Penelope woke up in a bed she didn't recognize, in the arms of someone at once foreign and familiar.
She hadn't felt safe since the attack on the paper, but it seemed to her that if she just stayed here a bit longer, then she would feel safe. And maybe then she'd feel whole again.
She didn't know quite when she drifted off to sleep, but the next time she woke up, he was gone—and she was famished. She rolled out of bed, struggled into the robes left in a heap on the floor, and stumbled downstairs to find something to eat.
Molly Weasley was at the stove already, talking to someone at the table, and she greeted Penelope with a sympathetic smile before she turned to crack an egg into the frying pan. She froze in mid-crack and slowly turned her head to stare at Penelope. "Penelope, love," she asked softly, "why in Merlin's name are you wearing Remus's robes?"
It wasn't until that moment that Penelope realized that the other person in the kitchen was Tonks. She cautiously met the other woman's eyes over the table, and her stomach dropped to her feet as it became all too clear that Tonks already knew.
Suddenly, she didn't feel quite so hungry.
Tonks stared at her for just a second longer, then stood abruptly and rushed out of the kitchen. Penelope just barely reacted in time to move with her. "Tonks, wait!"
"I don't want to talk about it, Penelope," she snapped, straightening her robes and abruptly changing her hair to bright blue. "I'm late for work."
Penelope pulled her own robes—Remus's robes, she reminded herself—more tightly around her. "You've been late to work all of three times since you became an Auror. I'm sure they'll overlook this once."
"And I'm supposed to put my life on hold while you tell me why you shagged Remus?"
It had made sense at one point, but as she stared at Tonks, Penelope realized that it didn't make sense at all. "No," she said softly. "I didn't shag him, Tonks, and that's not the point, anyway. If you have to go, then go. We'll talk later."
"Or never," Tonks corrected, and then she grew three inches. "He doesn't love you. Not like that."
"I think he loves me more than you ever did," Penelope said, and those words were easier than anything else she'd said. Maybe because they were true, absolutely true, and she believed them with all her heart. "You should probably go."
"I should." And she stepped outside and Disapparated, leaving Penelope standing in the doorway of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, alone, confused, and feeling as though she'd just done something awful.
"I'd give my life for her," Remus said, not bothering to lower his voice, because he didn't care who heard it. "She's the best thing that's ever happened to me, Severus."
Snape blinked slowly. "You do realize we're discussing Potter?"
"We were discussing Harry. Now we're discussing the Order."
Penelope hardly qualified as the entire Order, and he knew it. And so, it seemed, did Snape. "She's a distraction, Lupin. You know as well as I that distractions cannot be tolerated."
Remus could have argued that Sirius had been a distraction, and that Tonks was a distraction, but that seemed beside the point. He didn't have time to argue, anyway, before Snape eyed him critically and said, "How would you handle it, anyway? How would she handle it?"
It was about more than loss, and grief, and finding comfort in each other's arms. It was about their histories, and their ages, and the very real fact that he became a werewolf once a month. "I don't know," he replied honestly. "But I know that I'd be willing to try."
"And so would she. That much is obvious, just in the way she looks at you." Snape barely let that sentence rest before he cleared his throat. "This isn't the Daily Prophet advice column, Lupin, and I do have classes to teach. I'll bring your Wolfsbane when it's ready. Now, if you'll excuse me…" And he swept from the office without so much as a glance behind.
Remus followed more slowly, making his way out of the Potions classroom and past the first year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who'd begun to file in, and who stared at him with wide eyes as he trudged past them.
If he's been thinking clearly, he might have visited Dumbledore next—if only because there was hardly a point visiting Hogwarts without visiting Dumbledore—but by the time that thought appeared in his mind, he was already in Hogsmeade. It was just as well, he decided; he wouldn't have been able to concentrate, anyway.
