Shelter at Your Door (7–9 of 9)
Feb. 2nd, 2015 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarSHELTER AT YOUR DOOR
Summary: Over the years, one young man keeps turning up at Andromeda's door.
Pairing: Andromeda/Remus
Characters: Andromeda, Remus, Sirius, others
(Parts 1–3 are here. Parts 4–6 are here.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
VII. A Steady Fire (1991)
They hosted a party, the day Isidore returned home as a Hogwarts graduate.
Andromeda and Remus had spent the afternoon cooking and decorating, hanging lanterns and streamers from the trees and laying out a feast on two long garden tables. Now, Andromeda stood by the back door and looked out on the garden in the falling dusk, amazed at what a crowd she saw there. Friends of Isidore’s and their parents, friends of Andromeda’s and their children. Friends of Remus’, even though Remus never seemed to realise he had friends. The whole jolly, red-haired Weasley clan, thanks to Isidore’s friendship with their second son, Charlie, who had likewise just finished at Hogwarts.
They’d done quite well for themselves, family of outcasts though they were – disowned Andromeda and her disinherited son and her lover who happened to be a werewolf. For proof, she needed look no further than this garden full of people who didn’t care in the least about any of those things, didn’t care that Andromeda had once been a daughter of the Black family – nor that she no longer was.
And there, moving with ease among all of them, was her beautiful, grown-up son. Broad-shouldered and handsome, and an entire head taller than she, Isidore had Lucius’ pale hair – at least when he wasn’t deliberately turning it some outlandish colour – but in every other aspect he was undeniably a Black. Now more than ever, at eighteen and with his confident determination that he was going to take on the world and win, he reminded Andromeda so much of Sirius at that age, but with a gentler, less impulsive disposition that she hoped would help to keep him safe. Isidore was bound and determined to become an Auror, and Andromeda’s heart leapt to her throat every time she so much as thought of it.
Coming up beside her, Remus slipped his hand into Andromeda’s. A small gesture, but it made her smile. She knew how hard Remus had had to work at himself and his fears in order to be with her, and then again in order to be with her unapologetically in public. It had taken years before she’d finally convinced him to move in with her. Even so, he still left every full moon for his old cottage in Yorkshire, which he’d fixed up with every possible protective precaution and charm, where he could transform without fear of harming anyone. But he always returned to Andromeda as soon after moonset as he was able, and he had slowly learned to allow her do whatever small things she could to look after him on those painful post-transformation mornings. Remus had been so unused to allowing anyone’s help, but watching him blossom into accepting her caring had been beautiful.
Her mind a swirling mixture of all these tender thoughts, Andromeda tugged Remus closer to her and placed a gentle kiss at his temple.
“What was that for?” he asked, amused.
“Just for being there,” she said. Then she nudged him and nodded towards the guests milling and chatting in the garden in front of them. “This turned out well, didn’t it?”
“It’s a lovely party,” he agreed. “Or did you mean that on a larger scale?”
“I suppose I did, in a way,” Andromeda mused. “I worried, you know, when I took Isidore away from his father’s home. I didn’t want him growing up in that toxic place, but I didn’t want him to live all his life as an outsider, either. But it seems I needn’t have worried. He’s quite the life of the party.”
At that moment, Isidore’s head was thrown back in laughter at something Charlie Weasley had said, but a few minutes before, Andromeda had also spotted her son deep in conversation with one of her colleagues from the Ministry. He had a way of moving through a crowd and finding common ground with everyone.
“No, you needn’t have worried,” came Remus’ voice, warm and husky by her ear. “You’ve done very well by him.”
Andromeda turned to him. “As have you. No, don’t protest, Remus. You’ve always been wonderful with Isidore.”
She had always known that Remus, who had struggled to allow even Andromeda and her son into his life, would never let himself have children of his own. He would see it as inflicting danger and the world’s derision on a helpless being, and he would consider that unconscionable. So she knew, too, that he appreciated all the more the opportunity he’d had to be a part of Isidore’s life, to fulfil a bit of that fatherly role he’d never believed he would have any right to claim.
Reaching up to brush a lock of prematurely greying hair from his eyes – Remus had more grey these days than she did – Andromeda said, “I want you to do something for me. No, that’s inaccurately phrased. You don’t have to do it, if you don’t want to, but I’d be so glad if you would consider it.”
“All right,” Remus said, his face taking on the carefully blank look that was still his default when he was unsure of himself. Andromeda was enormously glad to see that look making an appearance less and less as the years went by.
“Would you think about getting in touch with Harry?” she asked. “He’ll be starting at Hogwarts in the autumn, which means he’ll finally have the opportunity to interact with people from his past, if he wishes to. I imagine he could do with someone in his life who knew James and Lily, Remus. And I know you would be good for him.”
A spasm of grief clenched Remus’ face. They’d been over this before, and Andromeda knew what he thought – that Harry was better off without him, he who had failed to recognise Sirius’ betrayal in time to save Harry’s parents.
Andromeda also knew he would prove himself wrong, if he would only give himself a chance.
Too many conflicting emotions to count warred their way across Remus’ features, but finally he said, “Yes. I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you,” Andromeda said. “That’s all I’m asking.” Then she smiled and squeezed his hand. “Come on, let’s see if there’s anything left of that extraordinary trifle Molly brought.”
*
Remus came home on 31 July with an unreadable expression on his face.
“How did it go?” Andromeda asked, jumping up to meet him. She’d been kneeling at the fire, talking through the Floo with Isidore at his new flat in London. He was living not far from the Ministry, where he would soon be starting his first year of Auror training.
Remus came to join Andromeda by the now cooling fireplace and ran a hand through his hair, still looking baffled.
“Harry’s well, I think,” he said. “At least, as well as can be expected. In fact, better than could be expected, probably.” He rubbed his palm distractedly over his forehead, which was deeply furrowed in thought.
After giving Andromeda’s suggestion careful consideration, Remus had sent an inquiry to Dumbledore and learned that Hagrid, the Hogwarts Gamekeeper, had been charged with making sure Harry received his letter from the school, and with taking the boy to Diagon Alley to buy his school supplies. Dumbledore was firm on the importance of not overwhelming Harry just yet, but Remus had been given permission to meet up with Hagrid and Harry in Diagon Alley and say a brief hello to the child of his dearest friends, a boy Remus hadn’t seen since infancy.
Even with Dumbledore’s blessing, Remus had agonised over whether he should go, whether it was right to impose himself in Harry’s life. Andromeda found it hard to entirely understand Remus’ hesitance, although she certainly sympathised with the agony she could see it caused him. But she knew better than anyone that Remus had been a father figure for years now, and he hadn’t caused Isidore any harm. Quite the opposite, in fact.
But grief and guilt twisted Remus’ ability to see himself objectively. Where Harry was concerned, Remus was always the failed friend, the one person who could have, should have, stood between Harry’s parents and death.
