Remus and I apparated to my flat so I could change into something that didn't have wood stain and clear coat stuck on the fabric. He was thoughtfully silent, so I left him to it while I put on a nice dress I had purchased under Mary's tutelage. I also conjured up a bouquet of daisies, since I hadn't thought of anything better. Remus laughed lightly under his breath when he saw the daisies and rolled his eyes at me.
"You didn't have to bring anything," he said. "Mum is stoked just to meet a real girl my age."
"It makes me feel better, I told him."
"Hmm." He tugged me to him, and put the bouquet aside for a minute. "Hi, Genre," he said, and kissed me gently on the lips.
"Hi," I grinned foolishly up at him, all the annoyance slipping away from me.
"I like your employee," he said with a grin.
"You do not," I said. "You two were like kneazles and dogs!"
"I do," Remus insisted. "He's protective. Looked like he would have cursed me three ways to the moon, if you'd let him."
"Merlin," I groaned.
"Plus," Remus continued, "you jinxed us. I know I wouldn't get mad about that kind of thing because I trust you. But most people would've been rightly miffed. He didn't even twitch an eye at you."
"Probably afraid of the tongue-lashing you would've unleashed on him," I said, feeling a bit mollified.
"That sounds dirty," Remus grinned down on me, and then kissed me before I could say anything else.
Remus handed me the bouquet again, wrapped his arm firmly around my waist, and then apparated us off before my meeting-the-parents nerves could return.
We stuck our landing quite smoothly on a cute little cobblestone path that was just beginning to crumble around the edges. There were flowering shrubs on either side of the path in shades of red and purple and blue; a small wooden fence poked out of the shrubs in a friendly manner. There was no gate, but it looked like there had been at one point. Now, Remus walked me straight through the gap in the fence and we headed to the house.
The entire area was surrounded by trees; clearly they had bought this house with privacy in mind. The house itself sprawled like a comfortable fat cat, rooms placed wherever they fit and windows aplenty. Nothing about the property was rundown - just worn with age and love. Still, Remus cast me a sideways glance as if worried about what I was thinking.
"You grew up here?" I asked. I tried picturing Remus as a little tyke, probably super serious, playing in the yard.
"Since I was four. We moved here after the...attack."
"It's beautiful," I told him. "It looks like something that should be in a fairytale."
"You should tell Mum that," Remus said, sounding a little rueful, "she was so worried about what you'd think."
I turned to Remus in surprise, wondering why his mother had worried about that, when the door opened and his parents stepped out.
"I thought I heard you apparate," Mr. Lupin called. "Are you going to bring your pretty friend in so we can meet her, or are you planning on staying outside all night?"
Remus's cheeks flushed and he glanced at me again with a chagrined expression on his face. I pressed my lips together to stop from laughing at his discomfort. To be fair, my palms were sweating and I was pretty sure my fingers were shaking too. Who knew that meeting parents could be so nerve wracking?
Remus's mother stepped onto the stone steps leading up to their house, wiping her hands on a tea towel. Her face was pale and drawn. If possible, she looked even more nervous than I.
"Here, Mrs. Lupin," I said, thrusting my bouquet forward as Remus and I got closer. "I brought these for you."
A smile brightened her face.
Up close, I could see that Remus looked like a blend of his parents. He had his father's sandier-colored hair with just a touch of the brown that was his mother's hair color. His mother's eyes were warm and light brown, his father's hazel, which explained where his own amber eyes had come from. Even though he took after his father in height and build, his face was thinner, like his mother's. Perhaps it was seeing these similarities that made me relax; it was hard to be anxious when I was surrounded by echoes of Remus.
"Thank you," Mrs. Lupin said in a pretty, lilting voice. She took the daisies from me, her own hand trembling a little.
"Come in, come in," Mr. Lupin said, gesturing at us to enter the house. Remus prodded me forward with a hand at the small of my back.
"Mum, Da," he said once we were fully inside, "this is Genre. Genre Pokeby. Genre, this is my Mum and Da."
"That's hardly an introduction!" his mother protested. She reached out and shook my hand. "You can call me Hope," she said.
"Er," I said (because the idea of calling Remus's parents by their first names was enough to freeze my soul).
"I can hardly call you Hope," Remus pointed out. "It feels too weird."
"Lyall," his father said, pumping my hand up and down.
"It's really nice to meet you both," I said.
