The first place Remus stopped at was the old house where Lydia had lived with Kestrel. If he could, he would have made this his residence so that she would never have to leave her childhood home. But the muggles in charge of the mortgage had taken ownership of the old house.
He looked down at the little girl by his side. "Would you like me to help you gather your things?"

She shook her head no but didn't object when he went into the house with her. She made her way immediately to the little bedroom that Remus knew was Lydia's. He had planned to stay in the front room, let Kestrel have the time she needed to get her things and cope with the fact that this would no longer be her home. But the door to a second little room down the hall caught his eye and sparked a memory deep in the corner of his mind.

Keeping an ear out for Kestrel, whom he could hear rustling things around in her mother's room, he went to the door and twisted the handle. The old wooden door opened slowly, as if it hadn't been used in a while.

Remus stepped inside the dark room and took out his wand. "Lumos."

The first thing he saw was the small toddler bed that had been placed on the opposite wall. It was the bed Kestrel had switched to when she had outgrown her crib. There was no small amount of children's books laying there, and Remus smiled a little. The thing that caught and held his attention was the small crib in the corner of the room. He made his way over to it and ran his fingers across the rim, his hand coming away with a fine layer of dust on it. He remembered the day they had bought it, when Lydia had been pregnant with Kestrel.

"A crib that flimsy won't be able to detain my little boy," Sirius said jokingly, wrapping an arm around his wife's large stomach. "He'll be just as mischievous and clever as his old man!"

"Don't forget his mother," James snorted. Lydia crossed her eyes at him and stuck out her tongue.

"Poor thing," Remus said jokingly, running his hand along the edge of the crib. "He's got it in his blood from both sides."

Lily seemed to realize something, and a scandalized look appeared on her face. "Lydia, you told me you were going to wait until the baby was born to learn the gender!"

"And we have," Lydia said. "I just have a feeling that it will be a boy."

"It had better be a boy," Sirius snorted. "I'll teach him all I know about Quidditch!"

Lydia caressed her bulging stomach. "It doesn't matter what it is. No matter what, it will always be my baby," she whispered softly.

Remus turned and looked at the room as a whole and saw a rocking chair, a linen closet, and several toys that were meant for toddlers. And it hit him. This was the nursery as it had been since Sirius had been locked away, as it had been for the past three years. For three years, Lydia had not even felt safe enough to let her daughter sleep in her own room. He felt his throat constrict at the thought, the guilt he'd felt earlier returning tenfold.

His inner turmoil was interrupted by a sound at the doorway. Kestrel stood there, holding an old rucksack.

"Do you have everything you might want? People from the ministry will take the rest." The girl nodded, and he stepped away from the crib.

"Well then," he tried to pull himself together as he joined her in the hall. "Shall we?"

She took the hand he had offered and he led her outside and disapparated. They appeared in an old alleyway in London. Remus held onto Kestrel's hand as they made their way through the throngs of people, until finally they reached the Leaky Cauldron.

Tom the barkeep nodded at him in greeting, unquestioning of the fact that there was a little girl trailing after him. He'd managed to procure a room in the Leaky Cauldron after he'd been unable to pay the rent in the last flat he'd lived in. He made enough money to pay for a room by working at the bar on weekdays.

He went straight up to his room, Kestrel following at his heels. He stopped in front of his door to dig in his pockets for his room key, then unlocked the door and ushered the little girl inside.

The whole place consisted of one room and one loo. "I suppose we'll need to find another place soon," he said sheepishly, transfiguring an old dresser and a spare trunk into a trundle bed and a miniature wardrobe for her to put her things in.

Kestrel said nothing; she just sat on the bed and began taking her things from the bag and putting them into the wardrobe. Remus felt like a fool for expecting her to reply to him in any way. He sat down heavily upon the big bed, hardly knowing what to do with himself. Kestrel sat there on her trundle bed and looked at him, blue eyes unreadable.

He noticed belatedly that she was still wearing the black dress she'd worn to the funeral. "Er, you may use the washroom to change your clothes if you wish…"

She nodded, then took some clothes into the loo, closing the door softly behind her and locking it with an audible click. Remus collapsed back on the bed, feeling drained. The girl obviously didn't trust him. Then again, she'd spent most of her life living with a woman who was too afraid to let her sleep in a room of her own. He felt that pang of guilt again, deep in his chest.

How had he let it come to this? Why hadn't he made himself a more prominent fixture in their lives? He knew the answer already. It was because he was a coward. It had just hurt so much to see Lydia, the last of his friends, look so scared and helpless. It had been much easier to just erase himself from her life completely.

But he'd had no idea the extent to which she would sink into her fright. According to Albus (how the old man knew, he would never know), she hadn't left the house once after that night besides to acquire food for her and her daughter, and especially hadn't set foot in any magical place. She had not looked for a muggle job to help pay for the house, and had gone into debt. How had they managed to eat well? Maybe they hadn't had enough food. The idea bothered Remus, but he couldn't deny that it was a possibility; just looking at how thin Kestrel was proved that either she was a picky eater (which he thought was unlikely, considering who her parents were), or she had been deprived, and Remus seriously doubted that the Lydia he'd known would have underfed her only child if she could have helped it. He sighed deeply, wondering how they would get through this.

The girl soon came out of the washroom, putting the dress away in her small wardrobe. After that, she stood there, seemingly unsure of what she should do next.

He smiled weakly at her. "I'd say it's about time we get some dinner- you must be starving."

AN: So these first couple chapters are a little short, I know, but I'm kind of using them to develop a background. Next chapter should be more interesting! In the meantime, I would love to hear any opinions you guys might have about this chapter! :)