I apologize for the two month delay between chapters, but the Star Wars fandom pulled me in and whisked me off to a galaxy far, far away! On top of that, this chapter ended up with a bunch of feels that kept hitting me right in the gut after I thought, "I'm fine." Lies. Utter lies.

Also, holy shit, it'll be a year since I posted the first chapter in nine days?! It doesn't seem like that long?!

Enjoy!

Chapter 14: Where's My Werewolf?

The first thing Remus notices is the absence of any pain.

Pain has been his constant companion since Fenrir Greyback attacked, so the lack of pain is somewhat jarring. His limbs feel loose and relaxed, and that's another thing he hasn't experienced in a while. The war hadn't allowed for any relaxation. Not even the precious month he'd managed to spend with his wife and newborn son had had him this relaxed. Then again, newborn and relaxing don't exactly go hand in hand.

The second thing Remus notices is the fact that there's an abundance of magic in the air.

Moony makes him much more attuned to the ambient magic that's always present, but now it feels like a heavy blanket pressing down on him. It's not suffocating, but it's certainly there. He's never felt it like this anywhere before, not even at Hogwarts.

The third thing Remus notices is the noise.

It's not loud, it's not overwhelming, it's not much of anything really. It just is. It's there, and it's the sound of hustle and bustle of people calmly going about their business that usually fades to the background. It sounds like life.

It's very much not what he's expecting to be hearing after seeing that green light coming towards him.

Because of all of this, he's almost afraid to open his eyes. Open his eyes and see just where exactly he is. But then again, he's also a Marauder, and if he thinks about it long enough, he'll probably be able to hear James and Sirius taunting him about being unable to just bloody look.

So he does.

He pries his eyes open and finds himself staring blearily at a golden ceiling unlike anything he's ever seen before. He blinks stupidly up at it, trying to figure out who the hells would have a house like this and who would be willing to spend money on a werewolf on top of that. Unfortunately, he can't think of a single person (well, there's always Eve on the money front, but given that he has no bloody clue how the battle at Hogwarts panned out after whatever spell hit him, he tries not to dwell on that line of thought for too long). So he pushes himself upright and gawks around what is clearly a hospital wing.

"I was warned that you might be stubborn, Mr. Lupin." A crisp, clean woman who gives Remus flashbacks to Madam Pomfrey at Hogwarts even with the lack of silver hair approaches. "However, it is good to see you awake. Tell me, are you experiencing any pain at the moment?"

"None." Something he's still rather befuddled by.

"Good." She turns slightly to address one of the few people around. "Halldis, go inform Lady Potter that her guest is awake."

"As you say, Healer Eir."

That, of course, immediately grabs Remus' attention. "Eve's here?" The knowledge that she survived the battle is immensely comforting. Not only is she the last bit of James and Lily left, but he can't imagine she'll have left Dora alone being Teddy's godmother and all. Since he has no bloody clue how long it's been since the attack, he's happy knowing his wife wouldn't have had to care for their son with just her mother for help.

The woman—Eir—inclines her head. "It is because of her that you are currently under my care, Mr. Lupin." She sniffs delicately. "Stubborn girl that she is, she refused to leave your side for all that she sought to escape when she herself was here."

Yeah, that does sound exactly like Eve. She comes by it honestly, though. James had been much the same. Madam Pomfrey had had to threaten to spell him to the bed whenever he landed himself in the hospital wing, but if one of them was in there? She'd had to physically throw him out.

"Where am I, exactly?"

"Lady Potter requested that she be the one to explain your current situation," Eir informs him, which confuses him because what exactly is there to explain? She sighs minutely, obviously catching sight of his confusion. "While I will by no means claim to understand what all has transpired to Lady Potter since you last saw each other, it is a trying tale that has led us all to this point in time. Please do try to keep that in mind when you finally hear what has happened."

Ah, Remus sees where this is going.

He shoots her a rueful smile. "I take it Potter Luck struck again?"

"Indeed," Eir huffs, looking entirely put upon by the very idea. "Although I highly doubt anyone expected anything of this magnitude."

Remus snorts out an unexpected chuckle. "I've found that Potter Luck rarely conforms to what any of us want it to be. James—" Remus' breath hitches momentarily. "James could get into some spectacular situations that, had it been anyone else, would've ended very differently."

"Well then, it is just as well that we have another who seems to understand the oddness that inevitably follows Lady Potter around. Stars know the Princes get into enough mischief as it is all by themselves. I shudder considering what will be wrought now with Lady Potter at their sides."