He had, at last and at Andromeda’s gentle urging, agreed to go to Diagon Alley. He did want to see for himself that Harry was well, and to let Harry know that he had friends here in the wizarding world. But he was insistent that he would not bring up James and Lily, not yet. Now was the time for Harry to be learning about the magical world into which he had been born, Remus had said, not to be dwelling on the tragedies that had followed his birth.
Andromeda wasn’t sure she agreed, but it was for Remus to decide on the path that was best for him. She was just glad he had decided that path did include Harry.
“So you saw Harry,” she prompted, because Remus was gazing into the empty fireplace, his forehead still creased in thought.
“Yes,” he said. “I caught up with him and Hagrid between some of the shops they visited, and we talked for a few minutes. Andromeda, he didn’t know. He didn’t know that he’s a wizard, he didn’t know how James and Lily died, he didn’t know any of it. Lily’s sister kept him in the dark all these years.”
He looked so pained at the thought. Andromeda reached out and touched his arm.
“But now he’ll know,” she said. “He’s starting at Hogwarts in a month, and then he’ll learn all about his history. You needn’t feel bad,” she added, because it was clear Remus was now feeling guilty for all those years he had been absent from Harry’s life.
Remus nodded slowly, then reached up to clasp Andromeda’s hand where it rested on his arm. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, he’s going to be at Hogwarts. That’s a heartening thought.”
He looked down at their joined hands and smiled. Then frowned.
“I saw Narcissa today, as well,” he said. “In Diagon Alley. I passed her coming out of Madam Malkin’s, just before Harry went in to try on robes. She didn’t recognise me. I doubt she even knows who I am.” He glanced up at Andromeda. “Her son Draco was there as well, in the shop. I saw him through the window.” He frowned more deeply. “He looks a great deal like Isidore, in some ways. His hair colour, and a bit around the eyes. He’ll be starting at Hogwarts this year as well.” He gave Andromeda a searching look. “Does it bother you? To think of Narcissa and her son, and how she’s stepped into the life you once had?”
Andromeda returned Remus’ gaze, his look of gentle concern, and gave the question the consideration it deserved. “No,” she said at last. “There are many things I wish could be different – I wish there were some way to be on speaking terms with my sister, despite everything, and I wish Isidore could know his brother someday – but there is nothing about the fundamentals that I would change. I’m exactly where I want to be.”
Remus smiled. “All right, then. I’m very glad to hear it.”
VIII. An Unexpected Offer (1993)
They’d spent much of the summer, she and Remus, keeping as close to her battered old wizarding wireless as if they’d been Permanently Stuck there. Keeping track of the progress, or lack of progress, in the hunt for one Sirius Black, escaped convict.
Andromeda had felt physically ill when she’d first heard he had broken out of Azkaban. She’d spent so long repressing her feelings about Sirius, forcibly divorcing her fond memories of her impetuous but big-hearted cousin from the reality of the murderer he’d become, but now it all came rushing sickeningly back. Sirius and Regulus, the littlest ones, and neither of them she’d been able to hold under her wing when she’d escaped.
Remus, too, had developed a pinched, anxious look that Andromeda didn’t like to see. She wanted so desperately for all that grief and loss to be behind him for good.
At least Isidore was still in training, not yet a full Auror, and thus not likely to be pulled into an active role in the manhunt.
At least Remus had a hesitant relationship with Harry these days, more like a student and a well-liked teacher than a boy and his almost-uncle, but still it was something good in Remus’ life to help counterbalance the endless news cycle on Sirius’ escape.
Then one particular summer day, Remus came home with a strange, wild smile on his face.
“Andromeda,” he said.
She looked up in surprise from the legal brief she was reading at her desk in the corner of the sitting room she had converted into a home office. Remus was perched in the doorway, one hand balanced against its frame, the other clutching the scroll of a letter.
“I’ve had an unexpected job offer,” he said.
Andromeda folded her reading glasses on the desktop, then stood and went to him. “A job offer?”
She knew Remus considered himself lucky if he was able to hold down a job for several months at a stretch before his employers grew fed up with his frequent illness-related absences, suspicious about the timing of those absences, or both. Remus had a brilliant mind and he was nearly always engaged in one or two research projects of his own on the side, but in all the time she’d known him, Andromeda had yet to see him to hold a job worthy of his talents. Remus seemed to accept this as his lot in life, but Andromeda didn’t in the least see why that should be so.
Wordlessly, Remus held out the scroll to Andromeda, and she took it and read the first few lines.
“Dumbledore wants you to teach at Hogwarts,” she breathed. “Oh, Remus, accept the position. You must.”
“It will likely only be for a year,” he pointed out. “I know some people doubt that the curse on the position exists, but I’ve never yet seen a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher last more than a year at Hogwarts. And I suspect Dumbledore chose me largely because – well. Given the events of this summer. I suppose he thinks I’ll be an asset.”
“That doesn’t detract from the fact that you’re a brilliant choice for the position,” Andromeda said firmly, pressing the letter back into his hand. “Stop talking yourself down, Remus. You’re a wonderful teacher. I only wonder Dumbledore didn’t ask you sooner.”
“And I’ll have to take the strictest possible precautions at the full moons, if I’m to be living in the same castle as all those children…”
“Remus.”
He stopped talking to look at her, so Andromeda took the opportunity to press a kiss to his mouth. “I’m so proud of you,” she said, when she’d pulled away again. “You deserve this.”
He smiled. It was one of her favourite Remus smiles, bashful and sweet.
“You know,” he said, then stopped and cleared his throat. He waved vaguely with the scroll in his hand. “There’s a second parchment here that details the logistics if I accept the post, and apparently the school provides housing in Hogsmeade for spouses. That is to say, if we were – I don’t know if you would want to, but…” His voice trailed away.
Andromeda pressed her lips together to hold back a laugh. It wasn’t a laughing matter, really, but there was something so dear to her, still, about Remus’ innate caution in matters of the heart. “Are you asking me what I think you’re asking?”
His lips twitched into a wry shape – another Remus smile she loved. “I suppose that all depends on how you’d feel about it if I were.”
“I would like to be married to you,” Andromeda said. “Yes, I think I’d like that very much.”
The joy that burst across his face was a wonder to behold. “If you’re willing to have a destitute and dangerous werewolf…”
“I most certainly am, if you’ll have a forty-year-old divorcée with a son already grown.”
“Andromeda,” he protested. “That’s not even remotely equivalent.”
“But it is,” she said. “Because that’s who I am, and that’s who you are. And I happen to think we do just fine for ourselves, exactly as we are.”
Remus grinned at her. “Come here,” he said, though Andromeda was already standing about as close to him as it was possible to do. He reached up and threaded a hand through her hair, and she leaned in and kissed the evening stubble of his cheek.
“Hogwarts,” she mused. “It will give you a chance to keep up with Harry, since you’ll see him there all the time. I’ll commute to the Ministry, but we’ll have evenings together in Hogsmeade.” Andromeda hadn’t lived in a wizarding town in a long time, and found she quite liked the idea.
