AN: Is everyone all right out there? I hope so. I almost didn't post this chapter, but I changed my mind when I realized that they had canceled baseball. It's a long story, but basically I'm trying to preserve the idea that American's can maintain the vision of normality. This chapter was fun to write. I'd love to hear your comments. Oh, and I don't speak French so please tell me if I didn't translate the title right.
"Where is that damn shirt?" Severus whispered as he pulled through yet another one of Relena's drawers.
"Severus, are you looking for something?" Relena mocked, leaning in the doorway. She was a lot like Black in that respect, neither of them ever stood up straight if they could avoid it.
"Uh, no, nothing," Severus stuttered.
"You sure? Not even this?" Relena held up the Quidditch Bitch shirt. Severus lunged at it, but Relena slid out of his way gracefully. Instead of grabbing the shirt, Severus tumbled to the ground. "Still a klutz. Really Severus, how did you ever survive without me?" Relena teased as she offered her hand to pull him up.
"Years of Slytherin cunning," Severus said grabbing her hand and pulling her down. Usually, Relena would have been able to keep her balance, but Severus' actions were so unexpected that she lost it. The next thing she knew, Relena had landed on top of him. It took them a few minutes to untangle their arms and legs. Severus was the first to stand up.
"Well, that was fun," he said offering her his hand. Relena accepted it reluctantly, and he pulled her to her feet.
"I should have let James put the jellyleg curse on you when I was five!" she said sticking out her tongue.
"That wouldn't have been very nice, Potter. I don't think we could have been friends if that had happened."
"Oh no! Then I would be short one adopted brother, and my favorite one too," Relena called as she walked back down the hall, shirt in hand, and into the den. Quickly, she threw the shirt into a box of clothes.
"Now, let's see. I've got Miguel's clothes. He'll just have to fix it himself if he wants something different. Spridal all ready has anything she wants," Severus gave her a strange glance, "Oh, Sev, don't look at me like that. She's a sprite. They aren't big on material possessions. I have all of my clothes…"
"You mean you're actually bringing that shirt?" Severus looked at her wide-eyed.
"Of course. I've got to have something to wear under my robes when it starts to get hot out. So, I've got all our clothes, and everyone else's personal gear. Now I just need my gear and a few little things."
"Relena, why did you leave him?" Severus asked the question out of nowhere.
"I already told you years ago Severus. We were just too different. It wouldn't have worked out well. Every time he looked at me I knew all he really saw was James' little sister." Relena sighed.
"Relena," Severus put his hand on her shoulder, "you know that's not true. Of anyone that met you, Lupin never once saw you as James' little sister. So, what is the real reason?"
"Dammit, Severus!" Relena threw his hand off of her arm, "I've told you all I'm ever going to tell anyone about what happened between Remus and I. You need to learn to leave it at that!"
"It was because of me wasn't it? You left Remus because of me," Severus' expression saddened.
"Severus," Relena's tone quieted, "never think that. You didn't do anything. It just didn't work out. So lets just leave it at that." She turned away from him, and wiped away tears he didn't see. "Now, come on, I need you to help me get some of my stuff out of the closet." Relena took Severus' hand and pulled him toward a closet off to the side of the kitchen. "Just pull that box down for me, okay? I have to get some of my paperwork and a couple of books." Relena walked over to a desk on the other side of the room, and started shuffling around some papers.
Severus stared up at the closet for a minute. There were two boxes. Well, best pull down the one on top first, Severus thought as he reached up to pull down a box. It was heavy and felt like it was filled with books. Just as Severus was moving to put the box on the floor, the bottom fell out. The entire contents of the box spilled across the kitchen, and Severus gasped. Inside the box had been mementos from Relena's childhood.
Quickly, Severus began to pick up the box's contents and put it on the table. He found everything that he had ever associated with Relena in that box. He found an owl doll, posters of some of the bands she had worshiped as a child, a sketchpad, magic pencils that changed color with thought, and even a few writing notebooks. Among the menagerie of objects on the floor, Severus found a sneakoscope, dung bombs, an assortment of candies, pens, pencils, newspaper articles, and some post cards.
At the bottom of the pile Severus found three photo albums. As he picked them up Relena appeared by his side. "Relena!" he yelled feeling a bit startled. He lost hold on one of the albums and a picture fell out of one of the books.