With introductions out of the way, at least, Mrs. Lupin relaxed. She led us all into the parlor which housed a sofa and a loveseat with a faded rose print. There was also a toasty little fireplace that was burning slowly in the corner.
"Tell us about yourself," Mr. Lupin said with a smile. He sat on the couch and crossed his legs. Mrs. Lupin sat primly beside him, her hands folded in her lap.
Remus tugged me into the loveseat beside him.
"They promised they wouldn't interrogate you," he said in a fake whisper.
"Remus!" Mrs. Lupin chided him, but she was smiling fondly at her son. I smiled too.
"That's okay," I said. "I'm curious about your family, too." His father winked at me. Outside, in the fading light, he'd looked younger. Inside, I could see the wrinkles that creased his eyes and made him look professorial.
"I don't know that there's much to say," I told them both honestly. "I was in Gryffindor with Remus, and...well, now I make wands."
"More than that, dear," Mrs. Lupin said. "Remus has told us all about how brave you are."
"Mum," Remus said, as if worried she was going to say too much.
"He didn't do you credit when he said how pretty you were," Mrs. Lupin told me earnestly. "You're as cute as a button."
"Mum!" Remus said louder.
"Calm down, son," Mr. Lupin laughed. I glanced at Remus, who was redder than I'd ever turned, and raised my eyebrows teasingly at him.
"What about you?" I asked, turning back to his parents. "Remus hasn't said what it is you do."
"I study poltergeists and some of the less physical magical creatures," Mr. Lupin said.
"Boggarts," Mrs. Lupin added. "That's how we met. I didn't even know magic existed before he rescued me."
The warm smile she cast on her husband could've made the most frigid heart melt.
"I didn't realize you were a -" I said, and then stumbled on my own words. What was I trying to say - that I didn't realize she was a muggle? That she wasn't a witch? That hardly felt fair to say.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Lupin looked a bit taken aback. Remus shrugged beside me.
"It never came up," he told his parents. "It's not like she's a Death Eater."
I smiled wryly. "Sorry," I said, "I was trying to say it was an interesting way to meet, especially since you wouldn't have even known what a boggart was. I just got a bit tongue-tied."
"It's alright, dear," Mrs. Lupin said. "We're used to all sorts of reactions."
I gave Remus a look, wishing I'd had some sort of warning that his Mum was a muggle so I wouldn't stick my foot right in my mouth. He just shrugged and mouthed "payback". Payback for what, exactly?
At least with that spectacular foot-in-mouth moment over, the rest of the evening passed with fewer mishaps. We had chicken for dinner, the same recipe Remus had used the week before, but Mrs. Lupin made sure we also ate vegetables. For desert, Remus offered our services to make cookies. With a warning that any mess we made in the kitchen would result in us cleaning it, the Lupins retired into the parlor to have a nightcap.
"You could have warned me!" I said to Remus as he pulled down a variety of tins - flour, sugar and the like - and looked confused. "I didn't mean to make your parents uncomfortable!"
"Payback for letting us take the blame when you girls pranked the school," he said. "Plus, it never came up. I kind of forgot."
"Bugger," I told him.
"Be nice," he said with a grin, "or I'll tell Da you're interested in magical beasts. He'll tell you all about them."
"Then I won't tell you how to make cookies," I said pointedly. He looked down at the flour he was ladling into a bowl.
"Am I doing it wrong?" he asked worriedly.
With a laugh, I took the flour from him and set it aside, instead cracking two eggs into the bowl and spooning sugar into it. Remus acted as my busboy, bringing me different ingredients as I called for them, though he did purposely flick the flour at my nose when it came time to mix that in.
"Cream of tartar?" I said, holding out my hand.
"Cream of what?" he said, sounding so lost I nearly giggled.
Mrs. Lupin had walked in at that point to check on us, and she did chuckle softly. She went into the spice rack and pulled out the cream of tartar for me.
"He's hopeless in the kitchen," she told me with a smile. "He knows how to make one dish, and one dish only."
Remus stuck his tongue out behind her back.
"Cinnamon, please?" I asked. He tossed the little jar over his mother's head, spilling cinnamon along the floor. Mrs. Lupin pointed at it and quirked an eyebrow at her son. He scowled, and trundled to the pantry to get the dustbin at the bottom of it.
"Snickerdoodles?" Mrs. Lupin asked, looking into the bowl. "My favorite."
"Mine, too," I said in relief. She smiled at me and pat my shoulder before heading off again.
