6 March 1980
"We're so very sorry for your loss, Remus," Mrs. Waterston said, her eyes bright with tears. "Your mother was a darling, delightful woman. I always looked forward to seeing her at the market."
"She will be sorely missed," agreed Mr. Waterston gruffly next to his wife, rubbing her back comfortingly.
Remus gave the Waterstons the most grateful smile he could muster—it made his stiff cheek muscles ache. "Thank you," he told them. "And thank you so much for the casserole, Mrs. Waterston," he added politely, holding up the chicken casserole that a sobbing Mrs. Waterston had pressed into his arms the moment he'd opened the front door to Lavender Cottage. "My dad will really appreciate this."
"Of course, dear," Mrs. Waterston sniffed heartily, leaning up and giving Remus a wet kiss on the cheek. "You take care, now—and please give your father our best."
"I will," Remus promised, raising a hand in farewell as the elderly Muggle couple stepped off the cottage's front porch and made their way down the winding garden path to their car. Remus waited until he heard the engine rev and the soft puttering of the car's tires as it trudged along the sandy, cliffside road down to the village. Then, swallowing, he turned and walked back into the house, nudging the front door shut behind him.
"The Waterstons dropped off a casserole," Remus said, walking into the sitting room, where his father was tucked into his armchair by the fireplace with an old book, looking frail and exhausted.
He looked up from his book at Remus's entrance, his expression rather blank. "Who?" he asked faintly.
"The Waterstons," Remus repeated. "From the village—they own the market where Mum always bought groceries, remember?"
"Ah," Dad blinked, nodding, but Remus knew that he hadn't registered a word. "And—what…what did they want?"
Remus stared at his father, his stomach clenching painfully. "To offer their condolences, Dad," he said quietly. "And to drop off a casserole." He raised the platter up higher so his father could see it. "I…I'm going to put it in the kitchen under a Cooling Charm with the rest, all right?"
Dad gave Remus a grateful smile, though his eyes remained frighteningly vacant. "That's wonderful, Remus," he murmured. "Thank you."
Remus nodded, pressing his lips together as he slipped past his father's armchair and into the cottage's small kitchen. Setting the casserole down on the counter, Remus drew his wand.
"Glacius," he muttered, waving his wand over the platter—and a gust of cool blue light blew out of the tip, settling into the dish.
Putting down his wand and scooping up the now-refrigerating plate, Remus reached up and wrenched open one of the cupboards above the stove. It was practically overflowing with relatively untouched casseroles. Shaking his head, Remus slid the Waterstons' casserole onto the top shelf, then reached out and withdrew a small plate of steak and kidney pie—a gift from the village deacon and his wife—from the corner of the bottom shelf. Casting a quick Warming Charm over the dish, Remus grabbed a knife and fork from the cutlery drawer and made his way back into the sitting room.
"Here, Dad," Remus murmured, setting the plate and utensils down on the small end table at the foot of his father's armchair. Dad lowered his book, staring down at the food as though he'd never seen anything like it before. "Supper," Remus explained, and Dad's expression relaxed slightly with comprehension.
Sliding his book under the end table, Dad picked up the plate and looked up at Remus. "Will you stay the night? Your old room is just the way you left it."
"Oh—no, Dad," Remus shook his head. "I ought to be getting home soon. I…I'll come back around to see you tomorrow morning, I promise."
Dad nodded, swallowing a mouthful of pie. "Do you have to work tonight?"
"Er—yeah," Remus lied, his stomach twisting with guilt. In reality, Dumbledore had graciously excused Remus from Order meetings and missions for the next few weeks—but how could Remus tell his father that the real reason he didn't want to stay over was because he didn't think he could spend another minute in Lavender Cottage without losing his mind?
"It's been busy today, hasn't it?"
Remus startled, looking at his father. "What?"
"It's been busy today," Dad repeated, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with his handkerchief. "Lots of visitors."