Quickly, Severus bent down to pick it up. He set down the other albums and stared at the picture for a minute. It was a picture of Relena when she was six months pregnant. She was smiling and waving and Severus had his arms wrapped around her in a hug. He sighed as he read what she had written at the bottom, Relena, Severus, and little Sev. He handed the picture to Relena who hastily put it back in one of the albums. She looked at him for a minute, looking as if she might cry, before grabbing the albums and walking out to the den. Severus followed her.
"I meant what I said," he commented as she angrily shoved her books into a bag.
"What?" she snapped turning to look at him. Severus looked with surprise upon the emotions that were so blatantly apparent on her face pain, regret, sadness, anger, frustration, and quite a few others he couldn't name.
"When I asked you to marry me, I meant it. I just thought you should know," he said wishing more than ever that she had said yes that day.
"Severus," she said, her voice lowering to a motherly tone, "we both know that it wouldn't have worked, and what you did was very honorable, but I didn't want to marry you. I loved you. I still do, I just didn't want to regret the decision I made that day, and to this day I haven't." Severus felt a weight lift off his soul.
"Besides what would Anne do? You couldn't have both her and me," Relena laughed. She looked up at a clock on the wall. "I think it's time for you to go Severus. You have a class to teach soon." She hugged him. Slowly, Severus approached the fireplace and threw in some floo powder.
He stepped into the fire and cried out "HOGWARTS!"
"Oh, Severus, when will I get to meet Anne?"
"You'll meet her…." The rest of his answer was swallowed by the fire, and Relena was left feeling alone, but happy. Quietly, she began to finish her own packing before Miguel arrived to take their things to the school.
She cleaned up the box that Severus had dumped all over the floor. She looked at some of the old photos for a minute. There were pictures of herself, James, Lily, Harry, Remus, Peter, Severus, and ugh even Sirius. Once, she had repacked the box she put it back on the top shelf of the cabinet. She walked out into the den and pulled all three duffel bags to the fireplace. I should have just told Miguel I could handle it myself, she thought as she realized how light the bags were.
Quickly, she decided to take one last look around the flat. She loved this flat. She had only lived one place that she had loved even more, but that was in another time when she was another person. To someone looking from the outside, it looked like any normal flat in Liverpool. In reality, it had been magically enhanced to hold several extra rooms. The dinning room, kitchen and den were all basically made up of one big room with a few counters and small walls to divide them. There were two bathrooms. One was Relena's and one was Miguel's. There were three bedrooms. The one furthest down the hall was Relena's in which she keep most of her things except for the two boxes that Severus had uncovered in the closet. The one closet to the foyer was Miguel's it was small, but Miguel had always pointed out that he did nothing but sleep in there which was true. The one in the middle of the hall sat across from a huge closet that Relena had turned into a laundry room. This room was usually empty. When Relena and Miguel had originally rented the flat, they had agreed that they would use it as a guest room; unfortunately, they weren't exactly the world's most social people so guests were rare. When Spridal came along they had offered her the room, but after taking one look it the sprite had said no in favor of levitating in the den while she sleep.
"It looks like a boy sleeps in there," she had commented, and looking at it now Relena did agree. When she had designed the room she didn't realize that it looked exactly as James' had when they all lived in the house in Godric's Hallow. This will be Harry's room, she sighed to herself and leaned against the doorframe.
She only rested there a moment before walking back to her room. She sat down at her small wooden desk. They had two desks in this house. The large one in the den was for everyone to use. All of the work for the Dark Creature Underground as well as other papers sat on that desk. This one was smaller, but big enough to suit Relena's needs. It was almost empty now, since she had stuffed most of her "projects" as Miguel called them into her duffel bag on the other side of the room, but there was still one "project" laid out across the table.
Mostly, it was newspaper clippings that read titles like, SIRIUS BLACK SPOTTED IN HOGSMADE or LOCK YOUR DOORS: VOLDERMORT'S GREATEST SERVANT HAS RETURNED. Relena puzzled over these articles for a few minutes. She had been searching for Sirius since he broke out of Azkaban. She couldn't let him get a hold of Harry, and the best way to keep that from happening was to find him herself. From underneath the articles Relena pulled out a large map of the world. It had been marked with little black dots wherever Sirius had been spotted. She stared at the map for a few minutes.
