Someone To Understand: Living With Betrayal: August 1992

Disclaimer: Sadly I own nothing except any OCs, so please don't sue!

One shot continuing my, as yet, unfinished story. If the events in my story played out, but Peter still betrayed the Potters we might expect this kind of scene to happen when Sirius and Crystal's daughter is preparing for school, and Crystal still believes her husband to be guilty of betraying them. How would she deal with this situation, carrying on with her life when the only one who ever understood her, who she ever trusted, betrayed her? A dash of Remus thrown in because, if you read my other story, he has been widowed with a young daughter himself, so might understand, and just because I love him. (And yes I have created my own little universe, even if no one is actually reading any of it, how sad is that?)

I will do some actual chapters soon, hope this ties you over until then!

It was far too early in the morning for children to be this noisy decided Remus belligerently as two screaming eleven year olds tore past him at break neck speed. One with soft chestnut curls bouncing wildly around her shoulders and her battered T-shirt, the other with dead straight midnight black hair fluttering elegantly over an expensive purple dress. He wasn't serious of course, things could have been so very different, what would his life have been like without Anne in his life? And she could so easily have perished twelve years ago, like her Mother… like so many of his dear friends had.

Shaking off his slightly morbid thoughts he returned to sipping his tea slowly. But now that he was on this track, who would have thought twelve years ago that he'd be here, of all places? The living room of Crystal Black, nee Maycomb, the wife of his former friend Sirius… How different might things have been if at the time they could have been friends? Who could ever have surmised then that they would pull each other through the confusion and pain of Halloween 1981? In two days they had each lost the love of their life, one to death, the other to betrayal left alone with two small girls barely a month different in age. They had each needed a support system, and had had practically no one else to turn to, Remus having lost essentially all of his family during the war, and Crystal being unable to trust her dark relations, though she did keep on good terms with them. She had been there to baby-sit on full moons, offer him a home cooked meal once in a while and some sympathetic adult conversation, this simple human contact had probably saved his life in the early days. Now he couldn't even imagine what his life would be without Crystal and Salena in it.

Today he had stopped by with his daughter Anne for breakfast so that the four of them could then go into Diagon Alley together, in order to buy the things that the girls would need for school (clothes and wands at least, books would have to wait). It was hard to believe that they were already old enough for Hogwarts; even harder to comprehend was that Harry, James' son was already there.

Breakfast had 'officially' ended about ten minutes ago, and now Crystal and he were leisurely finishing their tea, whilst the girls charged around the house, no doubt trying to break the dozens of priceless antiques lining the walls…

The only thing visiting Crystal never failed to do was to bring home to Remus his own very modest means. Over the years he had been forced to move dozens of times, each time to somewhere cheaper, and less elegant. He could never have afforded the casual opulence of Crystal's home, a home that the combined fortunes of the Maycombs and the Blacks, two of the oldest pureblood families, had bought. You only had to look at his patched and frayed robes to know that…On the other hand, Crystal, in her deep blue, probably designer, silk robes looked the picture of a perfect aristocrat, which of course she was, sometimes.

"So are we ready to go?" He questioned cheerily, clapping his hands together, and giving no indication of his gloomy thoughts. He couldn't exactly begrudge his friend her fortune, Merlin knew being a Black, or a Maycomb was not something to be jealous of, and frankly he had no idea how she had managed to grow up so well adjusted in such a horrible environment.

At this innocent prompting Crystal suddenly squirmed uncomfortably. "I was wondering if you could do me a favour." She requested haltingly.

Curiosity piqued Remus replied teasingly, "Well that depends on what it is."

"You couldn't take Salena to Diagon Alley could you?" She asked nervously. "To get her books and things… I can give you a purse to pay for it of course." She suggested with forced calm.

"Of course I can." Remus agreed readily, he definitely owed her enough childcare favours, "But surely you want to be there to see her get her first wand?" He suggested, a puzzled tone clear in his voice.

"I have to work unfortunately." Explained Crystal, not meeting his eyes.