"Oh," Remus blinked, vaguely surprised. He hadn't thought his father had even noticed the endless stream of mourners and sympathizers that had been flooding their front porch since the burial on Monday. "Er—yeah, there were quite a few today. Not as many as yesterday though." Remus paused, fiddling with a speck of lint on his faded, shabby jumper. "I'm pretty sure every resident of Tinworth will have come to pay their respects before the end of the week."
A small smile lifted the corner of Dad's mouth—one of the first Remus had seen all week that actually reached his eyes. "Everyone loved her," Dad said softly.
Remus's throat stung. He blinked quickly and looked away. "Yeah, they did," he said quietly. "And she loved them back."
Dad nodded, setting his fork and knife down on his empty plate. With a flick of his wand, Remus banished them to the sink.
"Well," Remus cleared his throat, straightening his shoulders. "I…I reckon I should head out before it gets dark. Do you need me to do anything else?"
"No—don't worry about me, son," Dad said, shaking his head. "I'll be just fine."
Remus nodded, wishing he could believe him. "Don't forget to set the protective wards before you go to bed—or would you like me to set them before I leave—?"
"I'll take care of them," Dad assured him. "You focus on taking care of yourself."
Remus blinked, swallowing the sharp twinge in his throat. "All right," he said softly. "Bye, Dad. See you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," Dad murmured.
The sky was almost indigo when Remus finally plodded up the outdoor staircase to his small, snug Diagon Alley flat. As he neared the front door, he fumbled inside his jumper pocket and closed his finger around his keys.
For a moment, he just stood there, staring at the door. He could feel the dull, paralyzing grief that he had been fighting off since Sunday creeping over him, and he stiffened and closed his eyes, tightening his grip on his keys.
"Cheer up, sunshine boy. Moping about has never done anyone any good, you know."
Remus let out a low, strangled noise, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, sagging against the weight of the front door as tears stung his eyes. But just then, he heard something rustle on the staircase behind him, and he gasped, whirling around and drawing his wand in a flash.
With a soft pop, Lily's Disillusionment Charm lifted, and she stepped out from the shadows of the stairs, her arms raised in surrender.
"Remus—it's me," she said quietly.
"Lily?" Remus croaked. But he didn't lower his wand. "What did Sirius tell you and James to name your baby the last time we were all together, and why?"
Lily snorted, and even through the darkness of the night, Remus was sure that she was rolling her eyes. "Elvendork," she said dryly, putting a hand to her just barely showing stomach and patting it gently. "Because it's unisex."
Remus lowered his wand. "Lumos," he muttered, and his wand tip shone, illuminating the front stoop of his flat in bright white light. Lily's face was suddenly thrown into sharp relief against the dark, gloomy-looking Diagon Alley street behind her—and Remus saw her expression clearly for the first time. It was filled with concern for him.
"Oh, Remus," she whispered, stepping forward and drawing him into a warm hug.
Remus closed his eyes and pressed his lips together, grateful for the contact—it seemed to dispel some of his numb exhaustion.
"Come on," he muttered, pulling back after a few moments and fumbling for his keys again. "Let's get inside—it's not a good idea to loiter out here."
Five minutes later, Remus and Lily were safely seated inside the sitting room of Remus's flat. Of course, technically, the flat belonged to James and Lily—as they were the ones paying the monthly rent installments—but both Potters became supremely annoyed every time Remus brought up this fact, so over the past year, Remus had finally begun to think of the flat as his own. He hadn't done much in the way of decorating—being a full-time member of the Order didn't often allow him the luxury of time—but there were a few homey adjustments, here and there: a secondhand carriage clock from Dervish and Banges on the mantel, a ratty green oriental rug under the coffee table, and a couple Gryffindor banners from his Hogwarts days pinned around the sitting room walls.
As Lily leaned back against the living room sofa, rubbing her stomach, Remus saw her gaze come to rest on the large cardboard box sitting on top of his coffee table. The words 'HOPE MARIE HOWELL' were emblazoned across the top of the box in Remus's mother's elegant, calligraphic handwriting. Swallowing, Remus coughed to get Lily's attention, and she tore her eyes away from the box to meet his.
