Disclaimer: See first chapter.

A/N: And it's already up. I think that's because I have a prompt I'm excited about, a character I love to write, and a plan.

25: Reunion

2011

She's not aged well. Her hair is pewter at the roots and her frown lines are so deep that they are prominent even when she is smiling. Her eyes have lost their shine and sit, dull and dark, in their sockets, unwilling to move. Her head is bowed as though it is too heavy for her long, swan-like neck, and she has developed a slight double chin. Electra at fifty is not a woman he recognises.

Erin is almost the spitting image of her when she was young and naïve and Lupin had imagined that she would look the same. They are very alike. Of course, Erin speaks with a broad Scottish accent, while her mother uses the same cool, clipped drawl that Sirius could never manage to rid himself of. Erin is conscientious and icily polite, just as her mother had been. In truth, Erin frightens most of her teachers, perhaps none so much as Professor Lupin. He's not entirely sure why Teddy is so fond of her. They are polar opposites. But, he thinks, so were he and Sirius.

He watches them interact, catching glimpses in class, in the corridors, even on the Quidditch pitch, but watching them when his son's friends visit is when he gets the most insight into their characters. Tom Collins is a practical joker, perhaps his favourite of Teddy's friends, who still refuses to call him anything but "sir". Erin McCormack takes everything dreadfully seriously; her biting wit is all that he has managed to discover in his search for a sense of humour. Galatea Nettles is simply the most pleasant human being he has ever met. She is always smiling, the perfect counterpoint to Erin's poker face.

The Collinses are a lovely family. They meet occasionally, usually when they're collecting Tom for the remainder of his summer, and get along famously. Tom's Irish Muggle father is what Tonks describes as a "scream". His mother, a witch from Jamaica, is a well-respected healer who is forever handing Lupin homemade bruise salve that smells of coconut oil. The Nettlses are dreadfully dull. It is a mystery that they produced a child so animated as Galatea. But the Lupins have never met the McCormacks and, upon further investigation, neither have the other families with whom Erin has stayed.

So when Electra Nott Apparates at the end of the drive, giving the dog a filthy glance and running a hand over the tarnished mirror of the clapped-out Volkswagon that Teddy intends to learn to drive around the fields, it comes as a great shock.

"Who the hell is that?" asks Tonks, staring in horror.

"That would be my mother," says Erin.

Lupin jumps to his feet, pushing the chair back from the table with such force that it squeaks against the floor in protest. "I'm sorry, Erin, would you be so kind as to allow me a moment with her?"

The knock at the door brings such deathly silence that it might as well be wartime once more. Tonks forces herself to smile, though her husband is stony faced and clearly in some distress. "Why don't you take Erin down to the beach, Ted?"

Teddy grins. "Because this looks too good to miss."

"Bedroom. Now. Both of you. Erin, better check you've got everything packed." She glances across at her husband, willing him to smile. Even a little.

She's ushering Emma up the stairs when Mrs. McCormack knocks the door a second time. She raps the glass with such intensity that Tonks almost expects to find her bleeding hand under the tap when she returns to the kitchen.

Instead, she finds her husband leaning against the sink and the guest fluttering about like a trapped moth. Mrs. McCormack is circling the table, backing toward the door, and occasionally pacing back and forth beside the AGA.

"I came for my daughter. I didn't come to discuss anything with you."

"I'm sorry," says Tonks, closing the door quietly behind her to prevent the children eavesdropping, "am I interrupting something?"

"And this must be your wife." She raises a perfectly arched jet black eyebrow.

Deep down, Tonks knows this is her home, her kitchen, her husband, and yet she squirms under the scrutiny of Electra's gaze. She almost feels sorry for Erin until she remembers that the girl has much the same effect on everyone with whom she comes into contact.

"It's a pleasure," lies Tonks.

"I'm sure." She turns her attention back to Lupin. "Aren't you going to introduce us? Or shall I do it myself?"

"Electra, this is my wife, Nymphadora. Dora, this is Electra Nott."

Electra clears her throat pointedly.

"McCormack. I beg your pardon. Electra McCormack. Force of habit, I'm sorry."

"Quite all right. Now if you don't mind, I'll collect Erin and be on my way. Dreadfully sorry to have infringed on your day. Thank you for having her this week. She does so enjoy coming to you. At Easter, perhaps they could all come to me? I hear a lot about your son, I must say, and it would be nice to put a face to the name."

Tonks has never heard anyone speak quite like this. Not even her mother. She recognises a little of it from Sirius' speech, but nobody has ever pronounced "per-hips" before. She almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. The tension is so great that she can almost taste it in the air.