Suspicious Remus asked, "Are you sure that's all it is?" In as gentle a tone as he could manage.

She looked up guiltily. This was not like Crystal, if nothing else she was an accomplished liar, this must really have been getting to her if she was this easy to read.

"No, I suppose it isn't…." She trailed off uncertainly.

A heavy silence covered the room, but Remus did nothing to break it. If he had learnt only one thing over the years it was this; Crystal would talk when she was ready and not before, the woman could be incredibly stubborn and didn't readily bare her soul. Fortunately the same could also be said about Remus, making the two perfectly suited to healing each other, both incredibly stubborn apparently even tempered people, who preferred listening to talking, and who's supposedly calm natures hid the turbulence of their thoughts and numerous fears. He sipped his tea and waited, she'd tell him eventually.

It was at times like these that it became apparent that, looks aside, Mother and daughter had little in common. If Salena had been in this situation she would either have spilled it all by now or become violently defensive, just like Sirius would have done. It was down right frightening just how much the daughter took after her Father. But Crystal was a different matter, she had never had Sirius' rash, devil may care attitude, she would wait it out, and so would he. If only he had known how much he had in common with this woman all those years ago. If only he had realised back then how much he would like her. If he had, would things have turned out differently, or was he, as his daughter suggested, still spending too much time dwelling on the past and things that he could never change?

Finally Crystal started to talk. "I hate myself for this, but it seems like…." She paused, searching for words, and biting her lip so hard that she should have drawn blood. "With every passing year I see more of Sirius in her…"

So that was the problem he realised, belatedly.

"And it terrifies me." She confessed brokenly. "I look at her, and I don't see my little girl, I see him. With every tilt of her head, every familiar mannerism, every roguish smile I see Sirius looking at me through her eyes." She closed her eyes and took a deep shuddering breath to calm herself. "She looks like him you know… People say she looks like me but I don't see it. The eye colour maybe, but the expression in those eyes, pure Sirius." She dismissed it clinically. "The straight hair that falls just so into her eyes and the sharp cheekbones, even the things she says are beginning to remind me of him, that little boy I first met when I was eleven… " She trailed off almost nostalgically before starting again with increased vehemence and suppressed anger, "And suddenly I'm twenty again; just figuring out that my whole marriage, everything I believed in was a lie." She shook her head, snorting with disgust at her own folly before saying, "I can't deal with that pain again, and I know it's cowardly, but I just… I can't be around her like this and I know that she senses it, has sensed it for years. I feel like I'm loosing my mind." She confessed. "Maybe some distance will help…She'll go off to school and I'll realise that she's not Sirius come back to haunt me, she's Salena, my daughter…" Again she trailed off, and he almost thought that her tirade was finished, but suddenly she continued, flicking nervously at her curly ebony locks, "But its not just him she reminds me of it…its all of them, Abbie, Regulus, Merlin even Marius!" She exclaimed violently flinging her hands up jerkily.

"I know it's hard." Soothed Remus, reaching out to grasp Crystal's perfectly manicured hand. He couldn't even imagine the pain that she lived with every day, his own was bad enough, but seeing not the people she loved in her daughter, but those she hated, even feared… He really didn't know how she had dealt with it all these years. "It will be alright you know, somehow we will eventually get passed all of this…" He tried to tell her, the problem was, he didn't really believe it.

"Maybe." She conceded, not sounding convinced. "But now I just can't help but wonder, did I only ever see what I wanted to see? Should I have seen it coming?" She continued miserably, "Did he ever really love me, or was it all an act? You know how he was before, he was so charming, and ...all those other girls, Sienna..." She trailed off, hopelessly. "I thought that they were fools for believing him, but was I really so different? Did I fall for it too? Was it all a lie?" She questioned him desperately, looking into his eyes deeply as if hoping to divine the answers she so desperately needed from them.

