Ch 57 - New Year's Resolution

Remus awoke in chains.

"Silence! Silence!"

Disoriented, he tugged at his restraints, but it was no use. The chains just clanked mockingly around his wrists and ankles.

"Murderer!"

A courtroom in chaos swirled round him like a deranged merry-go-round. He blinked to get his eyes to focus. Everyone was shouting so loudly-

"Every last one of them should be eradicated!"

A wad of someone's saliva collided with his cheek. He twisted around to see who had spit on him.

"Put that mongrel in Azkaban where he belongs!"

Wait a minute. Everyone was shouting at him.

He was on trial.

"Remus Lupin," a nasally voice echoed over the din. "You have been brought before the Council of Magical Law to answer for your crimes!"

He whipped back around to see Barty Crouch addressing him. Crimes? "I haven't-...I didn't do anything-" he sputtered.

"Liar!" someone in the stands hollered. Others began to join in until it was a mob chant.

"Order!" Crouch was shouting.

Remus searched the crowd frantically for Emmeline. Surely she would tell them, he wasn't a bad person; he'd always tried so very hard to be good.

In his search, he did a double-take at his father, who sat hunched over on the top bench. His heart leapt.

"Dad…DAD!"

Lyall Lupin sucked back tears, but said nothing. Why wasn't he trying to help him? Why wasn't anybody trying to help him?

"You stand accused of neglecting your duty to register as a werewolf, and of murdering an auror while transformed on the night of the full moon! Do you deny it?"

"What?! I-...Please, if I could just speak to Albus Dumbledore-"

"Dumbledore isn't here. Answer the question, do you deny the charges?"

Remus shook his head vigorously, his voice beginning to crack. "I can't-, I can't remember-"

"Show him the photos!"

A court official stepped forward holding up two large photos…

…of Emmeline's corpse butchered on the floor of St. Jerome's.

Anguish rippled through him. "No, no, no, no, no-" Remus shrunk away from the photos and squeezed his eyes shut, releasing tears that had been forming. Not again, please, God, not this nightmare again. It was a nightmare. It was all just a nightmare-

"Do you deny it?"

He had to wake up. He had to get out of here. He writhed in the chair, but it felt as though the chains were tightening around him.

Crouch was growing impatient, and Remus was beyond being able to defend himself anymore. "I ask the jury to raise their hands if they believe a life-sentence in Azkaban to be an adequate punishment for these crimes."

Without hesitation, the entirety of the council members along the side of the chamber raised their hands.

"No, wait-"

"Have the dementor's take him away!"

"Wait!" Remus protested louder. "Wait, please, I can't-!"

He jolted from the bed, sweating.

It was empty.

"Emmeline?" he called, residual panic infecting his reality.

When she stepped out of the bathroom, his heart rate began the slow descent back towards normal. She looked contrite as she started pulling on a pair of boots. "I'm sorry, I had hoped I wouldn't wake you."

In the midst of his relief, Remus reached for his watch on the nightstand, squinting at where the hands pointed. He sighed sympathetically. "What could they possibly be calling you in for at this hour?"

"Someone spotted Thorfinn Rowle outside Liverpool," she explained, reaching for her cloak.

"I thought you said Moody revoked your fieldwork privileges."

"He sort of retracted that now that he's lost the Longbottoms."

Remus rubbed his eyes. "Why are you the one having to pick up the extra slack?"

"I don't mind," she alleged through a yawn. She was too modest to follow it up with the fact that, as far as combat went, she was one of the best Moody had in his arsenal now.

For the first time in a long time, Remus wasn't at all relieved to see that she was leaving.

"Be safe," he beseeched her, his chest collapsing a bit.

"I'll be fine," Emmeline brushed him off.

"...Emmeline?"

She sighed, anxious to get going. "What?"

"Do you have a training class this evening?"

"Not tonight. Why?"

"Well it's just that it's New Year's Eve…" he muttered.

Her impatience dissolved, and she stilled. "...I know what day it is."

Directing his gaze down to the sheets, he cleared his throat. He felt badly asking it of her outright. "…Well, I would understand if you'd rather distract yourself with work."

