Dora sighed heavily and it seemed like every part of him froze, the ink from his quill dripping onto his plans for what he was saying on Fred and George's radio show with a 'splat'. Sighing was never a good thing. Especially that type of sighing. Sighing meant that something had gone wrong or things weren't going well. Neither of which were good, in his opinion.
"What wrong?" Remus asked, trying to keep the note of panic out of his voice.
"I'm fine," Dora tried to dismiss him but he wasn't having it.
They had promised to be better at communicating with each other. That's where all their previous problems lay, after all. And communicating meant telling each other if things weren't going well.
"Dora..."
"It's really nothing, Remus," she said, turning around to look at him with a small smile. "Nothing to worry about at all."
Which didn't reassure him. One, Dora didn't do small smiles; her smiles lit up her entire face like you had flipped a switch, and two, like he said before, sighing was never a good sign.
"It's not nothing if you're not feeling great "
"I'm fine," she dismissed.
She very obviously wasn't. But how was he supposed to get her to admit that without nagging at her? He didn't want to nag or come across that he knew better. But he also didn't want to invalidate what she was feeling. Not that je could do that when she wouldn't tell him what she was feeling. Now it was his turn to sigh.
Dora gave him a worried look. "Remus?"
"I'm fine."
"That's my line," she joked and he gave her a half-smile.
Neither of them said anything further. Remus, because he suddenly felt tired and worried but didn't know what to say. He hoped Dora was thinking about sharing whatever was worrying her with him. He wanted to help.
"It's stupid," she said suddenly.
"What?" He hadn't been expecting a reply so soon.
"What I'm feeling. It's stupid."
"Your feelings aren't stupid."
No one's feeling were stupid. Not hers. Not even his, something that he was starting to understand better.
"This feeling is," she huffed crossing her arms. "It is," she added when he opened his mouth to disagree with her. "Trust me, it is."
"I can't say that it is or isn't because you haven't told me what you're thinking," he said calmly.
Not that he was ever going to think that whatever Dora was feeling was stupid.
"Just, just trust me on this, okay?"
"This is the one thing that I don't trust you on."
And there went another sigh. But it was an improvement because this was an exasperated sigh. Good. Progress.
There was more silence before Dora rubbed at her face and stretched. He looked at her expectantly.
"I miss going to concerts," she finally said, scrunching up her nose.
That was definitely not the answer he had been expecting. And, if he was being honest, ne was kind of relieved that that's what she said. It wasn't something more serious. Phew. Well, it wasn't like it didn't matter either. She missed her old, normal life. Which was understandable, even if it was a little depressing to think of what it was like before.
He, personally, never like concerts. His hearing was far too sensitive, especially to the music Sirius and Dora seemed to like. Which sounded an awful lot similar to him but he was not going to bring that up again. He'd had quite the lecture on Rock music versus Punk. Remus did not take too kindly on being the one on the receiving end of a lecture. It just felt wrong to him. Especially when Sirius had been one of the ones giving the lecture!
But he had listened because music is important to Sirius. Was. Was important. And it was important to Dora too. She loved it. At eardrum bursting decibels. Which was fine because he had ear plugs. There were just the vibrations. He didn't know whether or not to feel sorry for their child.
"I know it's stupid," she said, sounding frustrated with herself and misconstruing his silence. "When was the last time I went to a concert? Two years? Three? I'm pretty sure I went to one when I first joined the Order but there was none after that."
"That would be two years, then," he said.
"Yeah. I guess so."
Had Dora really only joined the Order two years ago? Actually, a better question would be, had the Order only reconvened two years ago? It felt like a lot more time had passed since they were in the state of the Ministry not believing Dumbledore. And now Dumbledore was dead and Voldemort was in control. All that in two years.
"That kind of sucks," she said after neither of them said anything for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts.
"It is a long time," he agreed.
And yet it didn't seem that long ago at the same time. So much had happened in two years. It was crazy. Depressing.
"Are we really talking about the fact that I want to go to a concert?" She said in exasperation.
"Yes," Remus replied seriously.
"See? I told you it was silly."
"It's not silly."
"It is. There are so many more important things going on and-"
"-that doesn't mean that you don't care," he finished for her. "And you're allowed to get upset about things that aren't bug and dangerous and scary. Little things still happen."
And was it really a little thing when Dora was basically wishing that things could be normal again? That they could be in a world were going to concerts actually happened again and they could have fun without shadows encroaching on them? That wasn't so little to him. But how to make her see that?
A thought suddenly came to him and Remus reached for the record player, raising his wand to summon her Weird Sisters records. Which, of course, weren't anywhere near the record player. Why would she do something logical like that? He decided not to question why they came from the kitchen- some things didn't need answers.
"Remus, what are you doing?" She asked in confusion.
"You'll see."
"Um, okay."
Right, everything was ready. He just had to tune this thing right and then get Dora to make one little decision.
"We're going to listen to some music," he said triumphantly as he sorted the knobs out.
He held out his hand to her and she automatically took it, eating him bring her to her feet.
"But you don't even like the Weird Sisters," she protested with a laugh but let herself be dragged to her feet.
She was right, he didn't like the Weird Sisters. They used bagpipes for Merlin's sake. No good band in his opinion should ever use bagpipes. But for whatever reason, Dora loved them. And he loved the look on her face she got when she listened to them so he had become somewhat accustomed to what they sounded like. Not that that had made him like them but he could put up with their songs now instead of arguing with Dora about it. Now, if only he could get her to stop leaving the room when he put jazz music on...
"I don't," he agreed, holding her collection of records out. "But we're both going to listen to them. Pick one."
"But why?" She asked, picking one from the middle. "And we can listen to them without standing up."
"Because we're going to have a little concert of our own, that's why."