Chapter 4: “Where have you been, Remus?”

He couldn’t believe he’d just done that. Lily would’ve smacked his head clean off his shoulders, to say nothing about what James and Sirius would’ve done. What had possessed him, to curse Harry? The kid had inherited James’ oft-irritating habit of speaking the truth of a matter, in the most blunt and unflattering way possible. And he’d responded to it in exactly the same way he would’ve had it been James speaking it. After all those years of telling himself that he couldn’t treat Harry the way he had treated James, after all those years of telling Sirius the same thing…

“Remus, you’re being an idiot,” James’ voice raged in his mind.

‘Well, what am I supposed to do?’ Remus demanded the voice angrily, not expecting an answer.

“Stop being so selfish, Remus!” Sirius hissed. “Not everything in this world has to be about you and what you think should happen!”

‘I’m not being selfish,’ Remus protested. ‘Merlin, I wish I could just pretend like nothing’s wrong!’

“The only place anything is wrong, Remus, is in your own mind,” Lily’s voice cut in softly. “You’re the only person who can control your life. You can’t control idiots like Sarah, and you can’t control the morons who make discriminating remarks. There is nothing wrong with you.”

‘But there is,’ Remus insisted futilely. ‘There has to be. What sentient creature is this masochistic?’

“Oh, shut up already, Remus,” came James’ scornful remark. “Face it, you’re stuck with us, whether you think you deserve it or not.”

“Nobody likes listening to the Poor Remus Show,” Sirius agreed.

Shaking his head to rid himself of the ghostly echoes of his friends’ voices, Remus dropped to the curb in some unknown street.

“Merlin, Remus, how many times do I have to tell you?” her frustrated voice pierced through his mind. “Can you just smile for once?...”

As his mind began racing again, Remus ran his hand through his hair in frustration. Brain off, Lupin. Brain off – wasn’t that the secret to being temporarily happy? Stop thinking, stop analyzing, stop planning, stop worrying and just live?

But he couldn’t turn his brain off. Turning his brain off had been what had gotten him into this mess in the first place. So what was he supposed to do?

Well, maybe if he just used his brain to figure this out, maybe he could find a way to make reality and fantasy coexist peacefully.

All right, Option 1: Don’t go back.

Not a particularly appealing option. Pure reality. He had already destroyed Dora’s life so much. He couldn’t possibly inflict any more pain than he already had.

“I don’t like it,” Lily’s ghostly voice announced.

“Yeah, of course you wouldn’t,” Remus muttered.

“Coward,” came the next hiss. In horrifying realization, Remus found that he couldn’t decide whose voice it was that spoke – James? Or Harry?

“Am not,” he groaned.

“Wuss,” James persisted.

“He’s right, you know,” Sirius’ voice echoed casually. “Only a true coward wouldn’t go crawling back on hands and knees, crying like a baby for forgiveness.”

Remus moaned softly at the word ‘baby’. Oh, Merlin, what had he done?

***

He could hear James moaning in Sirius’ kitchen when he walked in.

“Head down, Jay, head down, I don’t want you passing out on my floor,” Sirius said bracingly. “Lily won’t thank me for that.”

Remus entered the kitchen warily. “What’s going on?” he asked, noticing James’ head tucked between his knees and the way his body shook. “James? What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

James started to look up, when Sirius shoved his head back down. “Merlin, I can’t believe I was that careless…” he groaned softly. “What kind of idiot…”

Sirius met Remus’ questioning gaze. “Lily’s pregnant.”

***

Option 2 wasn’t all that more pleasant. Going back would mean risking his child’s chance at a happy, normal life. Risking that he or she would hate him for their entire life for who he was and what he’d done.

All provided, of course, that Dora even took him back. That he hadn’t managed to alienate himself from everything good in this world.

***

Lily glowered affectionately in James’ direction as he lifted the baby up from the carrier after the Order meeting was through, taking the newborn over to Moody and the Longbottoms to show off.

“He seems to have gotten over his doubts,” Remus laughed as he sank down to the empty chair next to his old friend, who was leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed.

“Haven’t had a single moment all to myself with that boy,” Lily grumbled good-naturedly, a slight smile on her face. “He just keeps saying if he’s going to hell in a hand basket, he might as well enjoy the ride.”

***

“… If he’s going to hell in a hand basket, he might as well enjoy the ride.”

Might as well enjoy the ride. It was such a James-and-Sirius thing to say. Such a Lily thing to do, to find what little good was left in a world crumbling before their eyes.

But James and Lily had never had to worry about potentially killing their child. Sentencing him to death because of who they were. That had never been an issue for them, not the way it was for him.

