Chapter 13

Sirius watched the couple as they talked. He could see that Remus wanted to drop the discussion and was extremely uncomfortable. Sirius couldn't understand why Remus was so insecure and reticent about his achievements. Remus' academic prowess was incredibly impressive. According to what Bill Weasley had told Sirius shortly after Remus' marriage, only 4 living English wizards held a master from Universitet. A drunk and unusually confiding Remus had also once told Sirius that the defence of Remus' specialist research had been tenuous because only one of the college faculty was able to understand enough of the theory. Remus had admitted how nervous he had been when he had been forced to teach a short series of lectures to the faculty in order to prepare them for his presentation and the subsequent degree election. Sirius, to whom school had always been easy but only a means to an end, could not imagine purposely choosing to spend his life researching and studying. But Sirius had sufficient intellect to have had the possibility of a university career if he had wished it. Of course he had joined James in becoming an auror instead, which had seemed like a far more exciting and interesting career.

Sirius brought his attention back to Remus, who was standing beside his wife's chair and saying in the tender voice Sirius had only ever heard Remus use with Edwina, "...for all the universities. Therefore I couldn't hide my condition, Winnie. The only way I was able to enter Universitet was because my Schoolman, Professor Bogdanovici, so rarely accepted pupils that they agreed to take me on. I had to live outside the university and was confined to a special cage during my transformation. But when Professor Bogdanovici died I had to leave to finish my specialist at l'Accademia with one of his only other pupils. None of the faculty welcomed me then and even less now."

Sirius looked over at Edwina to gauge her reaction and saw a look of real anger. Clearly Edwina's opinions of wizarding academia were grim, but he thought that they still paled in comparison to Sirius' own. Sirius spoke aloud, "They are fools, Edwina. The wizarding world has allowed itself to become so prejudiced and insular that it is strangling itself. Remus is excellent proof that all the prejudices are baseless. He is a half-blood and a half-human and yet he is one of the most competent, intelligent, and steady wizards in Britain."

Remus winced and picked up Edwina's bowl to carry to the sink. Edwina asked, "I thought you said that both your parents were magical?"

Remus flicked his wand at the water pump and the dishes began to wash themselves. "My mother was muggle-born. I would rather not discuss this, Sirius."

Sirius nodded and leaned back in his chair. Edwina looked at the misery that was written on Remus' face and repressed a sudden impulse to run over and hug him. She turned back to Sirius and asked in a lighter tone, "What was he really like in school? I don't believe that he was all books and nothing else."

Sirius grinned wickedly at Remus, who jabbed his wand at the water pump to stop the washing before stalking over to the table. As Remus sat down at the table and grabbed his glass, Sirius said in a joking voice, "We were all very bad boys. Moony was the good one, but..."

Remus interrupted, "But I always went along with them. We were a little wild and very full of ourselves."

"We had fun." Sirius said to Edwina. "No one ever beat Moony at duelling."

Edwina assumed that Moony must have been Remus' nickname and wondered what Sirius' had been. She could tell that Sirius had been a hellion at school and wondered what Remus had really been like. She found herself to be quite relieved to find that Remus had not been just a bookworm or the sort of prefect that was as stiff as Hazel Goodwin had been in sixth year or poncy like the dead boring Gerry Younge. "I wonder what my friends and I would have thought of you."

"Probably that we were arrogant prats." Sirius laughed and looked at Remus, who was smiling slightly. "But look how we turned out, so no worries."

Edwina was leaning her sleepy head on her hand when she felt herself being lightly shaken by Remus. "Come on, my love. I'll take you back to bed, alright?"

When Remus finally returned to the kitchen he turned on Sirius immediately and said in a sharp, angry growl, "Why couldn't you shut it? You could tell I didn't want to discuss all that with her, couldn't you? You weren't helping, Sirius."

Sirius looked with unusually keen eyes at his friend, who was leaning forward over the table with his face pressed close to Sirius'. Remus had only lost his temper to this degree a very few times before in Sirius' memory. "She asked. Beside that, why shouldn't I tell her? You're absolutely brilliant and I would think you would want her to know all that."

"Not if it intimidates her and makes her feel like I would think she is dull and dumb in comparison, Sirius. She is very insecure about that. You know that."

Sirius narrowed his eyes and understood immediately that Remus was barely keeping his head above raging waters and could not handle being teased. "I know she is insecure, Remus, yes. She was insecure about her looks and her intelligence and even how much you loved her. I told her, Molly told her, and sure as hell you told her how much you loved her. I was just trying to point out what a bloody great choice she made."

Remus sunk into a chair and wiped his face with his hand. "I'm sorry, Sirius. It isn't your fault. I'm just out of my head."