"All sorts of chaos, Lady Eir, and lots of it too."

Remus nearly tumbles out of the bed he's in at the sound of Evelyn's happy voice. She's standing in a doorway, green eyes bright with unshed tears. The red tangle of curls hanging over a shoulder is a surprise, because he distinctly remembers it being cropped short and black last he saw her, but he's willing to overlook it for the time being, because she's alive.

"Eve?" he embarrassingly croaks out.

She ducks her head briefly while drawing in a shuddering breath before approaching. "Hey Moony," she whispers, sinking into a chair he hadn't noticed earlier. "How are you doing?"

"I don't hurt, which I have to tell you, feels rather bloody odd," he states blandly, desperately wishing to reach out and touch her, but not sure if she'd welcome that. She seems so hesitant, which is weird because he's never known her to be hesitant about anything. "How are you?"

Here she gives him a watery but true smile. "Better now that you're here."

That, of course, makes Moony preen, because of course his cub feels better with him around. It does nothing to explain anything about what's going on, however. "Eve, you—"

"We won the war," she interrupts him, now staring intently at her lap. "We won the war and I killed Riddle in the end." He wonders why she doesn't sound happier about that. "I killed that bloody bastard, but not without substantial losses on our side." She barks out a bitter sounding laugh that immediately raises his hackles. "Turned out to be a good thing you named me Teddy's godmother after all, Moony, given what ended up happening."

Remus abruptly feels his stomach drop. Dora had promised him. She had promised she'd stay with her mother and Teddy, but the way Evelyn's talking, it's starting to sound like she didn't. "What happened?" he barely manages to get out past the rising lump in his throat.

Evelyn raises her head to fix him with a flat look that makes his skin crawl with all the contempt in it. "You died, Remus," she snarls and he recoils like she'd slapped him, too startled to actually further consider the implications of her statement because his cub sounds utterly destroyed and it's his bloody fault. "You and Tonks both, and I was left with a two month old baby to raise with no bloody idea of what to do. But I did it anyways, because that little boy became mine, and I made a vow to myself that he wouldn't suffer like I did. That he would grow up loved and cared for and never have any reason to second guess if he was wanted or not." She laughs again, brittle and sharp. "Course, I ended up breaking that promise anyways, despite my best efforts. I won one war only to get pulled into an even bigger one. One that encompassed all the Nine Realms. And at the end of it all, surrounded by death and dust and ruin, we were forced to use Soul Magic to try and do it all over again. It's the only bloody reason we're even having this conversation, given how you died on me!" She's standing now, chest heaving as she glares down at him with fiery indignation.

"I died?" he whispers hoarsely. There's so much more he could be questioning, especially that mention of Soul Magic, but right he's rather fixated on that particular detail from Evelyn's rant.

"Yes you bloody well died, you stupid werewolf! What did you think happened, that you got hit with an Expelliarmus?" For some odd reason, she pulls a face the instant she says that. "Fucking hell," she mutters to herself, dragging a hand down her face.

"Alskling, are you finished yelling at your friend?"

Both Evelyn and Remus turn back to the doorway that Evelyn came through at the sound of another voice. Now there's a man standing where Evelyn stood previously. He somehow has Evelyn's (Lily's) striking green eyes. His clothing, though, that truly gives Remus pause. The women in this weird infirmary are all wearing what he'd thought were just oddly styled robes. This man, though. This man is near blatantly dressed for war, and he wears his armor with the ease of one used to its weight. And when he pushes himself away from the doorframe he's been leaning against, there's a coiled grace in his every step that practically screams danger to Remus.

Evelyn scoffs, not at all intimidated by the obvious predator stalking towards her. "When have I ever been finished after just that little?"

The man snorts, stopping at her side and sliding an arm around her waist with easy familiarity. "True enough. However, your other guest is becoming a tad anxious at the continued delay." His eyes flicker over to Remus, probably because of the low growl he's only just now realized is rumbling in his chest.

"Of course he is," she deadpans before whacking the man lightly on the arm, "and will you stop intimidating Remus before he decides to try and do something stupid? He has no idea who you are."

There's a teasing lilt in the man's voice as he replies with, "Hadn't gotten that far into your explanation, then?"

Evelyn inhales sharply before letting it all out in one big whoosh. It vividly reminds Remus of the times that Lily fought to control her temper. "Husband, so help me—"

"Husband?!" Remus sputters, because what? She's only bloody seventeen! She might be turning eighteen soon, but that's still too young in his mind for James' little girl to be married, pureblood traditions be damned. "Eve, you—you can't—you're just—"

A muscle jumps in Evelyn's jaw. "It's a bit alarming that you both reacted near exactly the same," she mumbles half to herself. Then she seems to rally herself again. "Remus, how old do I look to you?"