"I'm sure he'd enjoy that. He likes meeting new people, seeing new places. That's right up Ted's alley. Look, I don't want to take up too much of your time, but I've been meaning to speak to you for a while."

Electra laughs bitterly. "I rather think too much time has passed. What can we possibly have to say to one another?"

"I owe you an apology."

"For what?"

She knows the answer. It hangs in the air between them. The frissons of awkward energy are almost whispering his name. She can still hear the squeaks of the springs on the sofa, feel his hot breath in her ear, on her neck, hear him sob as he climaxes, screaming, almost in agony, for someone else.

"I really think it best that we don't continue this conversation."

"I um…I have to…"For the first time in her life, Tonks finds herself wringing her hands.

Lupin turns his gaze on his wife, his beautiful, clumsy, inappropriate wife, and has never been more grateful for her presence. "Might I see you very quickly in the hall?" As soon as he closes the door, he takes her in his arms and pulls her close to him, inhaling the scent of her apple shampoo as he buries his face in her hair.

"Whatever it is," says Tonks, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing tightly, "everything is all right. We love you so much. And we can forgive you anything."

"I didn't tell her."

Tonks pulls away and holds him by the shoulders at arm's length. "Didn't tell her what?"

"Sirius. I didn't tell her about Sirius."

"That he escaped?"

"That he was innocent." Lupin bites his lower lip, pulling it into his mouth. "I didn't tell her anything. I didn't even attempt to find her."

Tonks frowns. "And why would you have? Who is she, Remus?"

Lupin glances at the kitchen door as though suspecting she has one ear pressed up against the other side. "I don't want to leave her too long. It's rude. Look, she and Sirius used to…they were once…" He trails off and wets his lips quickly with his tongue. "She pressurised him into proposing to her. Kept threatening to leave. And I'm not sure whether she would have, but Sirius wasn't especially fond of not being able to call the shots. So he said he would…eventually. I'm not sure when it would have happened, whether it would even have happened at all. I don't know. I'm not sure I knew either of them very well at that time. And I was so unspeakably happy to see him that I think for a while, I wanted him all to myself. I didn't want to share him. And then…then it got too late to contact her. Then there was little point."

"Does she know now?"

"Presumably. It was in the paper."

"Oh, Remus, really."

They both swing round as the kitchen door creaks.

"Look, I'm dreadfully sorry, but I do need to be on my way."

Tonks looks at her husband pointedly.

"I'd very much appreciate it if you could spare me a moment. Perhaps we might have a little chat in my office?"

Electra purses her lips.

"It's about Sirius."

Her responding glare is enough to send shivers down Tonks' spine. "And where is your office?"

"Upstairs. First right. The door is usually open."

Electra gestures for him to lead the way, her brows knotted in a deep frown. She does not wait to be invited to take a seat and chooses the rocking chair in the corner, sitting low to the ground with her knees at the height of her chest, clasping her hands in front of her stomach. Lupin hovers around the desk, wondering if he ought to sit at it or take a chair over to her in the corner of the room.

"Listen, about that night…"

Electra smiles at him, really smiles. Her eyes light up and she looks as though she could be twenty-one again. "I think if we're going to talk about the night you shagged me on a second-hand sofa and screamed my dead best friend's name, you might offer me a drink."

It is half past ten in the morning. Lupin stammers his response. "Uh, yes. Yes, of course. What would you like?"

Electra laughs. "Is there a whiskey or two going begging?"

Lupin bows his head and makes for the door, but she stops him.

"And could I trouble you for a cigarette?"

"I'm er…I'm trying to give up."

"Yes, I seem to remember you saying the same thing every year since you were fifteen."

Lupin smiles grimly. "Second drawer down. I'll be right back." He knows he could summon it to him, but he needs to escape her scrutiny, her stifling presence. When he returns, she is sat comfortably in the armchair, her long legs tucked under her. She is not even attempting to blow her smoke out of the window.

"How marvellous. Thank you," she says, accepting the large measure of whiskey he has poured her. "Do go on. You were reminding me of the night we had perfunctory sex in your flat. I'm interested to hear what you have to say about it. I'm sure it's riveting stuff."

"I'm sorry."

Electra smiles over the rim of her glass. "That's perfectly all right. We both know why we did it. Thank you for being kind to me. I know plenty of people wouldn't have wanted to see me."

Lupin frowns. "I wasn't kind to you. If I were being kind to you, I would have turned you away. You were drunk."

"So were you. From what I hear, you were a drunk."