"...I don't want you to have to sit here and think about it all by yourself."

"It wouldn't really be different from any other day, so…" He realized how pathetic it sounded after it came out of his mouth, but it was true.

Emmeline felt a lot more compassion for him than she had previously after their argument a few nights ago. "I'll be home tonight," she promised.

Remus nodded, more grateful than she knew.

"...Be safe," he said again.

Emmeline nodded.

…

"I'm convinced you have a death wish."

"I got him, didn't I?"

"Yes, and was nearly crushed in the process."

She'd probably leave that detail out when she spoke to Remus later on. 'Be safe' indeed.

Emmeline glanced at Rowle, now surrounded by aurors and being walked into one of the lifts. She hadn't encountered him much as far as she was aware, but knew of his reputation. Anyway, it didn't really matter whether they were acquainted or not. A death eater's a death eater.

"I've seen some doolally things in my time, but not once has anyone ever tried to bring a building down on top of my head," Alastor marveled, almost impressed.

"Can't say I've had the pleasure either," Emmeline wisecracked, rubbing her left side.

"Really?" Alastor jeered. "Because the way you ran into it head-on gave the impression you did it every Tuesday-"

"Okay, again, I got him." She gestured indignantly towards the now descending lift.

Alastor folded his arms. "What do you want me to say? Thank you?"

"Might be nice if you did."

"If you're looking for a pat on the back and a lolly every time you make an arrest, maybe you ought to join the Squad after all."

"Ha, ha," she sneered, dusting bits of plaster off her sleeves. Alastor examined the rest of her and started patting off the remainder of the debris from the back of her cloak, but was not very gentle about it. She drew a sharp breath, recoiling from his hand and grabbing her side again.

Alastor glanced at his watch. "The mediwizard's should be open by now."

"I'm fine, just sore."

Across the way, Dawlish and McCoy were now corralling four rather beat-up muggles they'd found at the scene into another one of the lifts. By the looks of it, Rowle had been torturing them.

"Where are they taking them?" Emmeline wondered.

"...They'll need to be healed, then obliviated," remarked Alastor. "Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, Level three."

She looked on sympathetically at the muggles; two men and two women, all holding onto each other and scared out of their wits. By the looks of it, two couples out for a night at the pub gone horribly wrong. The only saving grace was that since Rowle was caught in the act, it meant he was most likely headed for a cell in Azkaban. If he hadn't used any really unusual curses, the muggles would be right as rain and sent back to Liverpool in a matter of minutes; and, not that it justified their suffering, but after tonight, they'd forget any of it ever happened. Emmeline wondered, even after an obliviation charm to the mind, if the body retained residual traces of the trauma. She had never thought to ask about it, though she suspected nobody knew the answer. Would the muggles feel their hearts racing unexplainably each time they went for a pint?

"What was the point of all this? Voldemort's gone," she questioned, thinking back on the arrest. "It's not like anyone was giving him orders."

"Which means he just did it for the hell of it."

And though she did not know Rowle, Emmeline's bloodthirst flared up again. "...That's sadistic," she muttered.

"Aye, it is," Moody agreed.

"...How many more of them are out there that we haven't processed, do you think?"

"We'll never be able to know for sure, but I'm not going in the ground until they're all accounted for."

"Alastor, you're not going in the ground, period. They'll just keep adding extra parts to you forever until you're fully bionic," she said with a completely straight face.

He turned to her incredulously. She shrugged, swallowing a smile.

"...Vance."

"Yes, sir?

"...Get back to work."

"Yes, sir."

"Testing my patience..."

"Yes, sir."

Upon arriving back at her cubicle, she was met with a new pile of Concealment and Disguise papers from the class she had missed that morning. She huffed an exhausted sigh, choosing to leave the stack momentarily to go inspect her throbbing side in the bathroom mirror. She hadn't broken anything… at least she hoped she hadn't.

She walked out into the corridor, passing employees from other departments on her way to the toilet. Just a quick inspection in the mirror to make sure it was nothing serious, then back to work. She could push through the pain, that was nothing new. In hindsight, she really should have gone home and rested, but didn't want to fall behind on classwork. She'd rather get it done…if she was being perfectly honest, Remus was right. She would have much preferred to stay late in the practice range tonight rather than go home and dwell on what day it was.