In the end, the cookies Remus and I brought into the parlor were a bit funny-looking, but they tasted just fine. Mrs. Lupin even went back for seconds. And, at long last, the evening was over.
"It was really nice to finally meet you," I told Mr. and Mrs. Lupin. Mrs. Lupin pulled me into a hug, and Mr. Lupin shook my hand.
"It was nice to meet you, too, Genre," Mr. Lupin told me.
"Don't be out late," Mrs. Lupin warned her son.
"I'm just taking Genre home," Remus said, exasperated.
I giggled, and waved goodbye once more before Remus tugged me to him and apparated to my flat.
Inside the safety of my flat, I sighed in relief and kicked my shoes off.
"Long day," I said. "Your parents are so sweet, Remus. Your Mum is shy?"
"Very shy," Remus said. "She liked you, though."
He eyed me speculatively.
"What?" I asked him.
"You've got flour on your nose," he told me.
I spun to dodge in the bathroom and check the mirror. I did, indeed, have flour on my nose. And no one had said anything! But, the night was over and there was no fixing it now. I sighed and tried to wipe it off. Remus leaned against the door frame, watching me with a smile.
"You're in trouble," I told him. "Letting me run around with flour on my nose."
"It was really cute," he told me seriously. I watched in the mirror as he came closer. He wrapped his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder to look at me in the mirror also. "You aren't angry, though, are you?" he asked. "You liked them, right?"
"They're marvelous," I told him. One of my hands drifted, on its own accord, to brush the side of his face. He turned his head, kissing my palm. My heart fluttered.
"I better get back before Mum insists Da send out a cavalry," Remus said with a regretful sigh. He turned me, pressing my bum against the bathroom counter. I let myself shift up until I was sitting almost in the sink basin, and wrapped my arms around his neck.
We'd had hundreds of kisses since December. Somehow, though, this was the sweetest of all of them. It was a slow kiss, gentle and honest. And when he pulled away, I thought I might cry from the loss of him.
"Good night, Genre," he said huskily. I wondered if the kiss had affected him as greatly as it affected me.
"Good night," I whispered, letting my hands fall back to my side. He apparated home before his Da's cavalry was sent to find us.
I wondered at that kiss. What had made it so special? Was it that we both loved each other and were sharing more of our lives now? Or was it just...the moment? One of those once-in-a-lifetime moments where the planets and stars all line up to show you your path. No matter what had made that kiss so special, it told me something else: I wanted Remus, forever and always. All of him, every aspect. Maybe what had been love before was something even stronger, now.
Vowing to talk to Lily about it, to see what she thought, I hugged a pillow to me and fell asleep with my fingers pressed against my lips and a bit of flour still clinging stubbornly to my skin.
The next day, when I showed up at work, Pavi plunked a package down on my worktable in front of me, nearly causing me to cut the tip of the spruce wand I was still working on.
"Yes?" I drawled.
"Morning, sunshine," he said cheerily. "I thought you might like this."
I opened the package carefully, praying to all the gods that it wasn't a dragon part. It wasn't. With careful fingers, I pulled out a variety of mirrors, one after another.
"Foe glass?" I said around the lump in my throat that came with too much hope.
"I know someone," he said with a shrug.
"Thank you," I told him.
"The Order funded it, sort of," he told me seriously. "I told them what you were thinking at our meeting this week. They want you to come to the next meeting."
"What about the others?" I asked. "I mean, my friends?"
"That's up to the Order," Pavi shrugged. "They'll extend the invitation as they see fit, that's not up to me."
"Okay," I nodded. "That's fair."
"Incidentally," Pavi said, "your boyfriend was alright."
"He said something similar about you," I told him. Pavi grunted. At least it was a pleased-sounding grunt.
I repackaged the foe glasses carefully, and then tucked the package under my work table where I could press my feet to it to make sure it was really there whenever I got anxious. At the end of the day, it was still there.
Pavi didn't ask me if I was delivering any of the foe glass that weekend. I didn't tell him my plans. We said a cordial goodbye, with the expected "Have a nice weekend," and then I was off to return home.
If anyone had asked me if I was dropping off the foe glasses that weekend, I would have been forced to say no. How could I, without knowing where the refugee camps were? I did have plans for the weekend, though: first, move Lily in; second, go back to southern England to talk to Leticia and Gabby, those two witches at the muggle magic shop. They would know how to get in touch with the refugee camps.