"D'you want anything to drink?" Remus asked her quietly. "Water? Pumpkin juice?"
"I'm all right," Lily shook her head, patting her belly. "If I drink anything too close to bedtime, this one—" she nodded at her stomach, "—punishes me by sending me to the bathroom at least a dozen times during the night."
"Ah," Remus grinned slightly in spite of himself, shaking his head. "I see Elvendork is already taking after Daddy."
Lily rolled her eyes. "Don't listen to your uncle Moony, sweetheart," she whispered to her stomach. "You're going to be Mummy's favorite."
Remus's smile faltered, his throat burning again. Swallowing heavily, he averted his gaze from Lily's—but her sharp green eyes didn't waver.
"Remus…" she began softly.
Remus glanced up. "How'd you find out?" he asked hoarsely.
"Peter," Lily murmured, rubbing her stomach again. "James and Sirius are furious with you, by the way, for not telling them yourself. And quite frankly, so am I."
Remus closed his eyes. "Lily, the three of you have got enough to be going on with right now without worrying about me, between the baby and now Mr. and Mrs. Potter…" he trailed off, looking at Lily, and for a moment, neither of them spoke, as the horrible reality that James's kind and loving parents would likely never meet their grandchild hung heavily in the air between them.
Remus cleared his throat. "How are they?" he asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.
Lily sighed, looking down at her lap. "Not well," she said quietly. "I mean, with Dragon Pox at their age—the chances are…" her voice caught, and she swallowed. "James and Sirius are with them right now—and so is Caradoc. They…they're trying to settle their affairs—finalizing their wills, saying their goodbyes. The Healers think they've got…a few more weeks, at most."
"I'm sorry," Remus whispered.
Lily shrugged her shoulders, smiling weakly. "I suppose plenty of children grow up never meeting their grandparents, right?"
Remus nodded. "I did."
"Oh," Lily gasped, her eyes filling suddenly with tears as she looked up and met Remus's gaze. "Oh—God—Remus—I'm so, so sorry about your mum. I—I know how close you were to her. If you need anything—anything—you know you can come to me and James. Our grief doesn't make yours any less important to us, you know that."
Remus nodded, releasing a slow, deep breath. "Thanks, Lily," he said softly. "I…I'll be fine, I promise."
"You don't look fine," Lily said stubbornly, crossing her arms and frowning seriously at him. "When was the last full moon?"
Remus gave a strangled laugh, shaking his head. "Now, you sound like my mum."
At this, Lily cracked a tiny smile. "Well, I'm supposed to be practicing, aren't I?" she asked, pointing at her stomach, and Remus snorted. "Was…was it sudden?" Lily continued in a whisper. "It…it seems like it was sudden—you never mentioned anything about her being ill."
"She wasn't ill," Remus shook his head, swallowing heavily. "It was a heart attack—she…she died in her sleep. The village doctor thinks maybe her heart weakened with age, but she wasn't old either—she was barely fifty."
Remus didn't tell Lily the conclusion he had arrived at on Monday evening, after he and his father had laid his mother to rest in the parish church's graveyard. It had taken several glasses of Firewhisky at Tinworth's Crossed Wands Pub for Remus to see the truth, but he had seen it in the end: It wasn't age that had weakened Hope's heart, but rather fifteen years of constant worry for her only son.
"How's your dad doing?" Lily's gentle voice brought Remus out of his reverie, and he blinked, looking at her.
"He's…coping," Remus said, a lump swelling in his throat as he thought of his father, lying alone in his bed at Lavender Cottage. "For all their—for everything they went through together, they…they never loved each other any less. I don't…I don't think he knows what to do without her. She was everything to him."