“Don’t sell the house,” Remus warned. “Truly, this will most likely be only a one-year position. You’ll want somewhere to come back to, afterwards.”
“We’ll want somewhere to come back to,” Andromeda corrected with a smile. Remus still sometimes forgot to include himself in the future planning of this relationship, but Andromeda forgave him that. He’d spent so much of his life believing he would always be alone. “I know I don’t have the most stellar record in this respect, but this time when I marry, I plan for it to be forever.”
Remus’ face lit up, as if he’d already forgotten they had made that particular decision and the reminder of it came as a delight to him.
Andromeda returned his smile, and kissed him. “Hogwarts professor,” she said softly. “Look at you now, Remus Lupin.”
“In many ways, I doubt this will be the easiest of years,” Remus warned softly against Andromeda’s lips, his hands warm and solid at the small of her back.
Andromeda could hear all the things he wasn’t saying. The spectre of Sirius, somewhere out there, a dangerous unknown. The ghosts of both their pasts, walking the halls of Hogwarts in the living form of James and Lily’s son Harry and Narcissa and Lucius’ son Draco. Remus still struggled to balance his desire to be close to Harry with his fear of doing the boy more harm than good. Andromeda still chafed at the Ministry’s blindness to its own endemic corruption and prejudice, and increasingly doubted whether it would ever be possible to make the change she sought from within. No, it would not all be easy.
“We’ll manage,” Andromeda said firmly, her arms around Remus. “We have each other.”
IX. Lie Low at the Lupins’ (1995)
“‘Lo, Andromeda,” Sirius said, his expression something that aimed to be a grin but didn’t quite make it, and it was such a pale, sad imitation of the past that Andromeda gasped out a sob and pulled him from her doorstep into an embrace.
“You idiot,” she said fiercely into his shaggy, too-long hair. “You utter, absolute idiot, Sirius Black.”
“I’m an idiot?” he mumbled, voice muffled into Andromeda’s shoulder. “Oi, who figured out how to escape from Azkaban when no one had ever done it before, I ask you that?”
“Come inside,” she said. “Please, come inside.”
When Remus had first told her, over a year ago now, of the revelations on that full moon night at the end of his time teaching at Hogwarts – Sirius was innocent, Peter was alive, Sirius had never been the Secret Keeper after all – Andromeda had first barely been able to believe it, and then she had believed it all too well.
Of course Sirius had been innocent; of course Sirius would rather have died than betray James, the chosen brother Sirius had loved more than the brother with whom he shared blood. It was unthinkable that Sirius could ever have betrayed James.
So how had Andromeda let herself think it all those years?
“I’m sorry, Sirius,” she said, once she had him seated in front of the fire. He looked chilled through, for all that it was high summer.
He glanced over at her, pained. “Please don’t apologise. If anything, I should be the one saying I’m sorry. I’m the one who messed up everything.”
Andromeda bit her lip against everything she wanted to say to him. Yes, he’d made a mess of all of it. Yes, he should have gone to the Ministry with what he knew about Peter, rather than trying to confront him himself. He’d thrown away the better part of his life, landing himself in prison for a crime he hadn’t committed. But in a way, did it matter? Sirius had probably felt his life was over anyway, when James died.
“Well, you’re here now,” she said. “And I’m glad.”
During the year Remus had taught at Hogwarts, he’d spent the full moons locked up alone in his office at the school under the influence of the Wolfsbane Potion that the Potions Master, Severus Snape, had brewed for him each month. This was a recently developed concoction that didn’t save Remus from the painful transformation, but did allow him to keep his human mind while in the wolf’s body. All that year, Andromeda had offered time and again that Remus could take the potion and transform at home, at their house in Hogsmeade, but the thought had been too uncomfortable to him – he felt he should transform alone, potion or no, just in case.
And so Andromeda hadn’t known anything of the events of that night, of Remus’ confrontation with Sirius in the Shrieking Shack at the edge of Hogsmeade, until Remus had arrived home the next morning, scratched and bruised from running wild and transformed in the Forbidden Forest, and ashen-faced with penitence at his carelessness.
“I was loose on the school grounds the whole night, Andromeda,” he’d said, voice shaking with horror as she stroked his hair back from his head where it rested in her lap. She’d wished so badly that she could charm the pain and tension out of his body. “I could have run into a student. I could have bitten or killed a student. It was unconscionable. No amount of shock over seeing Peter’s name on the map excuses what I might have done.”
When Snape had then “accidentally” let slip in public about Remus’ condition, Remus had resigned and gone from the school willingly, feeling it was no more than he deserved.
Only one good thing had come from that debacle: Now that Andromeda knew about the Wolfsbane Potion – and trust Remus not to have mentioned this thing that was so small on the scale of Andromeda’s salary, but saved him so much grief! – she procured it for him every month. And he transformed in the cottage in Yorkshire, then returned to her in their old house in the Muggle village, where Remus had a part-time teaching job at the local primary school that Isidore had attended, a world away from Hogwarts and Hogsmeade and talented but treacherous Potions Masters.
Well, no, several good things had come of that night in the Shrieking Shack: Harry now knew the full truth of his parents, and of his parents’ friends. At last, Harry knew who Remus and Sirius were to him.
Sirius. That was the other thing that full moon night had brought them: Sirius, alive and escaped and innocent.
He was a shadow of the boy he had been, sitting there hunched around himself on Andromeda’s sofa, his once-handsome face lost behind his sunken eyes and hollow cheekbones, his elbows and shoulder blades protruding from a distressingly gaunt frame. The sight made Andromeda want to feed him. Feed him and clothe him and wrap him in warm blankets by the fire, just as she’d done for Remus, when he’d turned up on her doorstep all those years ago.
As if he’d read her thoughts, Sirius glanced up, a flicker of his old humour behind those washed-out eyes.
“So, what’s all this then, anyway?” he asked. “All I do is go away for a decade or so, and you start getting it on with my friend behind my back?”
“If by ‘getting it on’ you mean ‘being happily married to,’ then yes, I suppose that description is accurate,” Andromeda said archly.
Sirius threw back his head and let loose an actual laugh, reassuringly loud. “Oh, Dromeda, you are such a Black. Sorry, but you really are.”
Andromeda looked over at him – little Sirius, her little cousin, not lost to her after all – and she chuckled, too. “Maybe so. I’ve been a number of things in my life, but I suppose there are some ways in which that one will always be true.”
“When can I see Izzy?” Sirius asked, suddenly urgent. “Where is he living now?”
“In London,” Andromeda said, taken aback by the intensity in her cousin’s voice. “He’s an Auror, fully qualified now. He completed his training last year.”
“I did think about him,” Sirius said. “And about you. It wasn’t just thoughts of remorse and revenge every waking moment, though there was a lot of that too. I used to think about you and Izzy and hope that you really did make it out, that you were the ones who managed to escape from all the family madness.” He gave her a crooked, small smile. “Guess you did, huh?”