New Years. How was it already New Years? When she looked back, the last six months - particularly, the last two - had felt more like an entire decade. Their friends already seemed so much further away, and yet time dragged on without them like it never had before. Emmeline felt as though she'd aged tremendously in no time at all, and not in a good way. Vanity had nothing to do with it. She dreaded - dreaded looking in the mirror one day and seeing herself older. Older than Marlene. Older than Lily. In school, they had friendly competitions for who could reach certain milestones first. First drink. First kiss. First one to get their apparition license. From now on, she would hit every new milestone without them. First wrinkle. First hot flash. First gray hair.

Lily would have looked so beautiful with smile lines and silver hair. James too.

The pain in her side didn't seem so bad now.

Spotting a gaggle of finely dressed men and women mingling outside the entrance to the Wizengamot Administrative Services, she strategized how to weave through the group while disturbing as few people as possible.

"Emmeline," a weirdly familiar voice addressed her.

She slowed her pace, scanning the gathering ahead to see who had called her name when a well-groomed man stepped out of the group to get her attention.

"...Tiberius?"

Just one look at him in that bespoke and undoubtedly expensive dress robe, and she already felt a migraine coming on. It had not crossed her mind since starting the training program that, not only would they both be working at the Ministry; their offices were on the same sodding floor. She counted herself lucky that she hadn't run into him in the hallway before.

His eyes scraped her over in a manner which Emmeline resented. It felt like someone had taken a large butter knife to her. "You work here?" he asked in disbelief through a debonair smile.

Already exasperated by the conversation that was sure to follow, she shuffled her feet impatiently. "Are you surprised that I'm working, or that I'm working for the Ministry?"

He went on as if he hadn't even heard what she'd said at all. "Which department are you in?"

"Take a wild guess." She gestured around them.

"What, are you like, an auror?" he chuckled, cracking what he thought was a humorous joke. When she glared back at him silently, the smile was wiped from his face. "...By Merlin, are you an auror, Emmeline?"

"In training to be one. Problem?"

TIberius held his hands up defensively. "No no, it's just…I don't know, you don't seem the type."

"Okay- nice to see you, but I've actually got to-" She tried to walk past him, but he caught her left arm. Nearly grunting from the pain, she controlled her face so that he wouldn't see her wince.

"Hang on now, don't be so prickly. I only meant that it's not what I expected."

Emmeline regarded him the same way she might've regarded a very smelly troll who was trying to cozy up to her. "Tiberius, you proposed to me after three and a half months of dating, has it ever occurred to you that we don't actually know each other very well?"

"What are you doing later? Perhaps we could fix that," he offered, looking her up and down again.

Emmeline squinted at him scrutinizingly. "Oh, my God, you're serious."

"Yes, I'm serious. You look good, I miss you."

Oh, he must have been really bored and lonely, as Emmeline had no disillusions about the fact that she looked like a wreck after the arrest this morning. "Shouldn't you be getting back downstairs to the courtrooms?" she reminded him, squirming out of his grip.

"One drink," he pressed.

"Thank you, but no."

TIberius pursed his lips together, scoffing through his nostrils. "Don't tell me you're still hung up on Lupin…"

She raised her eyebrows. "...Excuse me?"

He let out a pitious laugh. "Oh, come on, Emmeline. I really thought you would have grown out of this by now. I know he was your school girl crush and all, but really? He's-..."

"...He's what?" she snarled.

"Well, he's a bit of a dud, isn't he? What exactly does he do?" He said this so casually, ignorant that his words had her deciding whether or not she should leave him with his kneecaps facing the right direction.

She could've said a hundred things. She could have informed him that Remus was part of the reason that half the people Tiberius knew were not dead or strung up in a dungeon somewhere, being punished for who their parents were; that Remus had made sacrifices the likes of which he could scarcely fathom to make sure Tiberius could keep his money, his hunting lodge, and his stupid dress robe; that Remus had spent years breaking his mind and body so that people like Tiberius could continue building their careers, while he would never have the chance at one because he was sick. Just because Tiberius hadn't heard of some great feat Remus had under his belt, didn't mean that he was unaccomplished. "Is that your only measure of a person's worth? What they do for work?"

