing, the awful breaking of it, because it means you've been here and Teddy is speaking again."
Miss Mione is quiet, and Teddy resists his yawns. He barely knows the things his father says, he barely understands, but there's color and movement in the words. He can see the shape of it, like one of the ocean waves at Victoire's house, huge and blue and topped by foamy white.
"I know that you stay here, every time. I can smell you in the kitchen, in my bed. For days after, my sheets and pillow are filled with you."
The wave crests, curling and twisting and gaining in curve.
"Why do you do it, Hermione? Why do you come? Even though I told you- even though I explained-"
"And what of it? So what if I'm pathetic and witless enough to come to the house of a man who doesn't want me, who's made it painfully obvious that he does not want me. So what if I'm happy with spending a few days a month with his son. I know Teddy's not mine, if that's what you're worried about. I know he belongs to you and Tonks- I know. She was my friend, too. So why can't you just leave it alone? Just go back to ignoring me and leave it alone."
Teddy cringes as the words gather too closely, the wave breaking too early. The colors are leaving, bleeding silently back into the blackness of before. He wishes for his bear, he wishes for his father.
"I've never ignored you, Hermione."
Teddy holds himself and watches; the fire shifts and light draws the shadows away. His father is closer now, his hands reaching for Miss Mione's hair, his fingers near her chin. Teddy wonders if his father likes to touch Miss Mione's hair, if he, too, likes to wrap the strands around his fingers.
Miss Mione sighs, the sound full of color. "You're not allowed to do this to me again. I won't take your- your ambiguity. I'm not your student to care after, or some surrogate niece or god-daughter that needs tending. You can't hide behind that and claim that this- this feeling between us is something familial or brotherly."
Teddy watches as Miss Mione pulls away from his father's hands, as she steps away from the fire and the brightness. She murmurs something, too soft to hear, but Teddy sees the impact of it as his father staggers. The crack of Miss Mione's vanishing is too loud, and Teddy cringes, holding his ears. His father cringes, too, staring into the space where she stood. Teddy wants to ask him what she said.
Teddy might not know the words, might not know their meaning, but he understands. He sees the shape of them in his father's downturned shoulders and the awful loneliness that sits now on his father's back. Teddy understands that whatever words Miss Mione used, they meant good-bye.
When Teddy returns to his bed, the closet threatens and the wretch under the bed goans. He grips his bear, but he is not frightened by the monsters that gather. He knows there are worse things than the creatures in his room in the night. There are storms in the morning and clattering winds. The burn of too hot milk; the swallow of bitter medicine.
There is the absence of a person, the loss of a warmth. Teddy knows this properly before the month is over, and he learns the word for it too easily:
Missed.
-ten-