Number twelve, Grimmauld Place was almost silent when he arrived, which he'd expected. The house was quietest at midday, if only because most of the Order had jobs that permitted them precious little downtime, but he'd almost never found himself the only person there. And even today, even in that silence, he wasn't alone.
He found them in the kitchen, Penelope standing beside Molly at the stove, heads tilting toward each other as they spoke in low tones. He stood there for a few seconds, just watching them, and before he could decide whether to announce his presence or slip away unnoticed, Penelope turned. And beamed at him. "Remus," she said softly. "I didn't expect you back so soon."
He shrugged, mostly because he didn't know quite what to do. "It's almost twelve, isn't it? Just in time for lunch."
She nodded. "I suppose you'll be joining us, then?"
"Us?" Molly spoke up, laughing. "I have work to do, dear. You and Remus are on your own for lunch." She hung her apron on a peg on the wall and bustled out of the kitchen, brushing past Remus. He was sure he saw her wink at him.
"Well," he said, as Molly's footsteps faded away, "should we stay in, or would you rather go out?"
Penelope cast her vote to stay in, so they dined on cold sandwiches at the kitchen table. Remus had always been rather a fan of sandwiches, and he took special pride in his own creations. And not for nothing, as Penelope seemed to be enjoying the sandwich he'd made for her.
"Tonks hates me," she announced, halfway through lunch, and he looked up at her, eyebrows raised slightly. She shrugged, in response to his unasked question. "I suppose it might have something to do with the fact that I came down to breakfast in your robes."
He couldn't stop the hint of a smile from playing on his lips. "You what?"
"Well, if you hadn't left your robes on the floor, I wouldn't have taken them for mine when I woke up. Why were they on the floor?"
"That's a long story, actually. But the short of it is that I couldn't stand to watch you reach out for someone who wasn't there."
Penelope nodded slowly and returned to her sandwich. He attempted to do the same, with little success. "You know, you'll have to leave this house sometime," he said, after a few minutes of silence. "I don't mean permanently, by any means. But you've hardly seen daylight since you got here."
She swallowed the last bite of crust and looked up to meet his gaze. "I thought I was only supposed to leave when I absolutely had to."
"Well, you were, at first. But now…" He shrugged. "Anyway, that never stopped Sirius."
"Well, I'm not bloody Sirius, am I?" she snapped.
"I never said you were."
"No but you just compared me to him, didn't you?" She sighed and raked a hand back through her curls. "Honestly, Remus, if you want someone like Sirius, you shouldn't have invited me into your bed."
"I don't want someone like Sirius," he said softly. She blinked, silently urging him to elaborate. "I want someone like you. You might be the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I honestly can't believe I didn't fall in love with you before now."
"You—what?" Penelope, who'd started to stand up from the table, stopped so abruptly that she lost her balance and toppled right over the bench behind her, landing in a considerably undignified heap on the floor. She sat up, blinking at him through the curls that had fallen over her face. "Remus, did you…?"
"Say that I love you?" he finished, after she trailed off. "I suppose I did."
"Oh," she said quietly. Then he could almost see the gears turning in her head, and her mouth dropped open slightly. "Oh. Well. I…"
So he'd upset her, it seemed. His face grew hot, and suddenly he could no longer meet her gaze. "You don't have to—"
"I love you, too."
Remus didn't know exactly when he'd risen, but suddenly he was on his feet, staring down at the girl across the table. Penelope beamed up at him, and suddenly the table was far too long, and the only logical course of action was to climb right over the top of the table and fall to his knees in front of her. His fingers brushed over her cheeks, smooth under his rough skin, and she leaned up just far enough to brush her lips against his.
He hadn't expected a simple kiss to be so…well, simple. They lived in a world where they risked their lives nearly every day, and everything—love and hate, life and death, joy and sorrow—was on the grand scale, where nothing was ever easy or effortless or uncomplicated. But this was a simple purity he hadn't known in years, if he'd ever known it at all.
And were there any way he could make this moment last forever, he'd have jumped at the chance.