Seemingly from out of nowhere, a voice that he hadn’t heard in a very long time – almost 35 years, in fact – echoed back in his head.

***

“No, please, he’s my son…” He was clinging to her skirts, trying desperately to understand what was going on. Fenrir hadn’t wanted them to come into the human place – was this why?

“Mama…” he whispered, holding on tighter.

“Remus, sweetheart, I’m right here,” the human woman said, holding out her hand. Who was she? Why did she think that he would come to her?

Mama reached down and lifted him up into her arms, holding him close as she whispered into his ear, “Don’t let anybody convince you that you’re not worthy, Remus. I love you –”

She screamed as one of the human men pulled Remus away, placing him in the arms of the human woman as he screamed and cried and fought to free himself. “Mama!” he cried out, reaching for her again.

“No, please, he’s my son!” Mama sobbed as the humans grabbed her arms and slammed her to her knees.

“Your name, werewolf!” one snarled, his wand pointed at her face.

Mama looked at him one more time, forcing a small smile onto her face as she said, “Go, Remus.”

“Your name!” the human man growled again, the tip of his wand pressing into her neck.

“Kerani,” she cried. “Kerani Balakrishnan.”

“Mama?” Remus asked again frantically. What was going on? Why was Mama not taking him back from this stranger?

“Don’t hate them, Remus, for what they do,” she gasped out, before the wand flashed green and she fell to the ground, her eyes unseeing and her body as still as a statue.

***

Remus took a deep breath. Now his mind was really taunting him. As if he didn’t already know a werewolf could love like that. Love enough to die. He knew that. He knew that all too well. He would happily die for Dora, would happily die for their unborn child.

It was the living that frightened him. The life of watching people hurt them, ostracize them, torment them. Terrified that it would come to execution again, that one day they were going to die. Not for him, but because of him. Dora had already been cast out of the Ministry, forced into hiding, alienated from her family. What was left but to be tortured and killed?

He had the strength to fight again. He would always find the strength to fight. But did he have the strength to go back to her, to risk losing her? Losing them?

***

Somehow it just seemed right to be coming back in the middle of a thunderstorm: the rain pounding down, hail pelting his skin with stinging ferocity, the thunder deafening him, the lightning blinding him. He must look as ragged as he felt, as pathetic as he really was.

Lily was all but singing in his head, her smug, satisfied look poking through his memory. She had always told him that one day he would find somebody who was worth all the pain. She had always seemed to know so much more than she had ever let on – like she knew what would happen before it ever came to pass.

“I told you so. Didn’t I tell you so?”

“Oh, shut up,” Remus grumbled under his breath, his voice catching in his throat as he saw the front door open.

“She did tell you so,” James’ voice admitted.

“Numerous times,” Sirius agreed.

“Know-it-all,” James said affectionately.

“All of you, shut up,” Remus muttered again, heart pounding when he caught a glimpse of somebody coming out into the rain, their wand raised and pointing in his direction.

“Oh, look at our little Moony, all grown up and developing an attitude…”

“Better late than never.”

The figure moved closer, and now he could see her face illuminated by the lightning.

Her blue eyes were ringed by dark circles, bloodshot from days of tears. Her hair was limp, brown once more as the rain plastered it against her head, falling into her eyes. Her expression was shocked, even suspicious until another lightning bolt revealed who he was.

A cry of delighted surprise and joy escaped her lips, and she threw herself at him as the thunder rolled again, and the rain came down even harder.

Merlin, she was out in this with no cloak on… He couldn’t help but fuss over her, especially when she looked as though her last few days had been just as awful as his.

He wrapped her into his arms beneath his soaked cloak, kissing her hungrily before whispering into her ear, “I’m sorry, Dora. I’m sorry… Forgive me?”

“Groveling is good…” James said approvingly.

She looked up at him, eyes still practically delirious with excitement. Then the anger flashed through.

“Where have you been, Remus?” she shrieked as she stepped back, in a tone scarily similar to Molly Weasley when addressing her children. “It’s been four days! Four days without a scrap of news, I thought you’d been killed!...”

She hadn’t even thought that he could’ve left her? She thought that the only reason that he wouldn’t have come back was because he’d been killed?

“Where have you been, Remus?” she demanded again.

He couldn’t do anything but laugh as he pulled her back into her arms. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Dora. Come on, let’s get you back inside before you catch your death of cold…”

“Me?” she scoffed. “I don’t think there’s a dry spot left on you.”

A/N: Learn more about Kerani and her relationship to Remus in Between Here and Gone, coming soon to ff.n!