Andromeda swallowed down the lump that rose in her throat. “Yes, we did.” She reached out and took Sirius’ hand in hers, his wrist cold and bony under her fingers. “We’ll get him to come visit, when he can get away from work. I know you’re supposed to be in hiding, but I don’t see any reason why Isidore couldn’t come to see you.”
Sirius nodded, but his eyes had gone distant. Andromeda wondered what he was thinking about, when his expression went vacant like that.
*
When Remus got home from his Saturday tutoring in the village, Andromeda watched how they looked at each other, her husband and her cousin: that moment of instinctive, wary hesitance, then the palpable relief as they fell into an embrace of greeting.
“It’s good to see you,” Remus said, when he’d pulled away again. “Dumbledore wrote that you would be coming sometime soon. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, you know that.”
Remus glanced over at Andromeda, and she nodded. They’d sat down and talked about it as soon as Dumbledore’s letter had arrived, and were in perfect agreement: Providing a place to stay was the very least they could do for Sirius after all these years.
“Thanks,” Sirius said, his voice gruff.
“Well,” Remus said, not seeming to know what to do with his hands. He clapped Sirius on the arm again. “You’ve certainly kept low to the ground, haven’t you?”
“Not by my choice,” Sirius growled, the first anger Andromeda had heard from him since he’d arrived. “And I came back as soon as I heard Harry needed me. I’ve been hiding out near Hogsmeade for this last while.”
“Oh, Sirius,” Andromeda said. Would he never learn common sense? “You were supposed to be keeping safe.”
“I’m supposed to be keeping Harry safe,” Sirius countered.
Remus, his hand still gripping Sirius’ arm, looked at Andromeda, and she read his expression loud and clear: There was no arguing with Sirius on this point.
She sighed. “Look, why don’t you two sit and catch up for a bit, and I’ll start dinner?”
But both of them were too full of nervous energy to sit still, and insisted on joining Andromeda in the kitchen. Remus slipped in close and planted a soft kiss below Andromeda’s ear, before he turned away to start peeling potatoes, and Andromeda saw Sirius watching them, saw him still finding it strange and new to see the two of them together.
Andromeda wasn’t concerned. She knew once he’d got used to the idea he would more than approve.
She handed Sirius a knife and a chopping board and a bunch of carrots, fresh from the garden with dirt still clinging to them, and he smiled a little and set to work. He’d managed to obtain a wand again, somehow, though Andromeda could see it wasn’t the same one he’d had as a boy. But she saw how he delighted in being able to do magic for even such a small task as chopping carrots. Twelve years was an unfathomably long time to live without magic.
“Voldemort is back. You know that, right?” Sirius said abruptly, his wand held aloft and the knife tapping away against the board.
Andromeda sucked in a breath. She glanced to Remus, and saw how his face went tight.
“Yes,” she said. “When we had the owl from Dumbledore, he also explained what happened at the end of the Triwizard Tournament.”
“It’s true, then, that Harry saw Voldemort that night?” Remus asked, sounding reluctant to have to say the words.
“And Peter, too,” Sirius spat. “Voldemort’s devoted servant. We let that rat go, and he scuttled straight back to his master.” The knife clanged against the cutting board and Sirius reached out to still it with his hand.
“We did the right thing,” Remus returned stiffly. “We did what Harry asked us to do.”
Andromeda watched as Sirius forcibly slowed his breathing and gave a jerky nod. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe. Doesn’t mean we’re not still obliged to try to undo the damage we caused when we let him get away.”
“The Order is reforming, I take it?” Remus asked, eyes on Sirius. He managed to sound almost conversational as he said it.
Sirius nodded, his shoulders still hunched and tight. “That’s what I’ve been doing since the end of the Tournament. Going around to everyone from last time, letting them know.”
The Order of the Phoenix, the underground organisation against Voldemort of which Sirius and Remus had both been members. The organisation that had lost more of its number in battle than even the Aurors had done. Andromeda thought of it all happening again, war rising up to devour another generation, and felt ill.
“Of course,” Remus said, and Andromeda only realised a question had passed silently between the two men when he repeated himself, adding, “Of course I’ll join.”
“As will I,” Andromeda said. She set aside the casserole she’d been preparing and went over to rest a hand on Remus’ arm. He dried his hands on a kitchen towel, and reached up to cover her hand with his.
“It will be dangerous,” he said.
“And it was never going to be any other way. I’ve been living my life around the edges of this battle for a long time, Remus. It’s time to fight.”
“I’ve offered Dumbledore the use of the house,” Sirius broke in, hands braced against the worktop, carrots forgotten. Remus turned to him, momentarily baffled, but Andromeda knew exactly what he meant: the house at Grimmauld Place, the mouldering old seat of the House of Black.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Do you want to go back there?”
“Doesn’t matter what I want,” Sirius said, shrugging irritably. “The place has got every protective charm a person could throw at it, and the Order needs somewhere to serve as Headquarters. It’ll do. And it’s about the only thing I have to offer.”
“Then it’s kind of you to offer it,” Andromeda said.
Sirius made a pale attempt at a smile. “Hey, at least this means I’ll finally be able to offer you a place to go, instead of always turning up at your door.”
One hand still holding Remus’, Andromeda leaned in to place a kiss on her cousin’s gaunt cheek. “Yes,” she said. “We’ll be turning up at your door regularly, Sirius. You can count on that. And Isidore – much as I wish he wouldn’t, he’s going to want to join as well, and I don’t see that I can stop him. It’s going to be quite the family affair, this Order of yours.”
Sirius’ smile this time was considerably less wan. “It is, isn’t it? Think Dumbledore would let Harry come stay for a bit, before the school year starts?”
“I’ll write him and ask,” Remus promised.
“And I expect the Weasleys will be interested as well,” Andromeda said. “Harry is quite good friends with their youngest son.”
“You’ll have a full house on your hands, Sirius,” Remus said, a laugh in his voice. “All we blood traitors and outcasts of the wizarding world are going to be pounding down your door.”
Sirius’ smile continued to grow, as he looked back and forth between the two of them. “Bring on the wizarding outcasts, then,” he said. “From this moment on, they’re officially welcome at the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Let all the strays come to my door.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The End
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
End notes: In writing this story – AU though it is – at times I very much drew on my headcanon of the “canon” version of the same events. That includes “A New World Bursting into Bloom,” of course (Andromeda meeting Ted, and narrowly escaping the destiny her family had laid out for her), but also places where I’ve written about Remus and Sirius’ friendship (“What I Have Taken Long Before” for their rapprochement during the Lie Low at Lupin’s period, and also much of their dynamic in “Be the Light in My Lantern”), and Andromeda and Sirius’ friendship (Chapter Four of “Be the Light in My Lantern,” as well as the one-shot “Forget this Tapestry”). If any of those interest you, check ‘em out.
And if you’ve read this far, sticking through to the end with this rarest of rare pairs…thank you!