Lily nodded, sniffing, as two fat tears slipped out of her eyes and down her cheeks. "Oh, for Merlin's sake," she said impatiently, swiping roughly at her eyes. "I'm sorry about the waterworks—I'm not always such a blubbering idiot. It's the pregnancy, I swear."
Remus laughed hoarsely. "You know, Lily, in a few more months, you're going to have to stop blaming everything on that poor child."
"Oh, let me enjoy it while I can," Lily groaned, pressing her back against the sofa cushions and propping her feet up on the coffee table. Her eyes fell again on the large cardboard box. "What's in the box?" she asked Remus curiously.
Remus hesitated. "Some of my mum's things," he murmured finally. "Her rings, some photos, and her gramophone and record collection, I reckon. I dunno—I…I haven't opened it yet. My dad gave it to me on Monday."
Lily's face had perked up. "Record collection?" she asked eagerly.
Remus smiled. "My mum loved music. I think she took me to every record store in London when I was a kid."
"Wow," Lily whispered, reaching forward and gently touching the box, tracing her fingers over the word 'HOPE.' "That's amazing."
Remus nodded, swallowing heavily as he stared at the box. Then, he glanced at Lily. "D'you want to open it?" he asked quietly.
She raised her eyebrows. "Only if you do."
"I reckon I should," Remus sighed. "It's collecting dust." He climbed to his feet, stretching. "I'm going to go make myself a cup of tea. You can start going through it—I'll join you in a second."
"All right," Lily nodded, pulling out her wand so that she could open the box without damaging it. "And—er—Remus, I know I said no to something to drink before, but—"
"Pumpkin juice," Remus nodded, already heading for the kitchen. "You've got it."
"And some chocolate, too, if you've got any," Lily called after him, and Remus smiled, rolling his eyes. "Elvendork and I can appreciate a good slab of Honeydukes' finest at all hours of the day."
In the kitchen, Remus quickly poured Lily a glass of pumpkin juice and found a bar of caramel-stuffed Honeydukes chocolate in the cupboard. Then, he set the tea kettle on the stove.
"Remus, your mother was beautiful," Lily's voice floated into the kitchen from the sitting room. "Oh, this wedding photo is gorgeous—she and your dad look so happy."
Remus smiled, fishing inside a drawer for a teabag. He had heard the story of his parents' relationship hundreds of times growing up. It had been one of his mother's favorite bedtime stories to tell—right down to the Boggart-shaped wedding cake topper.
"Remus, your mum was a Beatles fan!" Lily exclaimed from the sitting room, plainly thrilled. "Oh, wow, I haven't heard these songs in years."
The tea kettle began to sing. With a flick of his wand, Remus sent the kettle whizzing to the tea service, where it tipped over and poured its contents into the teapot. Then, balancing the tea service, pumpkin juice, and chocolate bar in his arms, Remus made his way back into the sitting room, where he found Lily—her face flushed with excitement—kneeling in front of the coffee table. Remus's mother's expansive music collection, consisting easily of hundreds of different records, was spread out all around her.
"Here's your juice and chocolate," Remus told Lily, setting them down on the floor next to her, before he knelt down beside her with his tea. "What're you looking at?"
"Music," Lily murmured distractedly, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she considered a large black record sleeve. "What record is this?" she asked Remus, holding it up to his face. "It hasn't got any writing on it."
Remus blinked, drawing back and staring at it. "Er—she might have gotten it secondhand," Remus shrugged. "Why don't you try putting it on?" He nodded at his mother's dusty old gramophone, which was peeking out of the cardboard box.
Lily brightened. "Good idea," she said, scrambling onto her knees and carefully hefting the large gramophone out of its box. "Remus, I hope you know that your mum's record collection is priceless. Seriously, if you don't listen to at least one of these records each day, I'll come here myself and play them for you…"
But Remus was only half-listening to her, now. Out of the corner of his eye, he had spotted the wedding photograph that Lily had been admiring earlier—and next to the photograph, was a small black ring box. Slowly and gingerly, Remus reached out and picked up the box, unclasping it to find two rings—a diamond engagement ring and a golden wedding band. He gently brushed his finger over the diamond.
