Every wolf needs a moon

By Talia-Rose

Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with Harry Potter so don't sue me. This story is set during the Marauders time at Hogwarts.

Chapter Fourteen: Picnic under the trees.

"Sweet talk don't win me over
But I realize
Big brown eyes can hypnotize"

'Infatuation' – Christina A.

There were only a couple of days left before they had to return to Hogwarts for their last year of school. Much to Sonya's delight, the blooming relationship between James and Lily seemed to be going well and she was making sure that she did all that she could to encourage it. Which was the exact opposite of what Sirius seemed to be doing for her relationship with Remus.

At every turn, Sirius was waiting for her with something new up his sleeve. It was starting to drive her insane and Remus was getting more than annoyed with his close friend. Even though Sonya had admitted that Sirius Black wasn't as bad as she had originally though, he was beginning to make her doubt the wisdom of her change of thought.

Remus caught hold of her wrist and smiled. "Remember you promised to go for a walk with me today? Out towards the lake."

His eyes were gazing happily into hers and Sonya found herself smiling in return. "I remember and I never said that I was planning to do anything other than go for a walk with you."

"Want to go now?"

"Give me a minute and I'll change my skirt to a pair of shorts." She pulled her hand away from him and hurried towards the room she was sharing with Lily.

Pulling her skirt off, Sonya tugged a pair of black shorts on and changed her shirt from the silk blouse she was wearing to a blue cotton shirt. Meeting Remus at the back door, she caught sight of James sneaking back towards the house with a pleased look on his face.

'What's he been up to I wonder? Hopefully not planning some prank. He and Sirius did hear us making plans to go for a walk today.' Sonya narrowed her eyes at James for a moment before turning to Remus. "Where has James been off to this morning? He looks awfully suspicious sneaking around like that."

"I wouldn't have a clue. What James does has nothing to do with me." Remus replied distantly, taking hold of her hand before they started off. "I hope Mrs. Potter doesn't ask where we've gone. You know what she's like when it comes to teenage romance."

"Moony, I think that she knows what's going on between us. She'd be awfully daft if she hadn't noticed in all this time. We've only been together in the same house for half the summer holidays. One would even think that she's noticed the budding relationship between her son and Lily."

He nodded at her, walking slowly towards the distant lake. "Yes, you're probably right Wolfie. Come on, it's this way."

Laughing at his lopsided grin, Sonya let him pull her along at a slightly faster pace towards the small hill that over looked the lake. There was a tall tree standing alone atop the hill and James had told them that it had been his favorite climbing tree when he was younger. She hadn't been out to look at it yet but she remembered Mrs. Potter having said that there had once been a swing there and that the old rope was still wrapped around some of the lower branches.

"For someone who wanted to go on a leisurely walk to the lake, you certainly are in a real hurry." She muttered half-heartedly.

Taking it in good humor, Remus slowed their pace down a little and regarded her thoughtfully as they walked. "Are you going to stay on the Quidditch team this year? James and Sirius are really excited about it this year. They're obsessing over which one of them is most likely to be Captain."

"I was thinking about quitting the team so that I'd have a little more time to do my school work. Last year I was only just passing my classes by the skin of my teeth. As much as I love Quidditch, it is important that I try to do well at school."

"That's going to be a hard decision to make but I remember how much you were stressing out at the end of the year over the exams. Perhaps if you don't play Quidditch this year, you will have more time to relax as well." There seemed to be something else that he wanted to say to her but Remus backed down for the moment.

"What's wrong Remmy?"

"Nothing."

"There's something wrong."

"There isn't anything wrong."

"So why are you looking like you're sucking on a sour lemon?"

He sighed, shooting her chest a look. "Lily told me that you're wearing a crystal on a leather thong around your neck. She said that you never take it off. Why aren't you having your nightmares anymore?"