Her question makes him actually look beyond just the obvious differences. She does seem a bit taller, and she holds herself with a confidence she'd been lacking before. She's grown into herself, something that doesn't just happen overnight. And her eyes. Remus finally sees the same look in her eyes he's seen in his own every morning since that fateful Halloween day. The look of someone who's lost everything and everyone and has somehow managed to continue living.

"Too old," is what unfortunately comes out of his mouth before he can stop himself. He's been around enough women, confident in themselves and otherwise, to know that that is one of the absolute worst things to say.

However, instead of snapping back, Evelyn's lips twist into a grim smile. "I lived for twenty two years after you died, Moony." She touches a pendant hanging in the hollow of her throat. "I lived my life and along the way I got married. Of course, everything went to Helheim and back in the end, so here we are doing it all over again."

Twenty two years.

His cub lived twenty two years without him.

Both his cubs.

"Teddy?" he chokes out.

Evelyn gives him a sad, knowing look before snapping her fingers. The infirmary melts away and Remus abruptly finds himself sitting on a bed now situated in the middle of Platform 9¾ with the Hogwarts Express sitting in the station. People are milling about, but they seem to just pass right through him without sparing him a second glance.

It's a memory, Remus realizes in a daze. Eve can display a memory without a Pensieve.

"Mum, enough!" a young male voice suddenly protests, cutting through the haze of noise that always surrounds the platform. "I'm telling you, I'm fine!"

"Oh, you're fine, are you?" Evelyn's voice Remus recognizes, and he turns towards it with a trembling heart. "A big, grown up boy like yourself is fine without his mum, is he?"

Evelyn appears relatively unchanged. With red hair twisted back in a sensible yet stylish braid, she has a hand on her hip as she looks at a young boy dressed in Hogwarts robes sporting Hufflepuff yellow. A young boy with Remus' face, surprisingly enough. Said boy's hair cycles from vibrant turquoise to flat grey before going back again.

"That's not what I meant," he mumbles, shuffling back and forth.

Memory Evelyn snorts softly. "You sure about that, sweetheart?"

The boy groans, burying his face in his hands while memory Evelyn watches on with a proud grin. "Argh, why do you have to be so embarrassing?!"

"It is a mother's job to embarrass her children, or so I'm told," she informs him loftily. "You should be thankful your father had to go into work today, otherwise he'd be right here helping me."

The face the boy pulls is almost comical as he shudders violently. "No thank you. He's almost worse than you."

Memory Evelyn shakes her head before leaning down to press a kiss to the boy's forehead. "We'll see you in June. Do try to keep out of trouble until then."

"I make no promises," the boy throws back before the scene fades away, once again revealing the ridiculously over the top infirmary. Evelyn is staring intently at where the boy from the memory stood, eyes suspiciously bright.

"That's the last time I saw him," she whispers, voice brittle and Remus' heart bleeds with hers, "sending him back to Hogwarts after Easter break was finished his third year."

The man at her side shifts almost uneasily. "Alskling—"

Evelyn immediately holds a hand up, and he falls silent. "Love, if events hadn't happened the way they did, we never would've met. For all that I wish I could've been there with them for the remaining years, I made my choice when I chose not to go back. And in the end, we are here because I stayed." She looks at him with such tenderness that Remus almost feels like he's intruding. "So please, don't punish yourself over it."

The man sighs, reaching out to brush a hand over her cheek. "I knew that he would be mine once everything was done if we all survived," he says softly. "I had every intention of following through with that promise."

"I know, love, I know." Evelyn briefly presses his hand still on her cheek more firmly to her face before tangling their fingers together and dropping them down between then.

"Eve." Remus doesn't even bother trying to hide the trembling in his voice. "Eve, what the bloody hell is going on?"

"Twenty two years passed for me after you died," she says again, "and eight years ago, I was taken by Hela Lokidottir—" What? "—and dumped into the same prison cell her father, Loki Odinson—" What? "—was in. A year later, the Convergence occurred. The Nine Realms were in alignment, and portals opened between them. A woman from Misgard, from Earth, found a hidden Infinity Stone in the midst of this, and woke it. Because she woke it, so too were the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim woken from their five thousand year slumber. A battle occurred as the Dark Elves sought to gain control of the Infinity Stone, and this battle tore the Realms out of balance. We lasted seven years before it all caught up with us. I was hit with a death spell that ate away at my body for a week before Loki finally had enough."

