A/N: Sad, then happy, then what? It's all so volatile.

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Chapter 15: Of Closing Doors and Opening Paths

Rowan waited with bated breath for a moment after knocking on Remus' door. It was strangely silent – had he fallen asleep? She was debating whether to just enter or not when the door opened slowly.

He frowned in confusion at the sight of her, and she suddenly felt very self-conscious. His eyes were red and swollen, as she imagined hers were. She scanned his face quickly and felt relief wash over her – it was Remus, really Remus.

She let out a shaky breath and smiled weakly at him that seemed insufficient. She wanted him to know how glad she was to see him, how grateful she was that he was there. His lip quivered. He didn't say anything but stepped aside silently to let her into his room. As he closed the door behind her, she looked around his pale blue room and at his belongings and tried to memorize each item, every detail.

There was a line of photos pasted on his wall above his desk, and she realized that there was one from each year at Hogwarts. The first two were of just him and the Marauders, all small and scrawny with large grins, waving maniacally at the camera and shoving each other playfully. After that, she was in each of them. After their Fourth Year, he seemed to grow taller than the rest increasingly. She also noted fondly that they seemed to move closer to each other each year until, eventually, they posed together in the Seventh Year photo, arms wrapped tightly around each other and giggling madly. The photo of them in the Common Room that she'd given him for Christmas their Sixth Year was framed and sat on his desk.

The nostalgia ached in her chest, and she looked back up to see Remus gazing at her longingly. She felt pink heat in her cheeks and was slightly embarrassed at the fact that she was embarrassed at all. It was as if looking at the photos of their past transplanted her back into her awkward schoolgirl days, and she had to avert her gaze.

"What are you doing here?" he finally asked. His voice sounded hoarse, but she cherished the sound. It was so warm, so familiar, and she couldn't believe that she had nearly forgotten it in such a short time.

"Should I leave?" she asked, looking back up to him quickly. A small surge of embarrassment bubbled in her chest.

"No!" he blurted out. His face also reddened, and she was pleased that he also felt awkward. Was being in his childhood space making them both regress?

She looked down again uncomfortably and fidgeted with her hands. "Okay," she said stiffly. Why was this so difficult?

"I just," she started, not really knowing what to say, "I wanted to see you," she said lamely, keeping her eyes on the floor.

"Oh," he said weakly, "Thank you."

They stood in silence for a moment, neither looking at each other. Rowan's heart was thudding painfully in her chest. She was scouring her mind for something to say, but she couldn't think of anything. She hazarded a glance towards him and saw that he was staring at the photos above his desk with a frustrated frown, teeth worrying his bottom lip. The expression was so endearing, so very like him that she was overcome with a strange relief – he had been there all along.

Before she could stop herself, she'd moved forward and thrown her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. Her suddenness startled him and he jerked clumsily for a moment, staring down at her. He was so warm, so familiar. Where had he gone? She'd missed him so much, and as she felt him against her, she felt her tears surface again.

He placed his hands awkwardly on her shoulders. They trembled slightly as they slid slowly around her. Finally, he relaxed into her embrace and squeezed her back. He sighed shakily and held her tightly. She felt his chest begin to tremble and then his tears hit her neck. She wanted to be engulfed by him, to feel her bones meld into his so that she never lost him again. She wanted to know where he'd been, where he'd disappeared to, but it could wait. She dug her fingers into the back of his shirt and knew joyously that he'd finally come home.

Leanna's funeral passed in a blur. Rowan felt ashamed that she couldn't remember a single word of Remus' eulogy, but as they sat together after in a daze, she guessed that probably even he didn't remember it either.

She sat in the front with him during the service, and he gripped her hand tightly through it all. Neither of the Lupin men cried at the service or as they set Leanna into the ground, but Rowan knew that they'd already shed enough tears to mourn several lifetimes.

After they said their goodbyes to the bright woman, they gathered in the Lupin household quietly. Their friends sat together in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Remus still gripped Rowan's hand, and she leaned against him, letting the pressure of her body ground him.

As the sun began to set, people began to trickle out, and Rowan realized that she was one of the last. She shifted slowly, indicating to him that she was planning on leaving as well, but Remus' grip on her remained firm. She looked up at him questioningly and saw that he was leaning back with his eyes closed. He looked very much like his father. Still, his finger remained laced in hers tightly, and she realized that she wasn't going anywhere.

Once the last guests had left, Lyall said goodnight to them and went up to bed quietly. Rowan watched him sadly go up the stairs and mourned the fact that he was sleeping in that large bed alone.

She felt Remus shift and stand slowly from the couch, pulling her up gently with him. He looked at her cautiously.

"Will you stay?" he whispered, eyes searching hers.

She felt uncomfortable – he couldn't possibly want to be intimate at a time like this, could he? She hesitated but nodded slowly, and he smiled weakly at her before leading her up the stairs and into his room.

As he closed the door behind her, she felt her chest tighten with panic – she couldn't sleep with him. They weren't together anymore, and she couldn't even pretend to be in the mood for anything physical after the day that they'd had. Relief washed over her as Remus moved to his dresser and pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt for her to wear. He handed them to her shyly, and she took them gratefully. She turned her back to him as she moved to undress, and he averted his gaze from her. She felt strangely saddened by it.

After she'd tugged on his baggy clothes, she crawled into bed with him. He hesitantly wrapped an arm around her middle, and she let him pull her against him gently. She wrapped her arms up his back and buried her face into his chest, inhaling him into her lungs. If she had anything left in her to give, she would have cried at the familiarity of it all. Would this be the last time he ever held her? Tomorrow, they'd probably go back to being friends – this was all special circumstance. She let out a shaky breath and closed her eyes. Once she felt the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest even out, she let herself fall asleep. She dreamt of blue walls and chiming bells dripping with red tea.