"I don't know." Murmured Remus tiredly, "There was a time when I would have said that the one thing I was sure of was that he loved you… But that was when I thought I knew him, to do what he did; I guess I never really knew him at all... I still don't understand." He shook his head in resignation; "You shouldn't get so caught up in the past." He finally qualified, "He fooled us all…"

"Just me most of all?" She laughed, humourlessly as he shoot her a slightly pitying and exasperated look. "That's what really gets me you know. I trusted him… I don't trust anyone. I think maybe you can understand that." He nodded in agreement; a werewolf could understand distrust all right. "But I believed him when he said that we could be free, I thought that he could save me, save us. Was it all a lie? Was he really working for Voldemort the whole time? Just the same as all the idiots we condemned? How could I have been so wrong about him?" She wondered out loud, asking herself all the questions that Remus had been asking himself for the last eleven years.

"That's a question we've all asked over the years," he agreed, thinking of her last question, "but it has been eleven years, perhaps the past should stay in the past…" He suggested sensibly, though clearly the last thing that she wanted to do was think about this sensibly.

"Perhaps the past is all I really have left." She spat bitterly.

What could he really say to that? He didn't exactly disagree. What exactly did the future hold for him except for watching Anne grow up, which was bitter sweet in itself without Aimee.

Catching his look she replied, "At least you knew that she loved you, I don't even have that…" She trailed off mournfully. Shaking her head firmly she suddenly snapped out of her melancholy nostalgia and regained her normal bitingly sarcastic wit, a wit which had only become more bitter over the years… "But when did self pity ever help anyone?" She realised, shaking her head in as self depreciating way, and squeezing Remus' hand in thanks before moving to pick up the breakfast things, the house elf being occupied watching the children. "So do you think that you could handle two hyperactive eleven year olds in Diagon Alley for a few hours?" She teased moving back to her original request.

"I'm sure that I could manage." Replied Remus gamely, glad to be away from a topic that they would probably never be able to satisfactorily explain, how could Sirius ever have betrayed them? How could Lily, James, Aimee and Peter be dead? He shook his head, he would never understand how that had happened, so moving to help her collect the dishes he did what he had been doing for the last eleven years, he shook the uncomfortable thoughts off.

"Good." She smiled warmly, moving to carry the assorted breakfast dishes into the kitchen, "I just need a little time, and then…" She trailed off, "I'm sure things will be fine." She finished unconvincingly, gazing disconnectedly out of the kitchen window as she paused in her tidying, just at the point that the two hyperactive eleven year olds in question thundered into the room like a pair of rampaging hippogriffs. They were probably wondering why they hadn't left yet, being tremendously over excited by the idea of finally getting a wand.

"Are we leaving soon?" Asked Salena eagerly, a hint of petulant childish whine audible in her voice, apparently ready to get out the big guns and use 'puppy dog eyes' if the need arose as she gazed up at him through long dark lashes. Sirius' lashes. Covering eyes positively sparkling with mischief, eyes that clearly signalled trouble. Just as Sirius' had… Shaking his head in dismay Remus realised that he was now doing exactly what Crystal was, seeing the Father in the daughter, which aside from being completely unfair was woefully unhealthy. This was Salena, not Sirius come to haunt him! He was being ridiculous, and it wasn't fair to take it out on Salena, she was just a child…practically his child.

The girls had essentially grown up together, aside from the fact that they'd been schooled separately. (Thank God for small mercies they were enough trouble at the best of times, Merlin only knew what chaos they would cause in a school but they could almost certainly give the Marauders a run for their money.) Salena had been educated with her cousin (sort of anyway, the real relationship was a little more complicated) with a tutor at Malfoy Manor, since she was going to have to learn to survive in pureblood society at some point, whilst Anne had been educated by him at home, which fit in nicely with his jobs which included marking OWL and NEWT exam papers and tutoring children in Latin, among other things. Needless to say, none of these jobs were reliable, or paid particularly well, but they were something, and certainly better than starving.

Getting back to the girls Remus replied. "Give us a minute to finish here, then we'll go." He told her calmly, showing that he was not willing to be swayed by her begging tactics. She glared at him, hoping that he would relent, but it didn't happen, perhaps in a few years her glare would be as impressive as one from either of her parents, but right now it was decidedly lacking.