Summary: Over the years, one young man keeps turning up at Andromeda's door.
Pairing: Andromeda/Remus
Characters: Andromeda, Remus, Sirius, others
(Parts 1–3 are here. Parts 4–6 are here.)
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VII. A Steady Fire (1991)
They hosted a party, the day Isidore returned home as a Hogwarts graduate.
Andromeda and Remus had spent the afternoon cooking and decorating, hanging lanterns and streamers from the trees and laying out a feast on two long garden tables. Now, Andromeda stood by the back door and looked out on the garden in the falling dusk, amazed at what a crowd she saw there. Friends of Isidore’s and their parents, friends of Andromeda’s and their children. Friends of Remus’, even though Remus never seemed to realise he had friends. The whole jolly, red-haired Weasley clan, thanks to Isidore’s friendship with their second son, Charlie, who had likewise just finished at Hogwarts.
They’d done quite well for themselves, family of outcasts though they were – disowned Andromeda and her disinherited son and her lover who happened to be a werewolf. For proof, she needed look no further than this garden full of people who didn’t care in the least about any of those things, didn’t care that Andromeda had once been a daughter of the Black family – nor that she no longer was.
And there, moving with ease among all of them, was her beautiful, grown-up son. Broad-shouldered and handsome, and an entire head taller than she, Isidore had Lucius’ pale hair – at least when he wasn’t deliberately turning it some outlandish colour – but in every other aspect he was undeniably a Black. Now more than ever, at eighteen and with his confident determination that he was going to take on the world and win, he reminded Andromeda so much of Sirius at that age, but with a gentler, less impulsive disposition that she hoped would help to keep him safe. Isidore was bound and determined to become an Auror, and Andromeda’s heart leapt to her throat every time she so much as thought of it.
Coming up beside her, Remus slipped his hand into Andromeda’s. A small gesture, but it made her smile. She knew how hard Remus had had to work at himself and his fears in order to be with her, and then again in order to be with her unapologetically in public. It had taken years before she’d finally convinced him to move in with her. Even so, he still left every full moon for his old cottage in Yorkshire, which he’d fixed up with every possible protective precaution and charm, where he could transform without fear of harming anyone. But he always returned to Andromeda as soon after moonset as he was able, and he had slowly learned to allow her do whatever small things she could to look after him on those painful post-transformation mornings. Remus had been so unused to allowing anyone’s help, but watching him blossom into accepting her caring had been beautiful.
Her mind a swirling mixture of all these tender thoughts, Andromeda tugged Remus closer to her and placed a gentle kiss at his temple.
“What was that for?” he asked, amused.
“Just for being there,” she said. Then she nudged him and nodded towards the guests milling and chatting in the garden in front of them. “This turned out well, didn’t it?”
“It’s a lovely party,” he agreed. “Or did you mean that on a larger scale?”
“I suppose I did, in a way,” Andromeda mused. “I worried, you know, when I took Isidore away from his father’s home. I didn’t want him growing up in that toxic place, but I didn’t want him to live all his life as an outsider, either. But it seems I needn’t have worried. He’s quite the life of the party.”
At that moment, Isidore’s head was thrown back in laughter at something Charlie Weasley had said, but a few minutes before, Andromeda had also spotted her son deep in conversation with one of her colleagues from the Ministry. He had a way of moving through a crowd and finding common ground with everyone.
“No, you needn’t have worried,” came Remus’ voice, warm and husky by her ear. “You’ve done very well by him.”
Andromeda turned to him. “As have you. No, don’t protest, Remus. You’ve always been wonderful with Isidore.”
She had always known that Remus, who had struggled to allow even Andromeda and her son into his life, would never let himself have children of his own. He would see it as inflicting danger and the world’s derision on a helpless being, and he would consider that unconscionable. So she knew, too, that he appreciated all the more the opportunity he’d had to be a part of Isidore’s life, to fulfil a bit of that fatherly role he’d never believed he would have any right to claim.
Reaching up to brush a lock of prematurely greying hair from his eyes – Remus had more grey these days than she did – Andromeda said, “I want you to do something for me. No, that’s inaccurately phrased. You don’t have to do it, if you don’t want to, but I’d be so glad if you would consider it.”
“All right,” Remus said, his face taking on the carefully blank look that was still his default when he was unsure of himself. Andromeda was enormously glad to see that look making an appearance less and less as the years went by.
“Would you think about getting in touch with Harry?” she asked. “He’ll be starting at Hogwarts in the autumn, which means he’ll finally have the opportunity to interact with people from his past, if he wishes to. I imagine he could do with someone in his life who knew James and Lily, Remus. And I know you would be good for him.”
A spasm of grief clenched Remus’ face. They’d been over this before, and Andromeda knew what he thought – that Harry was better off without him, he who had failed to recognise Sirius’ betrayal in time to save Harry’s parents.
Andromeda also knew he would prove himself wrong, if he would only give himself a chance.
Too many conflicting emotions to count warred their way across Remus’ features, but finally he said, “Yes. I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you,” Andromeda said. “That’s all I’m asking.” Then she smiled and squeezed his hand. “Come on, let’s see if there’s anything left of that extraordinary trifle Molly brought.”
*
Remus came home on 31 July with an unreadable expression on his face.
“How did it go?” Andromeda asked, jumping up to meet him. She’d been kneeling at the fire, talking through the Floo with Isidore at his new flat in London. He was living not far from the Ministry, where he would soon be starting his first year of Auror training.
Remus came to join Andromeda by the now cooling fireplace and ran a hand through his hair, still looking baffled.
“Harry’s well, I think,” he said. “At least, as well as can be expected. In fact, better than could be expected, probably.” He rubbed his palm distractedly over his forehead, which was deeply furrowed in thought.
After giving Andromeda’s suggestion careful consideration, Remus had sent an inquiry to Dumbledore and learned that Hagrid, the Hogwarts Gamekeeper, had been charged with making sure Harry received his letter from the school, and with taking the boy to Diagon Alley to buy his school supplies. Dumbledore was firm on the importance of not overwhelming Harry just yet, but Remus had been given permission to meet up with Hagrid and Harry in Diagon Alley and say a brief hello to the child of his dearest friends, a boy Remus hadn’t seen since infancy.
Even with Dumbledore’s blessing, Remus had agonised over whether he should go, whether it was right to impose himself in Harry’s life. Andromeda found it hard to entirely understand Remus’ hesitance, although she certainly sympathised with the agony she could see it caused him. But she knew better than anyone that Remus had been a father figure for years now, and he hadn’t caused Isidore any harm. Quite the opposite, in fact.
But grief and guilt twisted Remus’ ability to see himself objectively. Where Harry was concerned, Remus was always the failed friend, the one person who could have, should have, stood between Harry’s parents and death.