"So he doesn't work," Tiberius deduced, smirking triumphantly.

Emmeline's hand was hovering dangerously close to her wand, but in a display of maturity, she flexed it and shoved it in her cloak pocket. "It sounds like this has more to do with you being a sore loser than it does with Remus," she muttered, turning and walking back the way she came. He simply wasn't worth it. As much as she would have loved to, he wasn't worth the hell Alastor would rain down on her if he received a complaint from the Wizengamot that she'd hexed its darling, youngest member.

But Tiberius never knew when enough was enough, so he persisted. "Call me what you want, but I think we both know that a real man wouldn't make you slave away in the auror program. You could be the lady of a fine house by now if you just spent some time with the right people. Not everyone would mind that your dad was a muggle, you know."

Emmeline halted, then slowly turned back around to face him, neutralizing her expression. In his arrogance, Tiberius thought that this was because what he said enticed her. Stalking back over to him, she got very close to his face.

She smiled saccharinely and spoke in hushed tones. "You want to know why I joined the Department?"

"I confess it, I'm curious," he rumbled, assuming that they were flirting.

"...I started training as an auror so I could hunt death eaters like you hunt deer," she purred.

The way she said it made all the color drain from his face.

"...and I'm getting really good at it."

He had not noticed until now that her wand was in her hand. "What are you-"

"I may still look like the nineteen year old you cooped up in the penthouse, but that girl is dead."

"O-Okay, look, please don't-"

"And if I ever hear you malign my partner again, I will make certain that you regret ever saying my name in this hallway today. Do you understand?"

"Emmeline, I-"

She raised her finger to his mouth, silencing him. "Ahp ahp ahp."

TIberius nodded like a scolded child.

Satisfied to have spooked him, she stashed her wand. "...Next time you see me, just walk the other direction."

With that she strode back to her cubicle, fuming, forgetting all about her side and using her anger as fuel to 'slave away' at her assignments.

…

When she did sit down to get her work done, she was pressing her quill into the parchment so hard that it was poking holes. Hunting and arresting Voldemort's remaining followers meant nothing if people like Tiberius still clung to such backwards, ignorant rhetoric. Not everyone would mind that your dad was a muggle, you know. Prick.

My partner. She'd called Remus her partner, she remembered. She hadn't even really thought about it as she said it. It felt strange, like finding your favorite jumper in the bottom of the wardrobe but being too afraid that it wouldn't fit to put it back on.

Late in the afternoon, she attended a lecture on identifying different poisons, then went straight back to her cubicle with yet another hefty bundle of papers to add to the pile. She wanted to make good progress on those too, so she could get a session in at the practice range before she left for the day.

The things Tiberius had insinuated about Remus repulsed her, but she hated to admit that they made her think. Even though his secret remained intact, anyone who looked close enough could see that Remus did not get to live like otherwise healthy individuals, and without the Wolfsbane to help with his symptoms, she knew he would get so much worse.

She began to imagine what their future would look like, a place she had been unwilling to let her mind wander to since Halloween.

They'd need to find somewhere else for him to undergo the transformation, of course. Maybe she could help him scout somewhere out, somewhere like the shack. On the nights of the full moon she could take him there, lock him in with enchantments, and return for him in the morning to care for him. God, how awful she would feel having to do that to Remus. Maybe she'd just camp outside instead, to be close in case anything happened, in case he hurt himself. He wouldn't like that idea at all. After January, she'd never get to stay next to him through a transformation again. Distressing as it was to see him go through the agony, she wanted to be there for him.

His body would get worse; the condition took such a toll. They could make accommodations. Maybe they'd move somewhere they could live on the ground floor, so he wouldn't have to bother with stairs. She could save up and buy them a house after a while. Somewhere small, but with lots of space to roam, and plenty of grass and trees. Remus would like that. They would read loads of books. They would heal, somehow. She didn't care if he never recovered enough to be able to kiss her again. She would take care of him. She would make sure there was a place for him. She could do it.

