Chapter 9

Remus sat staring into the flames thinking of the letter that she had sent him after that day in London. From the moment that she had left with her mother until he had opened her letter, he had existed in a state of total panic so severe that Sirius had been worried that Remus was losing his mind. Primarily he had worried that she would reject him. He had let his emotions out of their cage and it was too late to put himself back together again. And now he knew that he was completely lost because if he didn't get her back then he would probably lose whatever control he still had. Control had always been both his problem and his strength, but Edwina had broken through every barrier without trying.

Yet secondarily he worried because he knew that he had no possible way to support her properly. She was used to wealth, but even if she had come from a family with only a moderate income what he could provide would seem like penury. In fact, it was sheer poverty. All that he had were the savings from his year at Hogwarts. He had not yet touched that money before they married, but even in the present he had only used a small portion. When Edwina had sold her necklace...best not to think of that now. But with a baby coming things would change again.

Her letter that day had changed his life. Remus felt for the pocket with the well-worn paper, but he didn't need to pull it out to see the words on it. He knew every word. He was a fool to have married her, in fact he had been a fool to even allow himself to talk to her in the street that first time. He had known he was going to fall in love with her within twenty minutes of beginning that conversation and had done nothing to stop himself. She was the type of witch that any wizard would want; she could have married anyone. The only reason the boys had not fallen over her at Hogwarts had because her extreme shyness had made her nearly invisible. Remus himself had been surprised how quickly she could transform herself into a mousy, nondescript student from the rare moments at Hogwarts that her true beauty had shone. But out in society with her mother pushing her that would have changed. She could hardly have done worse than to marry him and he had been selfish enough to pursue her. But it seems he had gotten his payment. She must have found someone better after all.

Remus looked over to where Edwina was now sleeping soundly. He sighed at how indescribably beautiful she looked as she slept and then stood up to cross to the far corner of the room. Remus looked back once more to be certain she was asleep and pointed his wand below a water stained spot on the wall before murmuring something softly. He immediately walked forcefully through the wall into a small room with grey walls streaked with black marks and a heavily scratched green metal desk. Remus unlocked a drawer with his wand and pulled out his tattered bank book. Of course there were no happy surprises there. He wrote swiftly on a piece of paper a list of items before pausing and then adding, "4 tins canine-grade feed" at the very bottom. He needed to write a letter to Tonks, too, about returning Blackie in the morning.

"Remus." A rough voice emanated from his pocket.

He swore silently and pulled out a small chipped mirror before replying, "What is it Sirius?"

"Have you brought her home?"

"Yes, she is asleep in the next room."

"Everything alright?"

"No, but you knew that. You shouldn't risk contacting me Sirius. You should be more careful."

"Sod being careful Moony, I'm bored out of my effing mind. Nothing to do besides rot in this old hellhole and watch everyone else come and go."

Remus sighed and said urgently, "I know Sirius, but you know why you have to stay there. Please, old friend, don't do anything stupid." He heard a rough laugh and stared into the mirror at the discontented face of his friend. "Sirius, whatever it is, don't."

"Oh I'm not going to do anything rash, don't worry. I'll behave."

Remus watched the mirror go blank and thoughtfully touched his finger to the surface and said almost nervously, "James". Nothing happened and Remus frowned. At least Harry was not involved in whatever Sirius was planning. Unless Sirius had reset the contact between James' mirror. Remus touched the mirror again and said clearly, "Show me Harry". Nothing happened, but Remus wondered to himself what he was expecting Harry would have said anyway.

Remus pushed the papers into his pocket along with the mirror and walked back out into the bedroom. He stopped at the foot of the bed and looked at his sleeping wife. There was nothing that he could do to displace the desperate fear that was now living in his gut. He had craved the friendship and acceptance of his two popular friends in school and now he needed the love of this young woman. The two situations were not much different. His need to be loved was really his greatest weakness; greater even than his constant struggle to control the wolf. He had been blind to the faults of his friends and where they might lead. Could he have been that foolish about her? Would she have played him for the lovesick old fool that he undoubtedly was? Had there been some plot to which she had agreed only now to have been obliviated after its completion?