Sirius watched his friend stare hopelessly into the dregs of his glass. There wasn't anything that Sirius could say to help him, either. Remus had made a very prickly, dangerous bed for himself when he married Edwina Leighton. There was, of course, no doubt that Remus would fight and work his wand to the heartstring to make the marriage work. Sirius did not dare to ask Remus how he planned to provide for his wife now that there was a baby coming. They had already discussed at length all the ways that Remus could legally (and illegally) earn a living and none of them were promising. But now, Remus' beloved wife did not even remember their relationship and it looked very likely that the marriage had not been what it seemed even before the memory loss. If there had been another wizard in Edwina's bed, Sirius had to admit that she had fooled even the cynical Sirius Black. If it were anyone else, Sirius would have thought that perhaps Remus was mistaken. But no one was more conscientious about monitoring himself than Remus near the full moon and no man was less likely to forget making love to his wife. More likely Remus remembered every touch he had ever received from her. None of it made sense, including how Edwina appeared to still have feelings for him. There was no denying that she had real emotions for Remus. However there had not been enough time for them to develop in the last three days. The closeness and comfortableness she had displayed with Remus did not mesh with complete memory loss.

"She seems to really care for you already."

Remus pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes to wipe them dry before replying in a very unsteady voice, "She has been trying to make sense of our marriage. I think she is projecting emotion onto the situation."

"I don't think so, Remus. Think about how she reacted to you. She looked at you even when she was talking to me. She watched what you did and reacted to what you said. A woman who doesn't even remember dating you and suddenly finds out you two are married and having a baby together should not feel comfortable with this already. She shouldn't hang on your every word and watch you like she is hoping you'll notice her."

"It makes more sense if you know that she apparently had a crush on me at Hogwarts."

"Did she? Well that helps explain some of the beginning of the relationship, Remus, but I still don't think that a schoolgirl with a crush on her professor would be that much less uncomfortable with a marriage and pregnancy she couldn't remember than a schoolgirl without a crush would be. Doesn't it seem strange to you?"

Remus nodded. "Yes, yes it does. Despite what the healer said, she does have some memories. But they are more like residual memories. Perhaps she has some residual emotion."

"What sort of memories, Remus?" Sirius narrowed his eyes in suspicion and asked the questions in a harsh voice.

"She remembered that her parents were both gone. She remembered that we have a dog. She also remembered sitting waiting and feeling frightened in a room that is probably where we spent our wedding night."

Sirius stared past Remus at the doorway as if he were trying to see into the bedroom where Edwina was supposed to be resting. "Mens Rasura."

"Absolutely not. I won't subject her to it."

"Might give us the answer who did this to her, which might be important Remus."

"I will not allow it." Remus spoke definitively and slumped back into his chair.

"I know you want to protect her. But it might be more harmful to her to have to live with the memory loss from such an important life-changing time of her life."

"I cannot subject her to it, Sirius. Especially since you know who will have to do the scanning when I cast the spell. I cannot do it myself. I am not skilled enough and my emotion will make it impossible."

"Let me."

"You haven't done magic of this sort for 12 years, Sirius. If you made a mistake it could damage the memory she has left, or worse."

Sirius stared at his friend and finally said softly, "You would really let Snape do it instead of me? You would let him see her private memories?"

"No, because I am not going to let her undergo Mens Rasura at all."

Sirius absently scratched his chest and shook his head. He reached for the bottle and said, "One last glass I think. Then I'd better head back before Kreacher figures out that I'm not in with Buckbeak."

"You should be more careful, Sirius."

"Why? He's licking a pair of my father's old boots or polishing an old muggle-hunting trophy or doing something else equally objectionable, Remus." Sirius poured out the last glass of Bloodwhisky and set the bottle down on the table. "Who gets last rights?"

Unexpectedly Remus laughed and said, "I think perhaps I do tonight." Both men stood and downed their drinks and said in unison, "To lost friends!" As they dropped their glasses on the table Remus shot a bolt of purple lightening out of his wand and the bottle burst. Both friends waved their wands to clear up the remains and then embraced each other.

"I really do wish you would be more careful, Sirius."

Sirius shrugged and said only, "I'm not forgetting I have responsibilities."

"Not just responsibilities, Sirius. You also have a friend who does give a damn if he loses you all over again."

Sirius dropped his ill-humour and nodded brusquely. "Same goes for you. You're going to lose your mind over your pretty little bint. It doesn't bear watching, Remus."

"I wish you wouldn't call her that, Sirius, even in jest. But you're right, I'm almost gone already."

"Don't think I hadn't noticed. I'd better go before I can't even find the floo."