Thank you all for the lovely reviews. Duj – Well spotted re Remus and responsibility – I absolutely agree! Emmy – I do think it would be impossible for someone to get tired of seeing a nice review in the inbox. FairlightMuse – What a delightful compliment. Thank you! Julian – Thank you on both accounts.

Only one more chapter to go, I'm sorry to say. Additionally, for those who are interested, the Snape story has been posted up through Chapter 9.

Chapter 29

As Edwina lay on the chaise longue, she tried very hard not to think about the rather incredible pain in her back. This whole baby thing was far more hassle than she had ever imagined. There were no potions, no special charms to be cast to give relief for the symptoms, since she was a Breochaidie. Therefore she had to lay still and continue to feel so utterly miserable that she really couldn't help it if perhaps her temper wore a bit thin. He was perfectly comfortable, of course, sitting on his favourite chair, usual enormous tome laid in front of him and smoking his stinking pipe. She hated that pipe. It really did smell up the entire room.

"Remus." He didn't lift his head from the page, so she spoke again more loudly, "Remus."

Edwina sat up slowly from her prone position and, as one hand caressed her lower back, she looked at her husband. His pipe had gone out, she could see that now. He wasn't reading the book.

All of her irritation was swept away as Edwina realised that he was thinking about it again. The first two weeks had been agony for them both. She had watched him battling grief that occasionally teetered on the verge of insanity and had anguished over how to best help him. He had alternately pushed her way and pulled her closer; either locking himself in his library or losing himself in her with a type of passionate love-making that frightened her in its very impersonality. She had allowed it to happen because it had been better than the cold politeness or the desperate, haunted man who sat for hours lost in a world of hopelessness. The very man, in fact, who was sitting on the chair in front of her now.

After those first few weeks, he had suddenly started to talk to her about it all. Everything. The stories, the jokes, the pranks. The times that he should have stood up to them, for he talked about both James and Sirius now, and the times that they stood up for him. It hurt her to see his self-loathing for how often he had seen his friends act irresponsibly, often for his own sake, and done nothing. But even worse was his desperately low self-esteem that was at the root of his willingness to overlook his friends' faults and to have such a profound gratefulness for their friendship. He had told her more in those turmoil-filled weeks of disclosure and confession than he had probably ever told anyone. He had even discussed Peter Pettigrew, but she would not think of that now.

Eventually he had even talked about his family, including the rift between his aunt and his parents. The most horrible had been the guilt, the crippling, horrible guilt, which he felt for being the surviving twin. His parents had only one surviving child, a werewolf, which Remus did not seem to feel was acceptable. Edwina understood that Remus' parents had loved him deeply and both had done everything possible in order to make their son's life better, always doing more to give him the love that he still seemed to endlessly crave. Their deaths, he had not explained the circumstances but she had found out by the expedient of asking Sophie to do some research in old newspapers, must have been an unbelievably awful final blow to him. She could almost understand his choice to pursue the Control despite the fantastic risks. Almost.

She now knew about Grimelda Digliani. When he had told her he had been terrified about her reaction, as if his twisted love affair with a long-dead Italian part-veela were more horrible for her to hear than how he had almost killed a fellow student at Hogwarts. She had known that he had expected her to recoil in disgust, but had been merely angry that he had told her more detail than any woman ever wanted to know about her husband's past lovers. She had pitied him and finally thought she might have an understanding of why he reacted to her as he did. No matter what he thought, she was the second choice. She was the better choice, she was not too modest to know it, but he would never have loved her if he hadn't first lost Grimelda. She was everything that Grimelda wasn't, which was obviously good but also rather sad. She was immeasurably glad to know about that time of his life, however. It had explained so much and made it easier to deny him on those nights when he seemed like a very different man, yet also easier to forgive.

Yet there were still moments when she would walk into the room, for it was usually when he had been alone for a few hours after she was in the glasshouse or with her friends, and find him lost to everything but his grief. She understood that he was not just mourning for his friend. She thought she did understand the complexity of his despair, but she did not accept that it was healthy for him to remain trapped in his depression.

She saw the twinge of pain in his face as he thought about some particularly nightmarish memory and suddenly realised that she had to get his attention immediately.

As she almost began to sick from the pain Edwina called out, "Remus, I need you."

The expression on his face as he turned to her unnerved her as she read fear. She didn't think that he had completely awaked from his unhappy daydreams.

"I think I need you to take me to St. Mungo's."

The thick black book fell to the floor with a loud thud as he stood immediately and crossed to where she was sitting. Edwina knew that she had to reign him in and explain. She didn't think that he remembered.

"The baby, Remus. It is time."

As she watched the realisation dawn on his pale, drawn face she could see her Remus returning to her from his place of anguish. "It's time? But it is too early."

For some reason she wanted to laugh at his bemused expression, but at just that moment a wave of incredible pain overtook her, so she could only pant heavily as he, understanding that debate was pointless, ran from the room to collect their cloaks.