#remus 002

Someone’s found Harry a puzzle, and she’s never bothered to ask where it came from. It’s easier to believe that it came from a shop in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade or a Muggle part of London and not from the room of a dead child down the road from her dead husband’s house. Her house. Their house. Lily just thanked the deliverer and set it up for Harry and helped him sort the pieces by color (he was getting pretty good at colors).

Four days later, he’s done the puzzle at least six times, but he’s not yet two years old and these things don’t get boring for him, and anything that keeps Harry’s mind off asking for his father or hunting down Padfoot is a good thing in Lily’s book. He’s sitting on her lap on the floor of the bedroom, holding up pieces and trying to fit the sides together, for once more focused than chatty and allowing his mother to carry on a half-decent conversation with Remus.

“--have you been sleeping alright?” Lily asks him anxiously, staring at him over a head of unmanageable dark curls. Remus has moved into their room, rather unofficially, after the breakup and her finding him napping curled up in her bed with Harry after leaving him to babysit one afternoon. It’s only logical--it’s too awkward for them to sleep in the same bed, and Lily is unwilling to ask either one if they’re ready to find alternate sleeping arrangements. Her bed is more than big enough, and she’s been accustomed to sleeping with Harry and James since the baby’s birth. The substitution feels a bit like waking up with a ghost in her bed but at least she’s sleeping better and avoiding the incredible tension that had been building between Remus and Sirius while they were still sharing a room. “Are things still...” she gestures, unsure what to say. This breakup has been hard on both her friends, she can tell, and she feels ill-equipped to support them simultaneously.

It had been a long week. Since the news of an attempted break out of Azkaban, everyone from The Order had been put on several missions. For all Dorcas and Remus knew, nothing had come out of anyone's efforts so far. However, they wouldn't know seeing as they had been tracking a Death Eater for miles.

And miles.

And miles.

And miles.

They had been tracking so long that eventually the two managed to find themselves somewhere in a field full of brush, dirt and grass as tall as Dorcas herself (not that that wasn't difficult, mind you, but it didn't help their search any).

We must look ridiculous. I can hardly see where we're going. Remus' head and shoulders are just bobbing along up and down like a moron.

Dorcas loved Remus. She was excited to be put on a mission with him, knowing how intelligent and capable he was. She loved his company, their talks, silly outbursts and intellectual conversations. But with his stupid bobbing head and shoulders being the only thing she could clearly see, she began to get irked. They weren't any closer to finding the Death Eater they were trailing.

And now -- oh now -- they were lost. No Death Eater in sight (she assumed based of Remus' weaving through the brush and refusal to say what he saw).

Finally, Dorcas got sick and tired of the limited view ahead of her and pulled out her wand, cast a frustrated spell and made all the grass around them fall flat to the ground.

She was right.

Remus got them lost.

What the fuck?!

She turned a shade of red and pursed her lips. She really did try to keep her mouth shut ...but that didn't happen.

"What the hell Remus? Where are we, huh? Once we hit where I couldn't see, you were all 'I've got this, Dorcas!'" She threw her arms around her, nearly hitting Remus with the wand still in her grasp. "Well, where are we, genius?"

She didn't want to be angry at him, but there was no room for error in their task at hand. Yet there they were.

Nowhere.

The nightmares came and went, and Andie managed to adjust to them for the most part. She could almost always shake them off after a while and fall back asleep - or more frequently, read until it was late enough to go out into the common room. Sometimes Savannah was there and she would sit with Andie. Tonight, she’d gone out to the common room but Savannah wasn’t there and the dorm was stifling - even here in the common room, Andie felt as though the walls were closing in on her. 

She didn’t realize she’d left until she was in the corridor, walking swiftly away from the entrance and though she should turn back . . . she didn’t. Being in the dungeons was just too much and she had a half-formed though of making her way up to the Astronomy tower, because it would at least give her a chance to breathe. But she didn’t make it that far before she heard footsteps and turned quickly. There were prefects and Aurors and professors wandering the halls but there were also other people and while she couldn’t imagine anyone supporting the Dark Lord would hurt her, not knowing her father, Grindelwald’s supporters didn’t seem to hold with that. 

She gripped her wand tightly and raised the candle higher - she didn’t even remember getting it, and while wandlight was enough, she was glad for the candle. “Hello?”