"Where are you hiding Black?" she asked no one unparticular. She continued looking over the map for a few minutes before giving up and packing it away with the rest of her "projects". Quickly, she pulled the duffel bag out to the fireplace.
"What am I forgetting?" she mumbled to herself. "Oh, yeah, duh," she said slapping her own forehead. Relena went back through all the rooms checking to make sure all of the wards that she and Miguel had put up were still in place. It wouldn't do for some insane death eaters to break into their apartment while they weren't around. Relena was halfway done when she suddenly heard a loud thump from the den.
"Need to work on that landing a bit don't you Miguel?" Relena called and continued checking the wards at the end of the hall. When she finally entered the den Miguel wasn't there. Instead there stood a wizard whose height was about the same as her own and was dressed in shabby robes. Having spent years hiding from an assortment of dangerous creatures Relena's instincts automatically skipped to the most dangerous conclusion, a death eater. It took Relena only a second to recover from the shock and pull out her wand. She pointed it at the other wizard,
"Turn around, slowly," she demanded through gritted teeth. The wizard who had been dusting off his robes did as she asked.
"Good morning Relena," Remus said looking cheerful and nervous at the same time. For a minute Relena stood there, confusion blatant on her face.
"Remus?" she asked lowering her wand.
"Yes," he nodded his head and gave her a look that made her fell like a nine year old which only served to anger her.
"How the heck did you get into my apartment? Where is Miguel?" she demanded.
"Miguel is following me, though I think he stopped to talk to Madame Rosmarta about something. I used floo powder to get into your apartment."
"And exactly how did you learn of my apartment's name so that you could get here?" she asked angrily.
"Miguel told me. We're becoming fast friends you know? Which I assume is something that you had hoped would happen." Relena chose to ignore his last comment.
"Miguel, as in Miguel about yeah high," Relena held her hand up above her head to mimic Miguel's height, "and yeah big," Relena spread her arms to mimic Miguel's broad shoulders, "that Miguel?"
"Yes," Remus replied confused, "Is there a problem Relena?"
"No, no problem. I'm just going to have to search around Hogwarts for a pod or something."
"A pod?"
"Yes, Remus, a pod. Like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
"And you would be looking for such a pod because…"
"Because," Relena rolled her eyes at the older werewolf, "in the movie people are replaced by duplicates of themselves that don't act like themselves," Remus looked confused, "Lets, just say it's not like Miguel to give the name of our flat away to strange werewolves, even if they are his friends. It took me four months to convince him to give Trin the name, and he's know her since we joined the DCU.'
"Trin?"
"Her parents were hippies. So anyway since you're here, what do you think?" Relena held her arms up to indicate the flat.
"It's very nice, but the name is, um, interesting."
"What you don't like the name Nid'd Loup?"
"Oh, I like it, but really Relena in French. I thought you hated France."
"Actually, I was thinking more of New Orleans when I put the name into French. You could have yelled it out in English and gotten here all the same. Miguel just never took the time to look it up."
"New Orleans?" Remus looked puzzled.
"Yes, I thought you liked New Orleans, Remus," Relena said as she walked into the next room to continue checking the wards.
"I did. I just figured you would have forgotten by now," Remus mumbled as he followed her into the kitchen.
"Forget New Orleans? Are you crazy? I loved that city. I'm going to take Harry there one of these days." She looked back at him instead of the ward she was poking at. All of a sudden there was a flash of sparks and Relena pulled her hand back as if she had been shocked.
"Ouch! Dammit, Miguel!" she yelled looking at her hand.
"What? Are you okay?" Remus questioned trying to hide the concern in his voice.
"Yeah, I'm fine. He put silver in that damn thing. What was he thinking? Well just for that he gets to check the rest of the wards himself," Relena said. She hadn't noticed Remus approach her until he reached out and grabbed her hand.
"Remus, what are you doing?" she shrieked indignantly.
"Shh, let me see," he turned her hand over in his own and ran a finger down the jagged burn that the silver had left on her palm, "This looks pretty bad," he said looking into her eyes. Relena looked back at him and saw something in his eyes that she wanted to ignore, but found it hard to do as he brought his face closer to her own.
