Chapter 27

Edwina stared down in despair at the bundle of rags that was lying on the ottoman in front of her. There was no way that she would be able to remake a decent robe from the tattered mess that Remus had tossed onto the floor in disgust that morning. The odd tucks along the back of the robe and the pleat along the edge of a very wide sleeve told her that this robe had been purchased in Eastern Europe, nowhere else had sold pleated sleeves for thirty years, which probably dated its purchase to at least nine years ago when he was in Romania. Knowing Remus, he had probably avoided washing it, as well, so it was really quite amazing that it had lasted this long. It was pointless to sew the stupid thing; it was only fit to be used for Lunessa's bedding in the owl cage.

It had taken all of her persuasion skills to convince him to purchase the new black robes that he was going to wear to Aldebaran's wedding the following weekend. He didn't like wearing black for everyday robes, apparently, and despite the fact that a wedding called for dress robes, Remus refused to spend money on dress robes to wear only once. He had agreed to purchase formal day robes, which he would then wear for everyday. Edwina gritted her teeth in frustration. It wasn't as if many wizards didn't wear formal day robes. Her own father had, in fact. But they were terribly difficult to keep up if one didn't have a house elf. Since her mother's house elf had been left to her aunt, Edwina had no prospect of having house help. Now she would have to clean a formal day robe twice a week. But the alternative had been to allow Remus to purchase plain everyday robes for the wedding, which would have been utterly mortifying for Edwina. The compromise, however, had really not pleased anyone.

Despite the fact that they were no longer living in complete poverty, Edwina had come to understand only too well the warning that Remus had given her over two months before about how hard it would be to live without any money. He had also been right in telling her that it would be hard to live with him. Although he was gentle and kind and very understanding, he had a will of iron and an almost arrogant determination to do what he thought was right. If their opinions of what was right and proper differed, Edwina was very unlikely to convince him that he was wrong. Even more frustrating, his ability to understand her feelings meant that all too often he could predict how she would think, so during disagreements he would have already thought out thoroughly unanswerable responses to her arguments. Edwina smiled down at the pile of rags in front of her and thought that he really was rather wonderful despite being the most exasperating wizard of her acquaintance.

Edwina pushed the ottoman away from her and stood up with a sigh. He would be home soon and for some reason she wanted to look her best today. He had been extremely excited that morning about her appointment that afternoon with the foetological healer. They had been assured that it was finally safe for the spell to determine the baby's sex to be performed, so she had submitted to the uncomfortable test that afternoon. Edwina had privately hoped for a girl, but she suspected that Remus desperately wanted a son. He had never said anything, of course, but Edwina had overheard a conversation between him and Sirius that had left little room for doubt about what Remus really wanted.

Edwina walked down the hall into their bedroom and sat down at the new ebony-inlaid cherry dressing table to brush out her hair. As she slowly pulled the brush through her hair she began to worry about what Aldebaran had been doing in Brittany for the last three days that had Remus so concerned. She knew that it had something to do with her father's disappearance because nothing else would make the two of them willing to form a truce. However, she didn't know why they were keeping the investigation a secret from her and she was still very unhappy about being left out. Five weeks before, Aldebaran had returned from another trip to Brittany and spent several hours angrily discussing something with Remus without allowing Edwina to hear any of what was said. Remus had been unusually gruff for several days afterwards and had refused to talk to her about her father or his conversation with Aldebaran, which had precipitated the most serious fight that she and Remus had ever had.

Edwina set down her silver hairbrush on the shiny surface of her dressing table and got up from the pretty, pink silk-covered chair and walked out of the room and down the hall. After a quick look at the library clock, she stopped at the end of the hall and waved her wand. Where there used to be a wall, there was now a very narrow, steep staircase that curved up towards an upper storey. She walked up the stairs carefully. Her balance was no longer as good as it should be. Remus had asked her not to walk upstairs unless it was strictly necessary; however, unbeknownst to him she had been going up to the baby's room every afternoon for two weeks. She liked sitting in what was going to be the nursery and thinking forward to after the baby's birth.

Remus had been working on the baby's rooms for almost three weeks now. He had cleaned down the walls of both the bedroom and the nursery and had begun a series of carvings along the long wall of the nursery. Edwina had never seen runic carving done and had enjoyed watching him work the spells that slowly traced the letters into the oak panelling. She knew that the nursery had once been the lady's bedroom, which was why the walls had not been stained as dark as the rest of the house, and why there were no carvings of unpleasant monsters or doomsday battles. Remus had told her that the room had once been hung with tapestries that had been made by various generations of Lupin women. Unfortunately the tapestries had been sold off along with almost all of the other furnishings in the house by Remus in order to pay for his living expenses when he was at university and after.

Edwina sat down in the large yellow chair with the delightfully squidgy cushions that Remus had bought the week before for her. He had thoughtfully placed it beside the window so she would be able to look out at the garden when she sat with the baby. She had wanted Remus to paint the room a nice light colour, however he had refused. It seemed that painting the walls would interfere with some of the hygienic charms that he had cast on the walls. But once she put up pretty curtains, some nice pictures, and set up a cot she hoped that the room would seem lighter and more cheerful.

They had planned to look for furniture the next week, since they would know then what colour scheme was appropriate. Edwina wanted badly to purchase a new chair for Remus' library and a new desk for him in the sitting room. However, Remus had been unwilling to spend any more money on furniture for himself, despite the fact that they now had a decent sized pile of gold in the Lupin vault at Gringott's. Of course the money was really hers, since it had been her mother's money, but Edwina understood Remus' arguments and consented to save their money for the future. They had to consider that Remus had no future prospects for a real career and the baby was eventually going to need clothing, school supplies, a wand, tuition money for Hogwarts, and possibly a broomstick for quidditch. Although he had never said as much, Edwina understood that Remus was very afraid that something would happen to him and wanted to be sure that Edwina and the baby would be well cared for if he were killed or imprisoned.