"I spoke to Professor Dumbledore about the nightmares and he gave me the crystal. He said to wear it when I went to bed at night but I thought that it would be better to wear it all the time. It blocks out dreams of all kinds and shields the mind from outside influence."

"Outside influence?"

She smiled faintly, "That was that I was curious about well when he told me what the crystal did. I think that outside influence refers to mind control and those kind of things… it's a shield that I am very thankful to have."

Remus looked troubled and his brow was furrowed. "I wonder why Professor Dumbledore thought it necessary to protect your mind against outside influence as well as the nightmares you were having? Surely the crystal wasn't the only thing he had that could have blocked out the nightmares?"

"I agree and I have my suspicions. Unfortunately, my suspicions all come back to the fact that I am the last Delcot with the gift. Sometimes I wish that my parents had had more children because then there wouldn't be so much pressure on me. I would have loved to have had siblings who knew and understood the extent of what I have to go through to cope with the gift." Sonya shook her head and leant against Remus as they walked.

Wrapping an arm around her waist, he wished that he could change what Sonya had to suffer. Occasionally he would wonder if being a werewolf was nothing in comparison to what she dealt with. At least he only had to worry about his curse once a month. "Don't think about it Sonya, it'll only get you down. We're out here to enjoy a lovely walk and spend time together."

"Yes, you're right Remus, I'll try not to think about it more than necessary. Perhaps while we're out here I'll be able to go for a fly without being caught by people who don't need to know about the gift." Her mood suddenly lightened again.

They were almost at the top of the hill and Sonya was staring up into the lovely green foliage of the tree so intensely that she didn't even notice the picnic that had been set up at the base of it. Smiling, Remus covered her eyes and guided her over to the blanket.

"Remus! What are you doing?" She growled, trying to remove his hand from her eyes. "I hate it when people cover my eyes."

As he removed his hand from her eyes, Remus murmured "surprise" in her ear and kissed her cheek softly. Laughing, Sonya turned to him thoughtfully with a smile playing over her lips.

"You are trying to do what Sirius said you would with the picnic!" Her voice was filled with amused sarcasm and Remus knew that she was joking with him.

"What did he say that I would try to do?" He asked curiously though he remembered exactly what she was talking about.

Pointing a finger at him, Sonya narrowed her eyes. "You're trying to get inside my pants."

"Am I now?"

"Apparently."

"I've got better ways of seducing you into my arms."

She looked at him with an eyebrow arched. "Really?"

Remus shrugged and knelt beside the picnic basket to see what James had packed. "I believe we have sandwiches, chocolate, butterbeer that has been charmed to stay cold, strawberries… and carrot sticks!"

"They'd be for me." She plonked herself down next to him. "What were you saying just before?"

"And they say that males think about that more than females. Seriously Sonya, haven't you got anything better to be thinking about other than the many different ways that I could seduce you? " He chuckled at the dreamy expression that had appeared on her face.

"No, not really. It's actually quite a welcome distraction to having to worry about school. Besides, girls do think about it a lot, we just don't joke about it like males do."

Turning himself around totally, Remus moved quickly to pin her under him on the blanket. "I thought we'd talked about this already Sonya? You were the one who thought it would be best to wait until we had graduated from school."

Sonya smiled, "A girl is aloud to dream once and a while isn't she? Just because we agreed not to, doesn't mean I can't think about it."

"So you're allowed to think and dream about it but I'm not? That's slightly hypocritical Wolfie."

"Never said you weren't allowed to think about it. You're just not allowed to think about it with other girls." She replied easily, bantering her words against his.

Leaning down, Remus captured her lips in a hungry kiss. "If you really want to Sonya, we can disregard the agreement we came to about this."

She shook her head, knowing that it would be silly to seriously commit to a relationship in that way just yet. "No Remus, you know that we can't. Besides, what would we think of ourselves later on when we thought back to our first time together? It wouldn't be right to do it out here like this. Romantic as a picnic happens to be, it's not the perfect place and this certainly isn't the perfect time."