He was such a good man with such a brilliant mind, and it was so unfair that he couldn't move through the world in the same way Tiberius did. But Emmeline would never stop fighting for him, ever. And anyone who had anything to say about it could go to hell.

She went to the practice range, but was so sore she couldn't accomplish much. She came back to her cubicle.

Everything would have been so different if their friends were still here. As she blazed through the stack of parchment, her mind fabricated daydreams behind her eyes. Lily asking her to pluck out her first gray hair. James and Remus teaching Harry to fish, while Peter prodded a campfire. She and Marlene fighting over who got to host Harry's next birthday party.

In another life, there was Uncle Moony and Auntie Emmie. She couldn't bear the thought; it broke her heart.

So many things that should have been, but never would be, and a New Year to fill with a whole different reality.

She stretched, feeling the ache in her side again. The movement elicited a rumble from her stomach. She'd been so focused on her work, when did she last eat?

She checked her watch, swearing.

…

Remus stood up from the table when she apparated into the front room and tumbled into the kitchen.

"I'm sorry I'm so late," she blustered ruefully. "It was weird day, lost track of time-"

"You came…" he admired.

"...You sound surprised."

"Well, I know things come up sometimes."

"I told you I would come home."

"...I'm really glad you're here," he professed, almost smiling.

She glanced past him at the table, where a roast chicken, some potatoes, and a bowl of peas were neatly placed betwixt two place settings.

"...You made dinner," she observed.

"I thought you might be hungry."

She eyed him, surprised and a bit suspicious. It wasn't that he didn't cook; but this seemed more deliberate than usual. Now that she thought about it, she couldn't recall the last time they'd sat down for a meal together, even before the end of October.

"I needed a distraction," he confessed.

She put the suspicions from her mind, realizing she might have been spending too much time with Alastor. "No, it looks really good. Let me just change out of work clothes."

"Sure, take your time."

He sat back down as she passed him, rubbing his hands up and down his pant legs nervously. The chicken maybe looked a little too browned, he realized, inspecting the spread for the umpteenth time. The things his mother taught him may have been fading from his memory. Not only that, he hadn't sorted out anything for them to drink, and kicked himself for not buying a bottle of wine or something. He was pretty rusty at all this.

1982. How was it already New Year's Eve? He feared he'd dwell in 1981 forever, and everything else would just move on without him. He almost hoped it would. Everything he loved would never make it past 1981, why should he get to?

It was all so odd and backwards that he'd made it out on the other end of this year and James hadn't. If he thought about it too hard, his mind would have to numb everything again just to protect him. Remus was heartbroken for Peter too, of course, but he was never strong like James. None of them were. Not even Sirius.

Sirius was rotting in a cell right now for what he'd done to them…he deserved it. He deserved it.

Life was not going to look how Remus had imagined it at all, and that was something else he had to let go of. It was as though he and Emmeline mourned not only their friends, but also the lives they wouldn't get to lead with them gone. It was supposed to be the four of them forever, the Marauders. Remus thought he'd be the first to die. They all would have taken such care of Emmeline…

Everything was about to be so different.

He wasn't sure if he was just restless, or if Emmeline was perhaps taking longer than usual to change. She had sort of looked at dinner like it was a trap, and he couldn't really blame her for thinking it. His leg bounced up and down as he waited. God, what to say to her? He was so damn rusty.

Five or so minutes had gone by before he heard what sounded like a pained groan from the other room. "Merlin, Morgana, and Mungo!"

He got up from his seat.

Without thinking, Remus walked into the room unannounced - at the precise moment Emmeline had undressed from the waist up to inspect a large, dark bruise in the bathroom mirror. She jumped at the intrusion.

He gasped, pivoted, and turned his back to her. "Oh, I didn't-...Sorry, I should've knocked."

"It's okay…" she excused him, though she still felt the need to cover her chest with her right arm. She went back to looking at the large purple splotch that stretched from her left hip halfway up her ribcage, expecting him to turn and leave.

Remus didn't know why his first inclination was to look away. He might've continued to, had he not spotted the enormous bruise. Slowly, he rotated back around and examined the lesion from a distance.