After spending the night with Remus, they'd woken up blearily to the yellow morning sun. It reminded her of Leanna and their cheerful conversations over autumn wind. She'd expected to feel awkward, but they were surprisingly comfortable with each other, and as she redressed in her robes, she didn't feel the need to turn away from him, though he was polite and didn't stare.

But even though there was a renewed comfort between them, he made no move to touch her beyond the warm embraces of reassurance they shared, and her gratitude was bittersweet. She mourned what they'd lost, and when she returned home, she cried quietly, for it felt as if the last chapter of their relationship had finally closed with Leanna's passing. Perhaps they were never meant to be together at all, and they'd both been forcing it out of a need for something genuine. Even so, she thought of the future she'd imagined for the past three years of her life with a deep sorrow. She mentally placed her memories of him in the box of his old letters and closed it, pushing it out of sight underneath her bed. But as she stored it away, she remembered all the moments before when she'd said that it was time to move on from him, and she thought sadly to herself that no matter how her life seemed to change, certain things always remained the same.

Rowan returned to work the next week, and she was grateful for the normality of it all. She could always rely on Belby to be a man of habit, even to the point of discomfort. After he inquired briefly about her injury and Leanna's passing, he made no mention of anything beyond work again, and Rowan fell into the regularity with relief.

She resumed her manic dedication to work, and even Belby had praised her gruffly for her progress. Despite the loss of her love and dear friend, she hadn't felt so accomplished in ages and was beginning to think that perhaps she could move on with her life. She couldn't foresee herself finding anyone else, at least not in the near future, but she finally understood – truly understood – that, unlike her mother, she couldn't waste her years away waiting for a man whose mind was somewhere else. Even if her career was dedicated to healing that man, it was a cure for her as well.

She'd begun keeping a bag of toiletries at the laboratory as her nights there became more frequent. Remus still insisted on escorting her home when she left in the middle of the night, which encouraged her to work into the morning in order to avoid burdening him, though she could tell that he worried incessantly still about her protection. She still saw him frequently on Order business and out with their friends, but she couldn't be around him too often without worrying that she'd grow complacent. He seemed to understand and kept his distance, but she couldn't help but suspect that he kept a closer eye on her than what was apparent.

In mid-December, Rowan and Belby were working late into the night again. They had been experimenting for months with the various forms of aconite, and Rowan had shrieked with joy when her lycanthropic mice had begun showing signs of less aggression under steady influence of wolfsbane. Belby had grumbled at her display, but the fiery excitement in his eyes was undeniable, and they dove into her lead with a manic ferocity.

She noted that aconite in the form of monkshood was useless, but the wolfsbane portion of the plant, when brewed with crushed smoked moonstone, offset the lycanthropic symptoms. The proportions of her potion still weren't right and she hadn't figured out the correct brewing period, but the thought that she was so close was enough to keep her and Belby going with an intense fire.

It was the night of the full moon and a few days before Christmas. They knew they wouldn't have another chance like this for a month, and they'd been injecting the mice for an entire week with the potion. Belby had his pocket watch out and was counting down the seconds until the moon was at its peak. Rowan watched with bated breath as the mice contorted grotesquely, hair bristling and high voices shrieking. She cringed – no matter how many times she'd watched the process, she always thought of Remus. Her heart ached.

But after the contorting stopped, instead of the usual violent thrashing and frightening noises, the mice remained still, sedated almost. One of the mice even moved to the edge of the cage and peered curiously up at them. After a few minutes, most of them simply fell asleep. The sight of their twisted forms in such a peaceful state was haunting, and though the two potioneers waited for any signs of intoxication or returned aggression, they remained sleeping.

She and Belby shared a silent moment, but she felt the same electricity between them as she had the first day they'd met and she'd convinced him that she was worth the risk of taking on as his apprentice. She looked at him with wide eyes. He was breathing hard, shakily. Her legs trembled, and she feared that they would collapse beneath her. But then for the first time in the year and a half that she'd been with him, he laughed.

It was loud and trumpeting and triumphant. It echoed through the lab raucously, and she suddenly felt her own laughter bursting from her lungs and bouncing off the walls with his. He grabbed her with rough hands and threw his arms around her neck, squeezing her with such force that it knocked the wind from her lungs, but she didn't care. She squeezed him back, and when she couldn't find the words to express her joy, she simply screamed with excitement. She had never felt such elation. It seemed cruel that her body couldn't lift itself into the air with her happiness.

The two leapt drunkenly around the lab, screeching with hysterical laughter until they collapsed breathlessly with tears in their eyes to the floor. They laid on the cold stone ground, each gasping for breath, faces sore from laughing but both still grinning maniacally. The coolness of the floor was soothing on her skin, which she realized was burning from the heat of her hysteria. She closed her eyes and listed all the ways she was grateful. Remus' face burned into her mind, and she suddenly wanted to cry.

"Delacroix," Belby murmured.

She opened her eyes and looked over at the Potions Master. He was still lying on his back with his arms and legs sprawled around him. His eyes were closed. There were silent tears running down his cheeks.

"Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you."

Rowan thought her chest might burst, and she allowed the joyous tears to break through. She beamed at the older man, even though he couldn't see it.

"No, thank you, Master Belby," she replied.

A pair of dark-robed figures stood outside of Damocles Belby's apothecary with wands held to their ears, a faint glow emitted from the tips. As they heard the laughter inside die down, they lowered their wands and shared a look before moving out of the shadows and into the street.

The moon was bright and full, illuminating the white sheet of snow that had fallen on the streets of Diagon Alley. One of the men grinned. The Dark Lord would be pleased.