"So we have to wait still until the end of the year? I must admit, it does make sense to do that Sonya. Besides, we're not ready yet… at least, I know I'm not and I don't think you are either." He replied, kissing her again.

"I'm not sure I'm ready yet. It's such a big thing to do, a big step to take and I'm scared of making the wrong choice about it. When I do it, I want to be sure that I am ready and I mean it."

Sitting up, Remus turned back to the picnic basket and rummaged around to find a plate packed in at the bottom. Arranging the sandwiches on it, he quickly set out the rest of the food while Sonya got up and walked around the tree, gazing up into the foliage. When he was finished, he turned around to watch her investigate the area with a smile on his lips. She was such an inquisitive creature, always trying to memorize every detail of her environment. He doubted that she ever forgot a landscape that she had visited.

"Are you going to sit down and have lunch? James packed a nice mix of sandwiches… and then there are the strawberries and carrot sticks." Remus called out to her.

Bounding back over to the picnic, Sonya didn't notice a rock that was half poking out of the ground. She caught her foot on it and tripped, landing in Remus' arms. "It wasn't my fault."

He chuckled, glad that he'd moved quickly enough to catch her. "Sure it wasn't Wolfie. I believe you. That nasty rock just jumped out and made sure you tripped over it."

"It did! That rock is malicious! It should be locked away in some prison where no one will ever see it again and where it can hurt no one else."

"And next you're going to say that James put it there with the foresight that you were going to trip over it."

Sonya frowned in thought for a moment, her eyes glazing over. "You know, that could very well be a valid occurrence. James could have put it there knowing that one of us was going to trip on it."

Taking a bite out of a sandwich, Remus rolled his eyes and listened to Sonya rave on about what she was going to do to James when they got back. "Just eat some sandwiches Wolfie before I eat them all. You can kill and mutilate James when we get back but lets forget about them for the afternoon. Can't we just have a nice, peaceful and romantic picnic?"

"Yep." She picked up a sandwich and started munching on it, gazing down at the lake while her mind was lost in deep thought.

Remus frowned at her, wondering what he had said to make her fall so silent. Finishing his first sandwich, he took up a second and studied it before eating. "Sonya if you had children, what would you call them?"

Her eyes narrowed and she swiveled her head around to look at him. "If I had children? You're not planning that far ahead already are you Remus?"

"Every girl has ideas of what she would like to call her children if she ever had any. I was merely curious about what you would like to call yours." He chuckled at the suspicious look on her face.

"Considering what we just agreed on again, you're quite willing to broach on a topic that entails the act we were previously bordering on doing."

"Perhaps I am a bit willing to talk about it."

She rolled her eyes, "You are aware of how children are made aren't you Remus?"

"I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say Sonya." Remus muttered, finishing his second sandwich while she grabbed another one to eat.

"Well, when a man and a woman-"

He snapped at her, "Yes Sonya, I know how a child is conceived. What I don't get is why you feel you need to talk about it when all I asked was what you would like to name your children if you had some."

Sonya snorted and fell silent again, eating her sandwich. Cursing himself mentally, he wondered how to apologize to her for snapping. He hadn't meant to come across so annoyed. The topic wasn't one he was ashamed of… it was one he was scared of because he worried that if they started playing around, they would end up forgetting what they had decided on.

"Cassandra Selene."

"What?"

She smiled at him sadly. "I'd call my daughter Cassandra Selene."

'Moon Prophet.' Remus thought, returning her smile. "If I had a son, I'd call him Gawain. I've always liked the name Gawain."

"Well that's agreed then though Gawain is a little to Arthurian for me. If we have a son and a daughter, they'll be called Cassandra Selene and Gawain Lupin." Sonya lay back on the blanket and laughed softly to herself.

A feeling of foreboding settled down on Remus and he couldn't help but wonder if they would ever be able to settle down and start a family. "Agreed."