Lupin raises his glass with a grim smile. "You heard right. Of course, I had to stop after my mother found me comatose on the sofa at three o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, but it was a good run while it lasted."

Electra takes a sip of the burning amber liquid. "And how long did it last?"

"In truth? About a decade. But I can't deny it was an interesting decade. I woke up in a North-side Dublin bar one Sunday morning having had plans to spend the previous evening with my ailing aunt. I got a dreadful tattoo. I'm told I tried to swap a kidney for a goldfinch, but I'm not sure I believe it."

"Yes, well better a kidney than your utterly buggered liver." She lifts her cigarette. "Or your utterly buggered lungs."

Lupin grins at her. "Do you think you would have married him if they hadn't locked him up?"

Electra crosses the room to stub out her cigarette in the ashtray on the desk. "If he'd wanted to."

"And yet a year later you'd married someone else."

Electra shrugs. "Life goes on."

"How is William?"

She laughs bitterly. "He's probably dead. That's what we think happened. It all came out in 1997. William's late brother, you remember Colin?" There's a funny little glint in her eye. "Well, it turns out they had different mothers – though Colin's mother raised them both as her own. So William, as it happens, was a pureblood. My children are pureblood." She says this with a satisfied, almost relieved smile that alarms Lupin. "But it turned a lot of attention on us. We'd been hiding in the Highlands for a long time. The name Nott was still mud in Voldemort's circle, but I think he was willing to overlook my heritage."

"I'm sorry. I had no idea."

Electra shakes her head. "Why should you have? And anyway, we're not here to talk about William."

Lupin takes a deep breath and plunges into his apology. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you after he'd escaped."

Electra laughs. "You think I didn't know? The news was everywhere, Remus. We weren't hermits."

"And you read that he was innocent?"

Electra nods. "Though I must say, it came as something of a shock."

Despite himself, Lupin breathes a small sigh of relief. It's a pleasant surprise to hear someone else admit this. "Well, I think I'd rather have read it in the paper than find out quite the way I did."

"Oh?"

"He caused an awful scene, Lex."

She doesn't even flinch at his use of her nickname. She laughs loudly to compensate for the sudden sadness. "Well, if I know Sirius, he wouldn't have had it any other way."

They're both laughing, almost companionably, and it's so lovely to see her, to talk to someone who remembers the same people that he does, someone with memories he longs to share. He didn't expect to feel this way at all.

"Oh it was dreadful, but he put so much effort into it that every time I tried to put a stop to it, he'd write the next scene. And God forbid if I didn't follow the script. I had absolutely no idea where he was going with most of it, but he was so compelling that I just…I just played my part."

"The pair of you were always the worst double-act."

Lupin smiles sadly. "I don't doubt. I could never quite keep up with him."

"No-one kept up with him." She frowns, but it's soft and barely noticeable. "Tell me, was he still speaking in riddles?"

"That night? Oh yes." He trails off, staring blankly off into the distance. "Perhaps not riddles so much. I think he thought that we were all completely aware of what had transpired. But then, he'd always do that. He used to tell me long and complicated anecdotes, assuming that I knew half the story beforehand."

Electra winces. "Oh, I think he was deliberately concealing things from me."

"During that period of his life, I think he was deliberately concealing things from a lot of people. I wouldn't take it personally."

Electra smirks. He's still bitter, still wounded by the doubt cast upon him. "I went to visit him."

Lupin's eyes shoot up from the bottom of his glass. "In Azkaban?"

Electra nods. "He'd been there a month, maybe two. He led me to believe that he was guilty. So I told him I was engaged. And he spat William's name at me and…and I told him what we'd done. I thought there was little point in sleeping together if it didn't hurt him."

Lupin nods once, mumbling something she can't make out. He paces, coming to a stop in front of his bookshelf, seemingly browsing the titles. "I wondered how he knew."

"He asked you about it?"

"It was mentioned, yes. Only once. He was a gentleman, which is more than can be said for myself."

Electra gets to her feet, setting her glass down on Lupin's desk without a coaster. "I really should get going, you know. It was good to see you, Remus."

"I'm sorry I didn't contact you."

She smiles sadly. "I was a mother of four. I had a new life, one I had made for myself out of the wreckage he left me in. So it's all right. Really. You've nothing to apologise for."

Lupin nods.

"Anyway, pleasure to see you. We must do this again sometime. Etc. etc." And with that, she swans out of his office and down the stairs as if this were her own home. "Erin? Erin, darling, come along."

Lupin only stares in her wake, feeling more than a little thankful that Erin is the child of humble, slightly shy McCormack. Because if she were both a Nott and a Black, he's got the feeling she would be impossible.