He had, at last and at Andromeda’s gentle urging, agreed to go to Diagon Alley. He did want to see for himself that Harry was well, and to let Harry know that he had friends here in the wizarding world. But he was insistent that he would not bring up James and Lily, not yet. Now was the time for Harry to be learning about the magical world into which he had been born, Remus had said, not to be dwelling on the tragedies that had followed his birth.
Andromeda wasn’t sure she agreed, but it was for Remus to decide on the path that was best for him. She was just glad he had decided that path did include Harry.
“So you saw Harry,” she prompted, because Remus was gazing into the empty fireplace, his forehead still creased in thought.
“Yes,” he said. “I caught up with him and Hagrid between some of the shops they visited, and we talked for a few minutes. Andromeda, he didn’t know. He didn’t know that he’s a wizard, he didn’t know how James and Lily died, he didn’t know any of it. Lily’s sister kept him in the dark all these years.”
He looked so pained at the thought. Andromeda reached out and touched his arm.
“But now he’ll know,” she said. “He’s starting at Hogwarts in a month, and then he’ll learn all about his history. You needn’t feel bad,” she added, because it was clear Remus was now feeling guilty for all those years he had been absent from Harry’s life.
Remus nodded slowly, then reached up to clasp Andromeda’s hand where it rested on his arm. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, he’s going to be at Hogwarts. That’s a heartening thought.”
He looked down at their joined hands and smiled. Then frowned.
“I saw Narcissa today, as well,” he said. “In Diagon Alley. I passed her coming out of Madam Malkin’s, just before Harry went in to try on robes. She didn’t recognise me. I doubt she even knows who I am.” He glanced up at Andromeda. “Her son Draco was there as well, in the shop. I saw him through the window.” He frowned more deeply. “He looks a great deal like Isidore, in some ways. His hair colour, and a bit around the eyes. He’ll be starting at Hogwarts this year as well.” He gave Andromeda a searching look. “Does it bother you? To think of Narcissa and her son, and how she’s stepped into the life you once had?”
Andromeda returned Remus’ gaze, his look of gentle concern, and gave the question the consideration it deserved. “No,” she said at last. “There are many things I wish could be different – I wish there were some way to be on speaking terms with my sister, despite everything, and I wish Isidore could know his brother someday – but there is nothing about the fundamentals that I would change. I’m exactly where I want to be.”
Remus smiled. “All right, then. I’m very glad to hear it.”
VIII. An Unexpected Offer (1993)
They’d spent much of the summer, she and Remus, keeping as close to her battered old wizarding wireless as if they’d been Permanently Stuck there. Keeping track of the progress, or lack of progress, in the hunt for one Sirius Black, escaped convict.
Andromeda had felt physically ill when she’d first heard he had broken out of Azkaban. She’d spent so long repressing her feelings about Sirius, forcibly divorcing her fond memories of her impetuous but big-hearted cousin from the reality of the murderer he’d become, but now it all came rushing sickeningly back. Sirius and Regulus, the littlest ones, and neither of them she’d been able to hold under her wing when she’d escaped.
Remus, too, had developed a pinched, anxious look that Andromeda didn’t like to see. She wanted so desperately for all that grief and loss to be behind him for good.
At least Isidore was still in training, not yet a full Auror, and thus not likely to be pulled into an active role in the manhunt.
At least Remus had a hesitant relationship with Harry these days, more like a student and a well-liked teacher than a boy and his almost-uncle, but still it was something good in Remus’ life to help counterbalance the endless news cycle on Sirius’ escape.
Then one particular summer day, Remus came home with a strange, wild smile on his face.
“Andromeda,” he said.
She looked up in surprise from the legal brief she was reading at her desk in the corner of the sitting room she had converted into a home office. Remus was perched in the doorway, one hand balanced against its frame, the other clutching the scroll of a letter.
“I’ve had an unexpected job offer,” he said.
Andromeda folded her reading glasses on the desktop, then stood and went to him. “A job offer?”
She knew Remus considered himself lucky if he was able to hold down a job for several months at a stretch before his employers grew fed up with his frequent illness-related absences, suspicious about the timing of those absences, or both. Remus had a brilliant mind and he was nearly always engaged in one or two research projects of his own on the side, but in all the time she’d known him, Andromeda had yet to see him to hold a job worthy of his talents. Remus seemed to accept this as his lot in life, but Andromeda didn’t in the least see why that should be so.
Wordlessly, Remus held out the scroll to Andromeda, and she took it and read the first few lines.
“Dumbledore wants you to teach at Hogwarts,” she breathed. “Oh, Remus, accept the position. You must.”
“It will likely only be for a year,” he pointed out. “I know some people doubt that the curse on the position exists, but I’ve never yet seen a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher last more than a year at Hogwarts. And I suspect Dumbledore chose me largely because – well. Given the events of this summer. I suppose he thinks I’ll be an asset.”
“That doesn’t detract from the fact that you’re a brilliant choice for the position,” Andromeda said firmly, pressing the letter back into his hand. “Stop talking yourself down, Remus. You’re a wonderful teacher. I only wonder Dumbledore didn’t ask you sooner.”
“And I’ll have to take the strictest possible precautions at the full moons, if I’m to be living in the same castle as all those children…”
“Remus.”
He stopped talking to look at her, so Andromeda took the opportunity to press a kiss to his mouth. “I’m so proud of you,” she said, when she’d pulled away again. “You deserve this.”
He smiled. It was one of her favourite Remus smiles, bashful and sweet.
“You know,” he said, then stopped and cleared his throat. He waved vaguely with the scroll in his hand. “There’s a second parchment here that details the logistics if I accept the post, and apparently the school provides housing in Hogsmeade for spouses. That is to say, if we were – I don’t know if you would want to, but…” His voice trailed away.
Andromeda pressed her lips together to hold back a laugh. It wasn’t a laughing matter, really, but there was something so dear to her, still, about Remus’ innate caution in matters of the heart. “Are you asking me what I think you’re asking?”
His lips twitched into a wry shape – another Remus smile she loved. “I suppose that all depends on how you’d feel about it if I were.”
“I would like to be married to you,” Andromeda said. “Yes, I think I’d like that very much.”
The joy that burst across his face was a wonder to behold. “If you’re willing to have a destitute and dangerous werewolf…”
“I most certainly am, if you’ll have a forty-year-old divorcée with a son already grown.”
“Andromeda,” he protested. “That’s not even remotely equivalent.”
“But it is,” she said. “Because that’s who I am, and that’s who you are. And I happen to think we do just fine for ourselves, exactly as we are.”
Remus grinned at her. “Come here,” he said, though Andromeda was already standing about as close to him as it was possible to do. He reached up and threaded a hand through her hair, and she leaned in and kissed the evening stubble of his cheek.
“Hogwarts,” she mused. “It will give you a chance to keep up with Harry, since you’ll see him there all the time. I’ll commute to the Ministry, but we’ll have evenings together in Hogsmeade.” Andromeda hadn’t lived in a wizarding town in a long time, and found she quite liked the idea.
