Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the creation of J.K. Rowling and belongs to
her and various publishing houses.
Remus is accustomed to loss. His humanity, at seven, his unconditional (if wary) trust at 16. His friends, a few short years later, and the hope of watching his almost-son grow with them.
These griefs fall away and Remus has grown accustomed to life around them.
He is accustomed to waking up in a bed that no longer holds any scent but his own, and to falling asleep wrapped around a hollow ache. After years of repetition, these habits seem more real than the scant time before them, when he ran side by side with a black dog of indeterminate breed, when the moon was something to be briefly laughed at.
As for the return of his light, his lover, that was too brief, too bittersweet to dwell on. Remus catalogues it alongside dreams and age-old memories and goes about cleaning the house and grappling with Kreacher, who has become utterly intractable.
If he wakes up, tearstained and disoriented, unquestionably alone these mornings, half-expecting a smile and a kiss, he knows this will pass. He has after all, lost Sirius before, and no one should be mourned twice.
So Remus smiles, and routs pixies and doxies, and sleeps to dream.
Remus is accustomed to loss. His humanity, at seven, his unconditional (if wary) trust at 16. His friends, a few short years later, and the hope of watching his almost-son grow with them.
These griefs fall away and Remus has grown accustomed to life around them.
He is accustomed to waking up in a bed that no longer holds any scent but his own, and to falling asleep wrapped around a hollow ache. After years of repetition, these habits seem more real than the scant time before them, when he ran side by side with a black dog of indeterminate breed, when the moon was something to be briefly laughed at.
As for the return of his light, his lover, that was too brief, too bittersweet to dwell on. Remus catalogues it alongside dreams and age-old memories and goes about cleaning the house and grappling with Kreacher, who has become utterly intractable.
If he wakes up, tearstained and disoriented, unquestionably alone these mornings, half-expecting a smile and a kiss, he knows this will pass. He has after all, lost Sirius before, and no one should be mourned twice.
So Remus smiles, and routs pixies and doxies, and sleeps to dream.