"You were dying in my arms," the man bites out, making Remus' head spin at the implications.

"And so he used Soul Magic," Evelyn continues as though she hadn't been interrupted. "He gave me everything that he had and sent my soul back to the beginning." Now she reaches up to take off the pendant she'd touched earlier. Remus does finally end up falling off the bed he's still in when she shrinks from a fully grown woman to a small child.

"Bleeding hell!" he swears, scrambling to his feet and lurching forward with an outstretched hand. Evelyn just watches him calmly, meeting his held out hand with one of her own. He hits his knees in front of her, pulling her into his embrace. He draws in deep breaths to reassure himself that she's still okay. That she's still her.

"It's 1991 again, Moony," she whispers into his shoulder.

"That's not possible," he returns for all that he holds her even closer. For all that his senses are telling him that she's not lying.

For some reason, she snorts out a watery chuckle when he says that. "Stars, you and Sirius both."

Remus' whole body jerks at the mention of his friend, his brother, lost to him because of his headstrong ego. Because Sirius just couldn't bloody well stay put. Because for all that Remus somewhat understood what Sirius was feeling, being cooped up and unable to do anything, Remus also had to pull Evelyn away as she screamed for another person now lost to her. He had to endure losing the last of his childhood friends (because Wormtail was lost to them years ago) and still stay strong because Evelyn was breaking apart in his arms.

"Eve—"

"It is 1991, Remus," she stresses. "Sirius is still alive."

"Sirius is dead, Eve!"

She pulls away just far enough to look up at him in obvious exasperation. "Just like you are?" she counters. "Regardless, you'll be proven wrong in about ten seconds, given that Loki just gave Thor the go ahead to stop preventing Sirius from joining us."

"What?" He rears back like she'd slapped him, unable to hide the hurt in his voice. "No, Eve, I don't—" He doesn't think he'll survive a joke of this magnitude. Not with the knowledge that his wife is gone still hanging over his head, something he's steadfastly ignoring until he can break down in peace.

"Why Moony, I'd almost think you didn't want to see me!"

A low whine builds in the back of Remus' throat.

It can't be him.

It just can't.

And yet, as he lifts his head towards the doorway again, it is.

Sirius Orion Black stands before him, a wide grin on his face that quickly disappears when Remus just stares at him.

"Moony?"

Evelyn huffs out a sigh. "Padfoot, please try to remember you've been dead two years for Remus and that seeing formerly dead people will definitely come as a shock to a normal person."

The impossible man, alarmingly enough, looks sheepish at the reprimand. Remus can't really remember a day where Sirius Black ever looked sheepish before and meant it. Then, further exasperating Remus' disbelief, he proceeds to drop down beside Evelyn and offer a hand to Remus. He doesn't touch him, just offers a hand and wiggles his fingers almost invitingly.

"I even promise not to bite this time."

In any other situation, the face Evelyn pulls would've had Remus howling with laughter, her disgust is so comical.

Instead, he's falling into the arms of a man he'd thought he'd never see again sobbing even harder than that fateful Halloween night his world came crashing down around him. He clings to him, probably painfully tight, but Sirius doesn't mention it. His friend, after yelping at abruptly having an armful of sobbing werewolf, merely seems to settle himself more firmly where he's seated as if he's intent on just waiting Remus out.

"You stupid arse," Remus chokes out, not bothering to dwell on the fact that Sirius Black wasn't ever known for his patience and just rolling with it for now. "Why couldn't you bloody well stay put?!"

Sirius sighs out in an overly dramatic fashion that Remus can feel shudder through him, pressed as close as he is. "And there's the telling off I knew was going to come out eventually. You don't waste any time, do you Moony?"

"Shut it, Black," Evelyn throws at her godfather almost half-heartedly. "Let him say his piece. He's going to be a blubbering mess anyways, so just let him get some of it out."

Remus can't get anything else out past the lump in his throat, so he just buries his face in Sirius' shoulder and holds on. His head's spinning from Sirius being alive to the supposed time travel to the apparent loss of his cub and wife. The fact that his friend manages to dredge some amount of tack and allows him this letting out of his grief and stress without any further interruptions turns out to be exactly what he needs. He does feel a tad pathetic, what with his utter falling apart like he is, but again, he can't really bring himself to care since at least some of his family is here.

Because of them, it feels somewhat like home.

And he'll take any bit of home he can get.

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