Author's note: Someone asked for more of Remus's other werewolf friends via PM, so here's some Abigail backstory! Keep the reviews coming and enjoy!

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the canon, world, and characters portrayed below and you can tell I'm not J.K. Rowling because #transrights

Content Warnings: Canon-compliant violence (Wizarding War); references miscarriage briefly

Abigail's Peace Offering

"I'm not armed," was the first thing she said, putting her hands in the air the second that he had his wand on her.

Remus gave himself a moment to stand there, wand drawn and breath vanished, to make sure it was really her. His stomach felt like a rock quarry. Of all the people it could have been when Dora said someone was at the door for him—someone she didn't know but that their wards hadn't let in... and she was just in the other room, sitting on the couch after taking Teddy from her arms...

"Outside, now," he said, slipping out of the flat and closing the door behind him protectively. He whispered a spell to lock it, just in case, and tried to stand as tall and straight as he could in front of her. In front of Abigail.

He had seen her looking worse, but that wasn't saying much. The full moon had only been three days ago, so there were bruises and cuts and scrapes all over her arms and she looked as if she hadn't eaten much since. She had aged since they had last seen one another, of course she had, but she was still as willowy and tall as she had always been. And he did notice that her clothes were clean, at least one injury on her wrist had been recently taken care of and bandaged, and her curls looked healthy and shiny. She could be doing worse.

"Hey," she said now that he wasn't actively threatening her.

"'Hey?' You come here and all you have to say is 'hey?' I thought you were dead," he said. "I didn't see you when I was underground with Greyback."

"You were with Greyback?" Abigail blurted out in shock.

"I was working for the Order of the Phoenix—not that you have a leg to stand on to come at me for that," he said. He took a shaky breath as memories of his time with Greyback came back. Of looking around at the ragtag group of werewolves doing their best to survive in the tent city they called home, leaning on each other and helping one another and laughing, and of looking for her... of looking for her without finding her.

"Well, I'm not dead," Abigail said, tucking her hands in her pockets. "Do I have to apologize for that, or..?"

"Just tell me what you're doing here," Remus said.

"I left Greyback," she said. "When the Voldemort thing started up again. Well, not as soon as it did. But when he started fucking with the Ministry or whatever that was about. I told him not to do it, I told him that Dark or not no wizard was going to liberate our people."

"Am I supposed to give you a medal for that?" he asked—possibly a little more sharply than he should, but he had spent most of yesterday hugging Molly as she cried her heart out over Fred's loss so he was running low on charity and patience alike.

"No," Abigail said (quickly, to her credit). "I just wanted to tell you that I left. So you knew. My sister didn't want anything to do with me, so she threw some cash my way and told me to forget her name. I... I used it to get a flat. It's awful, but it's mine. And I wash dishes at a restaurant part-time. I pi k up as many shifts as I can."

"Okay," Remus said. He scratched the back of his head. "Well, I'm happy for you."

He was happy for her, but part of him was also deeply, deeply sad and deeply, deeply bitter. They could have had that life before. They could have had it years ago. They were supposed to: they had been saving up to become flatmates, they had been trying to find work in Muggle London where their conditions wouldn't be noticed, they were really going to put together a life and keep each other going. Abigail had been his first werewolf friend. He had been hers, after Greyback bit her. He had stood at her side as the Department for the Care and Regulation of Magical Creatures tightened the noose around them. He had stood by her during her first transformations. He had stood close enough to hold her as she mourned the baby she'd lost before it was born, when it couldn't survive her transformations. He had stood by her as her husband fell apart, unable to reconcile the woman he had with the woman he had married, and left. He had watched it all happen while she watched his world fall apart when the Marauders disintegrated and they had schemed to make it work, to pull each other up and stay afloat. Until she couldn't do it anymore. Until Greyback found her and pulled her back in. Until she left him after a shouting match in the dingy flat he'd had to leave since he couldn't make rent without her.

He could only compare it to the feeling he'd had when Sirius had gone to Azkaban, before Remus had understood why that had happened. It was one thing to be left behind, it was another when someone decided you could be.

Inside the flat, Teddy started crying. Abigail turned to follow the sound with a startle.

"I'm happy for you too," she said. "Is the baby..?"

"I'm not talking about him with you," Remus said categorically. "What did you come here for, Abigail?"

She swallowed hard and nodded along to herself, as if this was going about as well as she had expected it to.

She reached into her back pocket and took out a small cloth bag that she handed over to him.

"What's this?" he asked—suspecting that it was more of a peace offering than anything else, and wondering whether or not he wanted to take it.

"Greyback's trophy. From the day he bit you," she said. "I grabbed it on my way out. I didn't want him to have it."

Remus hesitated before taking it. He reached into the bag and took out a smooth, polished stone. The hairs on the back of Remus's neck stood up straight when he recognized them from the patch of grass that had been under the window of his childhood bedroom so, so long ago...

"I know that doesn't… make up for anything I did or redeem me, but I didn't want him to have it," she said. "I wanted you to win. I mean, I guess you already did..."

"Is that why you came?" Remus interrupted. "Because you heard I killed Greyback?"

The Prophet had had a field day and the rumours circulating were each wilder than the rest—even if Remus had killed him in a busy street and broad daylight. Thank Merlin, the self-defense plea had been held up by the Wizengamot.

Still, Remus had known that no matter how hard the Auror Department worked to keep the secret and counter any possible retaliations against their own, the werewolves would find out. They would find out one of their own had killed Greyback and once they did, he knew it wouldn't take long for the blame to fall on him. And how they would react, Remus truly did not know.

"I told the others I'm still in touch with that there's no way you did it, to buy you time, but… Is it true?" Abigail asked. She looked skittish as she asked, crossing her arms and digging her nails into her skin. It occured to Remus that maybe she'd been hiding since she'd left Greyback. Maybe that was why she'd waited so long to find him. Maybe... maybe she had truly left. Maybe she had come back. Maybe she was still the Abby he'd laughed with until he cried, when she made a particularly dark joke or got spooked by Muggle appliances or the sound of the wind.

"Yes," he said finally.

Tears welled up in her eyes and her entire body softened with shock.

"R... really?" She asked.

"He's dead," Remus said. "He's gone."

Abigail looked up at the sky and a sob rattled in her throat as she tried to keep it together.

"Thank you," she said breathlessly.

So Remus opened his arms. She burrowed against his chest, and they both sobbed until Dora came to check and see what on earth was going on.

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