When Edwina awoke it took her several seconds to understand where she was. The room was dark, since there were no lamps yet in the nursery, and there was no longer any light streaming in from the window. She stood up and stretched her very stiff muscles and then walked out into the upstairs hallway. Her footsteps echoed as she walked along the bare floorboards to the stairs. She was still alone in the house and Remus had promised to be home at 6, which had to be long past by now. When Edwina reached the bottom of the stairs, she slipped quickly into Remus' library so that she could look up at his clock. The ugly claw hand pointed to "Very Nearly." That was very odd, since this was where it had pointed several hours ago when she had gone upstairs for a quick look into the nursery. Edwina wondered what had happened to detain him and then realised that she was quite unbearably hungry. Extremely irritated that Remus would be late when she had thought he would be so excited to get home to hear the news, Edwina started to leave the library to get some dinner, but as she reached the door she heard the clock hand move. When she looked at it again, the claw was quivering beneath the words: "Right Now."

Edwina stalked down the hall and entered into the sitting room. Remus was not there. Even more annoyed, Edwina marched down to the kitchen in time to see Remus closing the door behind himself. Blackie, who had been sleeping next to his food bowl in the kitchen, sleepily raised his head to look at his master, but Edwina sharply asked, "Where have you been? Couldn't you have owled or flooed or something?"

Without looking at her, Remus waved his wand at the door lock and growled, "Have you eaten?"

Edwina took two steps closer and said, "What does that matter? Where have you been?"

Edwina could see that Remus was very upset about something, but she still flinched when he said in a stone cold tone, "I have been busy. We are meeting Aldebaran at your family's home in a half hour. If you have not yet eaten then you had best do so now."

Edwina felt a boiling rage building inside of her. How dare he treat her like this? She had a right to know what was going on and where he had been. She had been extraordinarily patient and understanding about all the secret meetings and investigations that he and Aldebaran had been carrying on for two months now. Frankly, she was tired of it. "I'm not going anywhere, Remus. I don't know what it going on, but if you want me to cooperate you had better explain. Now."

Remus leaned back against the kitchen door and closed his eyes. "Would you please give me a minute? I will explain, but I need a moment."

Edwina was surprised at his reaction and stepped back. She did not move, but waited for him to speak. After several seconds he wiped his face with his left hand and then looked up at her. "Aldebaran came to visit me today. We have been discussing what we think is the right thing to do about your mother's murder. We have somewhat different opinions, but I think we have reached an agreement depending on your approval."

Edwina let out a slight gasp and said brokenly, "She was murdered then?"

Remus stepped forward and placed his hand on her arm. "Damn, that came out very wrong. I'm sorry, darling, I am not quite in control of myself at the moment. Come sit down, love, please."

Edwina allowed herself to be guided to a chair at the dark oak kitchen table and then asked in a whisper, "Is he alive?"

"Yes. Aldebaran has him at your family's house."

"You have seen him?"

"Yes. I was just there."

"He murdered her?"

Remus spoke with a rough, broken voice, "It was not premeditated. They had a row and he pushed her down the stairs."

Edwina swallowed a sob and asked, "Did Father even ask about me?"

Remus drew his brows together, obviously not having expected the question and said, "Yes. He talked quite a lot about you. He is very worried about you."

"But he still left me here alone. He still killed her and ran off."

"Yes, he did."

"And he did this to me, the memory loss, didn't he? He put me through that?"

Remus nodded mutely and ran his hand comfortingly along her cheek.

Edwina wiped away the tears on her cheek and pulled away from his hand. "Will I be able to see him?"

Remus nodded again and said, "He wants to see you, but he isn't going to tell you what he has done, Winnie."

Edwina asked, "How do you know?"

Remus thought about the unrepentant, angry wizard that he and Aldebaran had just finished questioning and said slowly, "I don't know, but that is my opinion. But you have every right to ask whatever you want when we go. Aldebaran is waiting for two friends of his to arrive and will signal me when everything is ready. In the mean time, we will stay here, is that ok?"

Edwina leaned forward and allowed him to hold her tightly as she cried softly for several minutes. When she was finished, she stood up abruptly and walked over to the cold cupboard to take out the remnants of the last night's dinner. She had planned to make something nice, but she really didn't care anymore.

Remus walked up behind her and said softly, "I really couldn't contact you, Winnie. Aldebaran's visit was quite unexpected. I had to leave the warehouse early, in fact, and there was no time to owl once I was at your family's home."

"I suppose that is true. I was asleep, actually, so I didn't even realise you were late until a few minutes before you came home."

Remus took the bowl of soup from her and carried it to the countertop. "I didn't forget about your visit to the foetological healer today. I have been thinking about it all day. Do you want to tell me now, love?"

Edwina turned around to face him and said, "I thought you would be so happy. I wanted this to be a lovely night and we could have a romantic dinner and…"

Remus placed both arms around her and spoke softly into her hair, "I know, my love, in fact I had something special planned for you, too."

"You did?"

"Yes. I did."

Edwina snuggled closer to him and felt a little happier that he had been planning something nice for her. "Is it something that can wait?"

"Perhaps. Will you tell me what the healer said, love?"

Edwina looked up into her husband's face and read there the concern and hope that she needed to see. "He did two tests. He tested for the major Homo lupus proteins and…and he said that we are having a very healthy, very human son."