“Don’t sell the house,” Remus warned. “Truly, this will most likely be only a one-year position. You’ll want somewhere to come back to, afterwards.”
“We’ll want somewhere to come back to,” Andromeda corrected with a smile. Remus still sometimes forgot to include himself in the future planning of this relationship, but Andromeda forgave him that. He’d spent so much of his life believing he would always be alone. “I know I don’t have the most stellar record in this respect, but this time when I marry, I plan for it to be forever.”
Remus’ face lit up, as if he’d already forgotten they had made that particular decision and the reminder of it came as a delight to him.
Andromeda returned his smile, and kissed him. “Hogwarts professor,” she said softly. “Look at you now, Remus Lupin.”
“In many ways, I doubt this will be the easiest of years,” Remus warned softly against Andromeda’s lips, his hands warm and solid at the small of her back.
Andromeda could hear all the things he wasn’t saying. The spectre of Sirius, somewhere out there, a dangerous unknown. The ghosts of both their pasts, walking the halls of Hogwarts in the living form of James and Lily’s son Harry and Narcissa and Lucius’ son Draco. Remus still struggled to balance his desire to be close to Harry with his fear of doing the boy more harm than good. Andromeda still chafed at the Ministry’s blindness to its own endemic corruption and prejudice, and increasingly doubted whether it would ever be possible to make the change she sought from within. No, it would not all be easy.
“We’ll manage,” Andromeda said firmly, her arms around Remus. “We have each other.”
IX. Lie Low at the Lupins’ (1995)
“‘Lo, Andromeda,” Sirius said, his expression something that aimed to be a grin but didn’t quite make it, and it was such a pale, sad imitation of the past that Andromeda gasped out a sob and pulled him from her doorstep into an embrace.
“You idiot,” she said fiercely into his shaggy, too-long hair. “You utter, absolute idiot, Sirius Black.”
“I’m an idiot?” he mumbled, voice muffled into Andromeda’s shoulder. “Oi, who figured out how to escape from Azkaban when no one had ever done it before, I ask you that?”
“Come inside,” she said. “Please, come inside.”
When Remus had first told her, over a year ago now, of the revelations on that full moon night at the end of his time teaching at Hogwarts – Sirius was innocent, Peter was alive, Sirius had never been the Secret Keeper after all – Andromeda had first barely been able to believe it, and then she had believed it all too well.
Of course Sirius had been innocent; of course Sirius would rather have died than betray James, the chosen brother Sirius had loved more than the brother with whom he shared blood. It was unthinkable that Sirius could ever have betrayed James.
So how had Andromeda let herself think it all those years?
“I’m sorry, Sirius,” she said, once she had him seated in front of the fire. He looked chilled through, for all that it was high summer.
He glanced over at her, pained. “Please don’t apologise. If anything, I should be the one saying I’m sorry. I’m the one who messed up everything.”
Andromeda bit her lip against everything she wanted to say to him. Yes, he’d made a mess of all of it. Yes, he should have gone to the Ministry with what he knew about Peter, rather than trying to confront him himself. He’d thrown away the better part of his life, landing himself in prison for a crime he hadn’t committed. But in a way, did it matter? Sirius had probably felt his life was over anyway, when James died.
“Well, you’re here now,” she said. “And I’m glad.”
During the year Remus had taught at Hogwarts, he’d spent the full moons locked up alone in his office at the school under the influence of the Wolfsbane Potion that the Potions Master, Severus Snape, had brewed for him each month. This was a recently developed concoction that didn’t save Remus from the painful transformation, but did allow him to keep his human mind while in the wolf’s body. All that year, Andromeda had offered time and again that Remus could take the potion and transform at home, at their house in Hogsmeade, but the thought had been too uncomfortable to him – he felt he should transform alone, potion or no, just in case.
And so Andromeda hadn’t known anything of the events of that night, of Remus’ confrontation with Sirius in the Shrieking Shack at the edge of Hogsmeade, until Remus had arrived home the next morning, scratched and bruised from running wild and transformed in the Forbidden Forest, and ashen-faced with penitence at his carelessness.
“I was loose on the school grounds the whole night, Andromeda,” he’d said, voice shaking with horror as she stroked his hair back from his head where it rested in her lap. She’d wished so badly that she could charm the pain and tension out of his body. “I could have run into a student. I could have bitten or killed a student. It was unconscionable. No amount of shock over seeing Peter’s name on the map excuses what I might have done.”
When Snape had then “accidentally” let slip in public about Remus’ condition, Remus had resigned and gone from the school willingly, feeling it was no more than he deserved.
Only one good thing had come from that debacle: Now that Andromeda knew about the Wolfsbane Potion – and trust Remus not to have mentioned this thing that was so small on the scale of Andromeda’s salary, but saved him so much grief! – she procured it for him every month. And he transformed in the cottage in Yorkshire, then returned to her in their old house in the Muggle village, where Remus had a part-time teaching job at the local primary school that Isidore had attended, a world away from Hogwarts and Hogsmeade and talented but treacherous Potions Masters.
Well, no, several good things had come of that night in the Shrieking Shack: Harry now knew the full truth of his parents, and of his parents’ friends. At last, Harry knew who Remus and Sirius were to him.
Sirius. That was the other thing that full moon night had brought them: Sirius, alive and escaped and innocent.
He was a shadow of the boy he had been, sitting there hunched around himself on Andromeda’s sofa, his once-handsome face lost behind his sunken eyes and hollow cheekbones, his elbows and shoulder blades protruding from a distressingly gaunt frame. The sight made Andromeda want to feed him. Feed him and clothe him and wrap him in warm blankets by the fire, just as she’d done for Remus, when he’d turned up on her doorstep all those years ago.
As if he’d read her thoughts, Sirius glanced up, a flicker of his old humour behind those washed-out eyes.
“So, what’s all this then, anyway?” he asked. “All I do is go away for a decade or so, and you start getting it on with my friend behind my back?”
“If by ‘getting it on’ you mean ‘being happily married to,’ then yes, I suppose that description is accurate,” Andromeda said archly.
Sirius threw back his head and let loose an actual laugh, reassuringly loud. “Oh, Dromeda, you are such a Black. Sorry, but you really are.”
Andromeda looked over at him – little Sirius, her little cousin, not lost to her after all – and she chuckled, too. “Maybe so. I’ve been a number of things in my life, but I suppose there are some ways in which that one will always be true.”
“When can I see Izzy?” Sirius asked, suddenly urgent. “Where is he living now?”
“In London,” Andromeda said, taken aback by the intensity in her cousin’s voice. “He’s an Auror, fully qualified now. He completed his training last year.”
“I did think about him,” Sirius said. “And about you. It wasn’t just thoughts of remorse and revenge every waking moment, though there was a lot of that too. I used to think about you and Izzy and hope that you really did make it out, that you were the ones who managed to escape from all the family madness.” He gave her a crooked, small smile. “Guess you did, huh?”