"…gramophone doesn't seem to be working," Lily was saying, her tone upset. "Oh—never mind, I see what the problem is…"
Hands shaking now, Remus set down the ring box and carefully reached for the wedding photograph of his parents. Immediately, his eyes burned with tears. They were so young—their faces completely free of lines. Mum's long, shining blond hair was fuller than Remus had ever seen it in life—there was not a streak of gray to be found. And her eyes—the same green-brown eyes that she had passed on to her son—were alive with a kind of happiness that Remus was sure he would never know or understand himself…
"I got it!" Lily exclaimed jubilantly, and Remus glanced up at her, startled. "I got it to work—the gramophone, I mean. Now, let's see what this mysterious record is…"
Very cautiously, Lily withdrew the record from its black sleeve and placed it in the gramophone. Then, she tapped the knobs with her wand, and she and Remus both leaned forward to listen.
It took several moments for the music to begin. Those first few scratchy seconds that always preceded the start of a record seemed to last a little longer than they usually did, and Remus closed his eyes against the heavy pangs of nostalgia in his chest, as he remembered the constant presence of soft, scratchy gramophone music in his childhood. Then, at last, the low, twangy notes of bluesy violin began to fill the tiny sitting room, and Remus's breath became trapped in his throat as recognition struck him squarely in the stomach. Suddenly, it was sixteen years in the past, and Remus was four years old again, clutching his mother's hand as they navigated the teeming shelves of a secondhand record shop—and in the background, an old American folk song was crackling feebly from the gramophone on the clerk's counter…
"I want to buy that record," Mummy told the clerk, pointing at the record spinning in his personal gramophone.
"Sorry, ma'am—it's not for sale," the clerk told Remus's mother in a very regretful voice. He didn't seem to be able to take his eyes off her. Remus could understand that—Mummy always looked lovely when she listened to music. Her eyes lit up the whole room.
"Ah," Mummy nodded understandingly at the clerk. "It's a special one, isn't it?" The clerk nodded dumbly at her. "Well, how about this?" Mummy said, pulling out her purse. "I'll give you ten pounds—and I'll tell all my friends to shop here, too."
The clerk looked like he'd forgotten how to speak. Two minutes later, Mummy and Remus left the store with the record safely in Mummy's purse.
"Why'd you use up all your money, Mummy?" Remus asked his mother curiously, swinging happily from her hand as they wove through the busy London street.
"Because it was special," Mummy said, smiling down at Remus and hugging him tightly to her side. "And when something is special to you, Remus, you'll do anything to keep it close."
Remus thought about this for a moment. Then, he looked back up at Mummy. "Am I special, Mummy?" he asked seriously.
Mummy laughed, and her bright brown eyes lit up her face, warming Remus from the inside. "You are the most special thing in this world, sunshine boy."
Remus didn't realize he was crying until he felt Lily's warm arms around him, and he felt his chest heaving with the effort to restrain his tears, which were soaking the front of her robes. Lily's arms tightened around him, gripping him so tightly that he could barely breathe—but he didn't care—he needed to know that she was real—that he was real—because nothing about his life felt real anymore, with his mother gone forever. Remus squeezed his eyes shut, hearing his mother's voice in his ears, soft, and clear, and warm, as she sang, the same words that were stuttering feebly out of the gramophone on the coffee table…
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…You make me happy when skies are grey…You'll never know, dear, how much I love you…Please don't take my sunshine away…"
Author's Note:
I've never made myself cry writing before, but this chapter did it. I think it was the song. If you've been reading this story since the beginning, you might have forgotten the significance of this song to Remus's relationship with his mother. If you want a quick reminder, I suggest looking back at Chapters 2 and 3.
Love you all madly! Shout out to guest reviewer Mindy, whose compliments made my evening. :')
Hugs and chocolate,
Ari