Sirius had said from the very beginning that Remus was a fool. In fact his friend had said much worse. Remus knew that it was admittedly difficult to explain why Edwina would have chosen a middle-aged, very poor, plain faced, lycanthropic wizard. It was true that Sirius had eventually been won over to Remus' surprise and pleasure. Yet despite Remus' own passionate will to have his girl, he had still known how slim his chances of keeping her were. "What is she trying to gain, Moony? I am sorry to say it mate, because I can tell how much she means to you, but I really am afraid that there must be some ulterior motive and I don't want to see you hurt again." Sirius' words from four months before rung in his ears again as Remus stared down at where Edwina was sleeping peacefully. "Don't let a little bit of sex go to your head, Remus, she is 20, what could you possibly have in common?" Remus grimaced when he remembered that, especially since Edwina was very religious. Many witches were, but she had been insistent about following the Church's teachings on sex, so he had not been allowed to touch her until their wedding night. It hadn't been sex, but perhaps the promise of it. Was that what he had wanted so badly? She was beautiful and young and very innocent. She had been willing to do whatever he wanted, since she didn't know anything different. Perhaps Sirius had been right and it was a lonely, old werewolf's base desires that had sent him over the edge. Edwina rolled over in her sleep and Remus smiled suddenly. No, this was far beyond that. He had never thought it possible to be so completely owned by one person before he had fallen in love with her. Remus walked to the bedroom door and was almost out of the room when he heard her soft voice speak.

"Oh, please don't go."

"I didn't see that you were awake."

"I only just woke up, but I had a lovely nap. I don't feel the least bit sleepy now."

Remus looked at the moon clock on the mantle and saw with surprise that it had been two hours. "Do you want to change? Your robes are on the left of the wardrobe."

Edwina shook her head and said instead, "Do I need to?"

Remus, who had opened the door to the wardrobe, turned to look at her. "No, of course not. But you usually don't like to have creased robes and since you fell asleep in those I assumed you would want to change."

Edwina looked down at her robes and saw the wrinkles in her robe and said softly, "Oh. You're right. You know my friends always say that a wrinkle-releasing spell works just as well as hanging them in the cupboard, but I don't think that the folds drape properly after the spell. You always look a little stiff."

Remus felt an odd burst of joy hearing her speak her mind about a topic upon which he had heard her expound many times before. This was familiar. This was his Edwina. The state of his own robes had been a source of constant despair to her. "If you would like to change then I will leave you."

Edwina stood and walked across the room to where Remus was leaning against the wardrobe door. She stared at all the robes in the wardrobe. "These aren't the robes I had before. Did you buy me all those?"

"Yes."

"Oh, you shouldn't have. What a beast I was to have made you."

"You didn't make me, Winnie. I wanted you to be happy and you didn't like most of the robes that your mother bought."

"Yes, but you spent all that money on them when I had dozens of ugly ones already. I'm sure I could have managed for ages with the others."

"You were only able to pack one of the old ones anyway, Winnie. We eloped, so you weren't able to bring much baggage with you."

"We did? Because of my family?"

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"Why? My parents would never have let me marry you; I suppose that was the only way it could have happened. I just hadn't thought about it. At least I brought my favourite things."

Remus looked at her oddly. How did she know what she had brought? But he saw her glance over at the table and realised that she meant her great-aunt's silver set and the old red Bible.

"Remus?"

"Yes, Winnie?"

She whispered, "What happened to my necklace?"

So she had noticed it wasn't there. He had wondered when she would notice. He replied bitterly, "It was sold."

"Ohh, I sold it for us and you are still angry about it aren't you?"

Lupin's face showed surprise at her intuition and he said gruffly, "Yes, you sold it without my knowledge."

"I can tell that we don't have much. You don't need to be gloomy about it. I did love that necklace, but it was mine to sell and if it helped us more to get rid of it then it would have been horribly selfish of me to keep it."

Remus turned away from her and stood with his arms crossed, glaring into the fire. "You shouldn't have to do without Winnie. You deserve beautiful things and I shall never be able to give them to you."

"Of course I would like to have house elves and fine things, every witch does, but most of us don't get that. It is even harder to find real love though, isn't it? Isn't that what is important?"

"Yes, I believe that, Winnie. But hardship can break even the deepest love and you will have much hardship if you remain with me. If we are to go forward you must understand what I can offer you."

"Well things look fine to me. The house is nice, everything is neat and polished and cheerful. We aren't living in a cave."

"You worked hard to make the cottage look like it does, Edwina, and you did a wonderful job. But I will never be able to afford anything new, so you will always have to mend what we have. This is not a fairy tale, my dear, it is harsh reality. I cannot legally hold a job because of what I am."

"But you taught at Hogwarts."

"Yes, but there is now a law."

"There is a law? But...do they just want you to starve?"

"Probably, yes. No one wants werewolves, Winnie. This law may be considered extreme, but most of the wizarding world would rather be shut of us."

"But what about the werewolves' families?"

"Most of us don't have families, my love. In fact a law has also been passed that bans werewolves from marrying anyone with magical blood."

"But what about us?"

"Our marriage had already taken place. It doesn't affect us. If we had been married in a muggle ceremony they might have tried to annul it, but because I feared this might happen we were married at the Ministry. They cannot declare our marriage void without permission from one of us."

"Oh. Are there many other laws like this?"

"Yes, but surprisingly they haven't passed a law about werewolves reproducing. I would have thought that would be the first law, frankly. But I am sure that one will be passed as soon as they hear that you are having a baby."

