Yeah I'm not creative enough to write thir actual adventures. Sorry.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE PATH FORKS

Remus, in his years between the Doctor and his return to Hogwarts, drifted.

He'd been thinking about Harry more and more as he stayed on the TARDIS. Despite the elation he felt, jumping through space and time in a wheezing machine, with the moon too far away to affect him, guilt had tied weights to his ankles and was dragging him slowly back to Earth. Guilt's name was Harry Potter.

What sort of best friend was he, if he leapt off to another planet without hesitation, leaving Harry alone with Lily's family? What sort of godfather? (He liked to think of himself as godfather, privately. With the original holder of the position locked in the darkest cell in Azkaban, he decided the position might as well fall to him. Not that he'd ever tell anyone. Not that he'd ever say it out loud.)

So, with thoughts of James and Lily and Harry and Peter (and not Sirius, not anymore), he told the Doctor it was time.

The Doctor had stared at him in those last moments, eyes wide and jaw clenched. As though he was in pain. As though he was upset Remus was leaving. And then: "Where I found you?"

"No," Remus replied quickly. He didn't want to see that bridge again (slightly worried about what he could do, if in the right state of mind). He didn't want to see 1981 again. "A year later, or something. And in Wales. I need to see my dad."

Outside the TARDIS, it had been raining. Remus had stepped out, into the rain, and looked back once, to see the Doctor leaning against the doorframe as if he'd fall without its support.

"I'm sorry," Remus said. The sound was nearly lost in the downpour. "I have to."

"I know."

And then he turned, boots squelching in the mud, and kept his head firmly turned away from the TARDIS and the Doctor. His dad's house was in the distance, yellow light glowing from a window. The TARDIS didn't start wheezing until it was nearly out of earshot.

He spent two weeks with his dad.

Dad was Welsh and forgetful and very sad. He'd always been bumbling, but when Remus's mum had died, he'd started staring into space for too long. He didn't talk so much afterwards.

When he first saw Remus at the door, he stared in shock for a moment before engulfing him in a hug, tears dropping from eye to chin. Remus let his heart shrivel further with guilt before hugging back, revelling in the comfort he could still find in his father's arms. Standing in the cottage doorway, rain hammering behind him, he felt like a child again, coming home after his first term at Hogwarts.

"I'm sorry, Dad." He apologised for leaving, and for coming back, and for leaving everyone for a year. He apologised for what he nearly did on that bridge.

Dad just cried.

Remus sat on the sofa for two weeks. He slept and ate and stared into the sky every night, wondering which star the TARDIS was orbiting around. Wondering what planets the Doctor was saving. It was clear Dad knew something was wrong, but he didn't say anything to Remus. He probably blamed it on the deaths of Remus's three best friends. Maybe he blamed it on Sirius. It was so easy to blame everything on Sirius nowadays.

Remus gathered the news from the past year, and wrote a letter to Dumbledore, and checked up on Harry exactly once, on a chilly Wednesday morning. Little Whinging was blustery, and he didn't see the two-year-old, but he did see his aunt and uncle and cousin. He felt the weight of the guilt again—could he have taken Harry from these people, if he'd pulled himself together and stayed?

He cursed Dumbledore. He cursed the Doctor. He cursed Sirius Black. He missed them all.

Dumbledore's reply, when it came, was as follows:

Dear Mr Lupin,

I cannot express how relieved I am to learn of your good health. I confess I thought I would never hear from you again.

As for news, as you requested: the Order is disbanded, now that the threat is eliminated. The last of Lord Voldemort's followers have been captured or have slipped back into the shadows. Certain individuals have negotiated for freedom by exchanging names and claiming to have been under the influence of the Imperius Curse. I will not express my opinion on these claims, but I have no doubt you will share my beliefs.

Harry, as I'm sure you know, lives with his aunt and uncle in Surrey. I would like to request you don't interfere, Remus. You must understand that the safest thing for the child is to leave him firmly in the Muggle world until he is old enough to be under Hogwarts protection. There is no-one in our world I could firmly trust to care for him. I have a reliable contact—someone both you and I know—who has been watching Harry in the neighbourhood. I trust her to ensure his comfort, and I assure you, you will be the first to know if his safety is compromised.

Perhaps we should meet; I would like to hear what course your life has taken in the past year. It must have been somewhere particularly peculiar, as even my best owl couldn't find you to deliver a letter six months ago.

Your friend,

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.

He didn't want to meet Dumbledore. After reading the letter twice, he threw the parchment into the bin.

Remus ached to see Sirius again. If he did, he wasn't sure what he'd do. The thought of his fist meeting Sirius's face was the most satisfying thought he'd had in a while. But what if Sirius began to talk? Would Remus be able to block it out, or would he end up where he always did, with Sirius's words tying him in knots until he bent to that unyielding will?

He wanted to see the Doctor again. Because they'd been friends. The Doctor had understood, and then he'd washed the memories away with promises of new places and sights, colour like never before … Remus hated himself for resenting Earth.

The first full moon back was as painful as he'd expected. Unused to the contortions which used to wrack him monthly, when he woke his mind was in the darkest state it had inhabited for a while, and he spent the next week moping and hating himself and hating Earth and the moon and Sirius and the Doctor and Dad and Wales and Dumbledore.

He wanted his head to just … stop. It was brimming with emotion and thought and he wished it would slow down.

As cosy as it was, with the little fire and the kitchen and the leaky thatch, Dad's cottage became claustrophobic after a while.

So he travelled.

Please let me know what you think!

I'll warn you now that Remus is going to meet some familiar faces in the next few years...