From her vantage point in the mirror she could see that he was still there, and that he was staring. "You should see the other guy," she jested humorlessly.

"What happened?"

"A chandelier swung down off a ceiling. Ran straight into it." That was the short version of the story, but it would suffice.

"Why didn't you see the healer?"

Emmeline shifted her weight. "...It's a luxury to have magic stop the pain."

"Nobody's asking you to suffer through it."

"...I know."

Still, he lingered, wondering how often she'd come home like this and he hadn't known. It made him feel more guilty than he already did.

"Alastor's done worse in training, trust me."

This comment did nothing to put him at ease, and his frown deepened. She followed his focus as it traced down the curve of her side and rested on four thin, pink lines on her ribcage. The scars were pale, but still visible under the bruise.

Remus drew his wand, coming closer; but she uncovered herself and put her hand out behind her.

"No," whispered Emmeline.

He stilled, perplexed as to why she wouldn't want him to heal the bruise. "I don't like seeing you like this-"

"I want to feel it," she confessed soberly.

"...Why?"

Emmeline chewed her lip. "It reminds me that I'm still here, and that some people didn't get to be." She looked away from the bruise to check his reaction.

Remus ignored his discomfort, and instead made himself look at her. He studied the bruise, the scars; even the shame-ridden expression she wore. And as he studied the girl before him - the girl from the bridge, who'd kissed him in a hospital bed, the girl who he'd loved and lost then found and fought beside, the girl who had broken with and for and because of him over and over…

…all he wanted to do was hold her.

He hadn't wanted to hold anyone or anything close in ages, as he had a tendency to lose the things he held dear. Somewhere along the line his capacity for love and intimacy had atrophied, and was quite upstaged by the cavernous hole the grief had left in his chest.

Given what was waiting for him after the Wolfsbane ran out, he knew he shouldn't; but he desperately wanted to hold her.

Remembering that she was exposed, Emmeline flushed scarlet and reached for the black undershirt crumpled on the counter top in front of her. Her wince as she lifted the shirt over her head did not go unnoticed by Remus, and suddenly she felt him at her back. He was helping the rest of the fabric over her torso so that she wouldn't have to, but didn't pull the shirt all the way down. She watched him carefully in the mirror as his hand moved up the left side of her waist, then gently traced his fingers along the four scars.

Remus felt her stiffen under his touch. "Are you in a lot of pain?" he murmured.

"...It looks worse than it feels, I think," she reassured him, though she couldn't filter the tension from her voice. He hadn't touched her bare skin in so long, and they were both so different now…For some reason, the vulnerability of it all made her oddly timid. It felt like he'd never touched her before.

Taking the hint, he withdrew his hand and stared at her pensively in the mirror.

He didn't remember how to do any of this; how to touch her, how to speak tenderly to her. He didn't even know where to start. Daring a glance at the bedroom door through the mirror, he weighed his decision.

Then, he stepped in closer so that his torso was pressed up against her back and closed his eyes. "I'm sorry," he whispered against her head, the scent of her jasmine perfume making his senses sing.

Emmeline swallowed tightly at the feeling of his breath against her. "You don't have anything to apologize for."

"I do. I've been an arse."

She couldn't think of what to say, but she laid back against him and closed her eyes, too. Softly so as not to disturb the bruise, he wound his right arm under hers and across her chest, pulling her even closer. She took hold of his arm, unsure of why it made her want to cry.

Eventually, she found the words. "...You haven't, it's just-…I know things will never, ever be the same, but I..."

"...Tell me."

"...I really miss you…"

Remus felt his throat constrict. "I don't want to be the reason you get hurt again."

Taking his left hand, she moved it back under the shirt where the four pink lines were. "I'd take a thousand more scars if it means I can have you."

"Don't say that," he admonished her, recalling his nightmares and feeling wholly unworthy. He tried to take his hand back, but she held it there.

"I mean it."

"…Why can't you just let me go?" he quavered.

Without having to think about her answer at all, she said: "You're not replaceable. Not to me. Not now, not after the potion dries up, not ever." He both hated and was touched by the fact that she was using his own words against him.