Giving up on Remus and turning towards her Mother Salena seemingly scented danger. "But you're still coming with us, right Mum?" She asked hopefully.

"I'm sorry honey I have to work." Apologised Crystal, lying skilfully.

"Sure, I get it." Nodded Salena, "No big deal…." She trailed off, trying not to let her disappointment bleed into her tone, and failing, though she was putting up a valiant effort. Given a couple more years they wouldn't be able to tell what she was really feeling at all, the thought unnerved him more than a little… The girl was entirely too defensive for her own good, if Crystal didn't act soon she might loose her daughter forever, but right now…it didn't look like she was in any shape to deal with the confused and hurt young girl in front of her, a girl who desperately needed her Father... Yet another thing that Sirius had screwed up… This had the potential to get very bad, but what could he do? Neither one of them would listen to him nor would they reach out to each other, some wounds never healed, and the wound that Sirius had left in this family could not be mended with a few words from him, perhaps it would never be mended.

Looking up shyly through her curly chestnut locks Anne suddenly entered the conversation, clearly sensing her friend's distress and acting to limit it. "Come on Sal we can play Exploding Snap until they're ready. Lets go!" She gushed, grabbing Salena's hand and forcibly dragging her from the room, probably so that she and Salena could talk about what had just happened. It was just like Anne to want to protect her friend, she seemed to spend all her time watching over other people, including himself, making sure that they weren't upset, were eating properly and not getting into trouble. She could be a right Mother hen when she wanted to be! It would have been amusing, if Remus hadn't suspected that her attitude grew out of her own lack of a Mother. It all just seemed to come back to bloody Voldemort!

Upon the girls' exit of the room he and Crystal fell into a companionable silence as they finished washing the dishes (magically of course!). Though wouldn't Marius and her family have been shocked if they could see what she was doing, Maycombs did not do menial tasks like washing the dishes. He suspected that she probably took gleeful pride in flouting this instruction, hating being told what to do.

Finally the task was done and Remus moved to get the girls so that he could get this shopping expedition over with, but he stopped before he got to the door. Turning back to look at Crystal, he said, "You have to deal with her sometime." As he was suddenly struck with an awful premonition of how bad things could end up if Crystal didn't sort things out with Salena now. What would the girl grow into if she grew up believing that she was unwanted, that her Mother didn't care? Crystal wasn't a vicious person, but she wasn't a warm one either and the hurt Sirius had caused her tended to make her push people, even her daughter, further away and this could be interpreted by Salena as rejection. This would most definitely not be a good thing for the girl to feel…

"I know and I will…" She replied solemnly, catching his eyes for a moment with her glittering blue ones. Remus wished he could believe her and that things would turn out alright for her and Salena, but how could he believe in a world where everything would turn out alright when he had lost everything he had ever wanted at the age of twenty-one? When he knew categorically that with them sometimes things didn't turn out alright….

I sit down to actually catch up with my woefully behind story, and this is what comes out instead, go figure… Well it fits in with the same universe, which is better than nothing, and I suppose now you see what I mean when I say that I have events twenty years in the future mapped out, though my plan for the next few chapters seems to have gone astray. (Guilty look I defy anyone to find anything in my room at the moment, it looks like a bomb has hit.) I also have another future one shot in the works, though don't hold your breath, I'm still wondering how AU to make this series, just marginally, or completely out there? Do any of you have any preferences?

I know that I've been promising updates for, (Looks at date…) has it really been a year? Sorry… But my life has just taken off a bit, what with UCAS and exams and retakes and ughhhh! Just hide me in a cave somewhere please! But like I say I haven't forgotten, and for the moment at least I'm on an editing kick for this story, if nothing else.

Anyway, please review! (If anyone is actually still out there!)

It really encourages me if I hear from you, cos if no one is actually reading this anymore then obviously I won't be in any particular hurry to write more, except for my own amusement.

Thanks for reading!

Sallywags (Back from the dead!)

XXX