Andromeda swallowed down the lump that rose in her throat. “Yes, we did.” She reached out and took Sirius’ hand in hers, his wrist cold and bony under her fingers. “We’ll get him to come visit, when he can get away from work. I know you’re supposed to be in hiding, but I don’t see any reason why Isidore couldn’t come to see you.”
Sirius nodded, but his eyes had gone distant. Andromeda wondered what he was thinking about, when his expression went vacant like that.
*
When Remus got home from his Saturday tutoring in the village, Andromeda watched how they looked at each other, her husband and her cousin: that moment of instinctive, wary hesitance, then the palpable relief as they fell into an embrace of greeting.
“It’s good to see you,” Remus said, when he’d pulled away again. “Dumbledore wrote that you would be coming sometime soon. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, you know that.”
Remus glanced over at Andromeda, and she nodded. They’d sat down and talked about it as soon as Dumbledore’s letter had arrived, and were in perfect agreement: Providing a place to stay was the very least they could do for Sirius after all these years.
“Thanks,” Sirius said, his voice gruff.
“Well,” Remus said, not seeming to know what to do with his hands. He clapped Sirius on the arm again. “You’ve certainly kept low to the ground, haven’t you?”
“Not by my choice,” Sirius growled, the first anger Andromeda had heard from him since he’d arrived. “And I came back as soon as I heard Harry needed me. I’ve been hiding out near Hogsmeade for this last while.”
“Oh, Sirius,” Andromeda said. Would he never learn common sense? “You were supposed to be keeping safe.”
“I’m supposed to be keeping Harry safe,” Sirius countered.
Remus, his hand still gripping Sirius’ arm, looked at Andromeda, and she read his expression loud and clear: There was no arguing with Sirius on this point.
She sighed. “Look, why don’t you two sit and catch up for a bit, and I’ll start dinner?”
But both of them were too full of nervous energy to sit still, and insisted on joining Andromeda in the kitchen. Remus slipped in close and planted a soft kiss below Andromeda’s ear, before he turned away to start peeling potatoes, and Andromeda saw Sirius watching them, saw him still finding it strange and new to see the two of them together.
Andromeda wasn’t concerned. She knew once he’d got used to the idea he would more than approve.
She handed Sirius a knife and a chopping board and a bunch of carrots, fresh from the garden with dirt still clinging to them, and he smiled a little and set to work. He’d managed to obtain a wand again, somehow, though Andromeda could see it wasn’t the same one he’d had as a boy. But she saw how he delighted in being able to do magic for even such a small task as chopping carrots. Twelve years was an unfathomably long time to live without magic.
“Voldemort is back. You know that, right?” Sirius said abruptly, his wand held aloft and the knife tapping away against the board.
Andromeda sucked in a breath. She glanced to Remus, and saw how his face went tight.
“Yes,” she said. “When we had the owl from Dumbledore, he also explained what happened at the end of the Triwizard Tournament.”
“It’s true, then, that Harry saw Voldemort that night?” Remus asked, sounding reluctant to have to say the words.
“And Peter, too,” Sirius spat. “Voldemort’s devoted servant. We let that rat go, and he scuttled straight back to his master.” The knife clanged against the cutting board and Sirius reached out to still it with his hand.
“We did the right thing,” Remus returned stiffly. “We did what Harry asked us to do.”
Andromeda watched as Sirius forcibly slowed his breathing and gave a jerky nod. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe. Doesn’t mean we’re not still obliged to try to undo the damage we caused when we let him get away.”
“The Order is reforming, I take it?” Remus asked, eyes on Sirius. He managed to sound almost conversational as he said it.
Sirius nodded, his shoulders still hunched and tight. “That’s what I’ve been doing since the end of the Tournament. Going around to everyone from last time, letting them know.”
The Order of the Phoenix, the underground organisation against Voldemort of which Sirius and Remus had both been members. The organisation that had lost more of its number in battle than even the Aurors had done. Andromeda thought of it all happening again, war rising up to devour another generation, and felt ill.
“Of course,” Remus said, and Andromeda only realised a question had passed silently between the two men when he repeated himself, adding, “Of course I’ll join.”
“As will I,” Andromeda said. She set aside the casserole she’d been preparing and went over to rest a hand on Remus’ arm. He dried his hands on a kitchen towel, and reached up to cover her hand with his.
“It will be dangerous,” he said.
“And it was never going to be any other way. I’ve been living my life around the edges of this battle for a long time, Remus. It’s time to fight.”
“I’ve offered Dumbledore the use of the house,” Sirius broke in, hands braced against the worktop, carrots forgotten. Remus turned to him, momentarily baffled, but Andromeda knew exactly what he meant: the house at Grimmauld Place, the mouldering old seat of the House of Black.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Do you want to go back there?”
“Doesn’t matter what I want,” Sirius said, shrugging irritably. “The place has got every protective charm a person could throw at it, and the Order needs somewhere to serve as Headquarters. It’ll do. And it’s about the only thing I have to offer.”
“Then it’s kind of you to offer it,” Andromeda said.
Sirius made a pale attempt at a smile. “Hey, at least this means I’ll finally be able to offer you a place to go, instead of always turning up at your door.”
One hand still holding Remus’, Andromeda leaned in to place a kiss on her cousin’s gaunt cheek. “Yes,” she said. “We’ll be turning up at your door regularly, Sirius. You can count on that. And Isidore – much as I wish he wouldn’t, he’s going to want to join as well, and I don’t see that I can stop him. It’s going to be quite the family affair, this Order of yours.”
Sirius’ smile this time was considerably less wan. “It is, isn’t it? Think Dumbledore would let Harry come stay for a bit, before the school year starts?”
“I’ll write him and ask,” Remus promised.
“And I expect the Weasleys will be interested as well,” Andromeda said. “Harry is quite good friends with their youngest son.”
“You’ll have a full house on your hands, Sirius,” Remus said, a laugh in his voice. “All we blood traitors and outcasts of the wizarding world are going to be pounding down your door.”
Sirius’ smile continued to grow, as he looked back and forth between the two of them. “Bring on the wizarding outcasts, then,” he said. “From this moment on, they’re officially welcome at the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Let all the strays come to my door.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The End
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
End notes: In writing this story – AU though it is – at times I very much drew on my headcanon of the “canon” version of the same events. That includes “A New World Bursting into Bloom,” of course (Andromeda meeting Ted, and narrowly escaping the destiny her family had laid out for her), but also places where I’ve written about Remus and Sirius’ friendship (“What I Have Taken Long Before” for their rapprochement during the Lie Low at Lupin’s period, and also much of their dynamic in “Be the Light in My Lantern”), and Andromeda and Sirius’ friendship (Chapter Four of “Be the Light in My Lantern,” as well as the one-shot “Forget this Tapestry”). If any of those interest you, check ‘em out.
And if you’ve read this far, sticking through to the end with this rarest of rare pairs…thank you!
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Date: 2015-06-13 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-14 02:46 am (UTC)Thank you!