"They can't make us get rid of the child!"

"No, but they may make it impossible for me to have more children in the future."

"No! They can't do that! You aren't an animal."

"I don't think that everyone would agree. To many people werewolves are simply monsters."

"But that is awful. What can you do? Are the other werewolves fighting this?"

"Edwina, we aren't exactly a community. Well, there are communities, but they live outside the normal wizarding world. Those of us who still try to live in the wizarding world are mostly too marginalised to do anything to protect ourselves. We have spent our lives trying to hide our condition, so we aren't too likely to advertise it now."

"So you just take it and do nothing?"

"That is all I can do Winnie. If I fight this then I risk being imprisoned in Azkaban or perhaps worse."

"I can't believe that the Ministry would be so unfair. That doesn't seem possible."

"There are a lot of injustices in our world, Winnie, and a lot of prejudice." Remus watched as Edwina clenched and unclenched her fists in anger.

"I think...well, you know I must have known exactly what I was doing when I married you. I must have understood all of this and not minded."

"No, you did care. You were fiercely angry about it, as you are now. I had to stop you from charging the Ministry."

"Yes, well I was really meaning to say that I must not have been bothered by the lack of money. I knew it would be so and yet still felt I would be happy."

"You wanted me to let you get a job, actually. You never really accepted things as they are."

"Well, why should I? I ought to get a job if you can't. It would help."

"No."

Edwina looked at Remus in surprise. "Why? Lots of witches work these days."

"If you really want a career then I will do everything I can to help you have that. But can you tell me that is what you truly want?" Edwina stared up at him and finally looked away. She couldn't lie and pretend that she did, so she shook her head. She could not understand why he looked as if she had insulted his entire family. But from the excellent impersonation of a stuffed owl that he was giving, Edwina knew that he was very upset. "You told me before that what you wanted most was to raise your own plants and be here at our home, so that is what I promised I would provide for you. I will honour that promise, Winnie."

"But I could work for a while until the baby came and we could save up a bit."

She saw him stiffen more, if possible, as he spoke through clenched teeth, "Especially not now." Edwina was really startled by the anger she saw in him. "We argued this before and I won't do it again. You won't be going out to work because of me. Please do not mention it again."

Edwina turned away and blinked once to push back the tears, "I'm sorry, I was trying to help." She felt his hands on her shoulders and allowed herself to be gently turned around to face him.

"That was unwarranted for me to speak so harshly, Edwina. I am sorry." Remus felt in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief to hand to her. "Please don't cry, my love." His voice was gentle and pleading.

"But.."

Remus shook his head and continued, "I don't know where we will go, but I still love you and I made the promise to support you. Now that we are having a child I will care for him or her, too."

"But what I want and what we have to do can't always be the same. If you have to work some horrid, illegal job and drive yourself mad just to fulfil that promise than I don't want that. You shouldn't indulge me if it makes your life horrible. Anyway I think I would have wanted to help before and I really want to help now."

"Believe me, angel..." Remus' voice tapered off as he scanned her face and touched a hand briefly to her hair, "You do help. You cannot begin to imagine how much."

"How? It sounds like all I did was spend your galleons on robes. We need money and I should help you."

"We have been living off what you earn for growing the apothecary-potions grade plants in addition to my savings. So you have been helping us by doing just what you wanted to do, Edwina. There is no reason for you to do anything more. If one of us has to take a job that we cannot like, I want it to be me. Please let me do that, Edwina."

"But it will be illegal or really horrible, won't it?"

"It won't really be horrible even if I won't like it much. It would be far worse for me to see you unhappy, Winnie."

Edwina nodded her head and said quietly, "For now."

Remus cupped her face with his hands and smiled. "Thank you."

Edwina smiled in return and saw him bend his head towards her. She felt her head buzz and her breath go shallow. When his lips touched hers she felt a wave of emotion rip over her, which caused her to press herself back against him in response. This movement on her part made Remus suddenly snap back to attention. With an expression of concern and uncertainty on his haggard face and ragged breaths shuddering from his chest, Remus gasped, "I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry."

Edwina stared up into his face, stunned and thrilled. She shook her head, saying only, "It's ok."

From the moments when she had awaked next to him and when she learnt of the truth of the present until now, she had been trying desperately to figure out who he was and why she had married him. She had worried, like he had, that she would feel nothing for him. She had been ranging through her emotions from hate to curiosity to dislike to gratefulness to interest to now...attraction. She had felt her skin tingling and her mind had raced with excitement from that one kiss.

"Please believe me, Winnie. I would not mind anything that I had to do to make you happy." Remus looked softly, longingly at her and then abruptly turned towards the door. "I will leave you alone to change. I should...leave you alone." Remus turned on his heel and walked from the room, closing the door behind him.