He was having to fight himself. He shouldn't be this close. He shouldn't be here with her at all. Gently, he unwound himself from her and turned her around so that he could look into her eyes. Perhaps if he saw her face to face, he would gain some sense.

But when Emmeline pressed her forehead to his, he realized he was not strong enough to win this war with himself tonight. For a moment they stood holding on to each other, exchanging breath, unsure how or if they should proceed…

…Until Remus couldn't help but press a silken kiss to her lips.

It was brief, tame. He parted from her for a moment, taking his time. She stood completely still with her eyes closed, unsure if she'd imagined it. Then he leaned back in for another kiss. Then another.

Emmeline turned to clay in his embrace. With each kiss, he drew her closer to himself, taking care not to put any pressure on the left side of her sore body. She reached her hand up into his hair and guided them both backwards, resting her hips against the sink.

Savoring every moment, he kissed her deeper and deeper. He felt her arm drop from his hair and she pulled away, lifting the black shirt back over her head. With that, Remus' lips migrated to her neck, then shoulder, then collar bone, and she inclined them to him. She was taking his long sleeve shirt off of him now, wanting to feel his skin against hers. Wherever she touched him became beautiful, just because she had been there. Every scar she ran her fingers across became a brush stroke on a canvas, each blemish a pearl. He wanted to be her magnum opus.

She started backing them up out of the bathroom, and soon enough Remus felt the mattress beneath them as she positioned herself under him.

He cherished every sound, every jagged breath, every rapturous expression on her radiant face. Remus admired her every move, not wanting to miss anything.

…

Somewhere outside their window, a cluster of fireworks went off with comically good timing.

Taking a moment to find her voice again in the afterglow, Emmeline started to giggle breathlessly against Remus' ear. "You heard those too, right? Or is that just my heartbeat in my ears?"

She felt him shudder against her, and sat up so that she could delight in whatever traces of passion were left dancing on his expression.

But where there should have been bliss, instead there were tears.

Taking his face in her hands, Emmeline looked back and forth between his glassy eyes, her smile now exchanged for a distressed grimace. He caressed her face and hair in return, marveling at her like she was made of the dawn.

"What's wrong?"

He brushed his thumb along her bottom lip. "I have wasted so much time believing that everything was ripped out from under me, but I'm such a fool. You've been right here all along, and I was too miserable to see it." He looked into her eyes. "When everything else crumbled, you remained. I've been a complete, unmitigated fool, Emmeline."

His words gripped her in such a way that she nearly began to cry as well. "No," she shook her head. "No, you can't blame yourself for what you had to do to start recovering. I was foolish too; I gave you too much space, then none at all. I think we'll be picking up the pieces of ourselves for a long time..."

"I wasted so much time," he lamented again.

"We can make up the time. We're burdened and blessed with so much of it. We got lucky."

Remus buried his face in her neck.

"For a while there I thought I'd never get to have you like this again," she sniffled, tracing a scar on his shoulder.

"And yet you stayed anyway," he beheld.

"I'll always wait for you, Remus. That's a promise."

Her words sundered his heart.

Remus drew a shuddering breath, leaning back up to face her. He was ready to be vulnerable now. "I'm so scared of what comes next," he exhaled.

Emmeline leaned forward, kissing each of his eyelidss. "You won't have to face it alone."

It felt as though his tongue was tied in his mouth.

In another feat of good timing, both of their stomachs began to rumble in unison.

"Dinner's cold," Remus apologized.

"Dinner was cold when I got home, you don't have to try and make me feel better about that." She kissed him again and carefully climbed out of his lap, being mindful not to aggravate her bruise any more than she just (quite willingly) had.

Remus arose too and threw his trousers back on, fishing out his wand. "I'll see what I can do about it," he said through a smile. It was so good to see him smiling, even if he still looked sad.

Emmeline slipped into the bathroom to grab her robe and freshen up, smoothing her unruly hair in the mirror like a girl with a crush. She stared at her reflection for a moment, noticing all the ways she already looked older, and felt both guilt and gratitude.

Maybe they were turning a corner, and New Years could be their clean slate. The grief would remain like a scar, but perhaps the bitterness would fade like a bruise.