"Relena! Remus! Where are you two?" Miguel called out from the fireplace. Both Relena and Remus jumped about three feet and backed away from each other. Relena stared at him for a second before rolling her eyes and searching through the cabinet above the sink for a bandage for her hand. Remus stood on the other side of the kitchen and tried to look interested in an article on the affects of Wolfsbane potion on infant werewolves.
"So what did I miss?" Miguel asked as he walked into the kitchen holding three butter beers. He handed one to Remus, put his own down on the counter, and was about to hand one to Relena when he noticed the bandage wrapped around her hand.
"Relena, what on earth happened to your hand?" Relena stared at him with an evil glare. Remus suddenly felt very bad for Miguel.
"What happened to my hand? WHAT HAPPENED TO MY HAND?" Relena hollered. "ONE OF YOUR STUPID WARDS HAD SILVER IN IT! WHAT IN THE WORLD EVER POSSED YOU TO PUT SILVER IN ONE OF THE WARDS!"
"Cool it, Relena," Miguel said casually, but he did seem nervous. "I'm sorry. I'll take the silver out and finish checking the wards. Have a butterbeer," he said handing her the bottle.
"Damn right you will!" Relena mumbled as she snatched the bottle out of his hand and walked back down the hall to her room.
"Well, Remus," Miguel sighed, "welcome to Wolf's Den." Miguel spent the next ten minutes checking the rest of the wards. "I can be such an idiot some days, Remus. You should know that. She's right. I shouldn't have put silver in these things. Not with her the way she is. I actually put it up as a vampire ward, but I should have thought about how it would hurt her. Dammit, Trin is going to kill me."
"Who is this Trin?"
"Trin, ah, she's all right. She's one of the only girls I ever see Relena hang around. She's great for Relena. Makes her leave the house every once in a while."
"Is she a friend of yours?"
"Trin a friend? Yeah I guess you could say that." Miguel replied with a mischievous grin. "More like a respected peer. You should meet her one of these days. I think you'd find her quite interesting." Remus was about to ask what would be so interesting about Trin, but decided against it.
"Hey, you interested in that articles Remus?" Miguel asked motioning to the paper that Remus had began staring at when he had entered the room.
"Um, yes. It's very interesting."
"One of the Researchers published it. Relena was so proud of him. Roin, I think his name is. He's over in the Untied States' branch. Relena helped him with some of the research. She loves that kind of stuff, you know? Loves messing around with her "projects"," Miguel said while tinkering with one of the wards that had been placed above a window.
Remus was about to ask Miguel more about these projects when Relena stormed back in the room. "Miguel, I can't find that article. Have you seen it?"
"Which one? The one about Sirius Black, the one about your nephew, or the one that American friend of yours published?"
"His names Roin, and yes, that one," Relena sighed.
"Oh, well, it's right there. Remus was just looking over it," Miguel stated as if he hadn't even noticed Relena's annoyed state. For a moment Relena's eyes widened in horror. It was so fast that only Remus noticed it. Quickly, she snatched up the article, and shoved it into a bag she had been carrying on her shoulder.
"Are we planning on leaving any time in the next year?" Relena snapped.
"Oh course, you highness, just as soon as I finish this butterbeer," Miguel replied back with a sarcastic smirk. Relena sighed and leaned against the counter. Nobody spoke until they had all finished their drinks.
"Now, can we go?" Relena sighed.
"Yes, now we can go," Miguel replied.
It didn't take them long to get back to the Hogsmeade. Miguel carried three bags, Remus was carrying two, and Relena was only carrying one, since Remus had decided to be a gentleman and offer to carry the other for her. The two men walked in front talking adamantly about Quidditch. Relena lagged a few feet behind wondering just how much Remus knew about how she had helped Roin with the article.
Draco Malfoy was sitting in a chair in the damp Slytherin common room when a large hawk swooped in. Quickly, he untied the letter attached to its leg, and it flew away instantly. With more excitement than he would ever admit to, Draco opened the letter from his father. It read:
Dear boy,
We might just make a spy out of you yet! I'm going to contact everyone I know within the Australian Death Eater and Darkhunter circles and see if I can find out anything about this sprite of yours. Keep your eyes opened, your ears wide, and your mouth shut. Be sure to send word of any other strange happenings at the school.
Your Father,
Lucius
Draco smirked satisfactorily. Espionage always was his favorite game.
AN: So, what do you think? I'll include a longer author's note next time, but for now, good night and god bless.
Morgan