Love, Lupin

Part Sixty-Three

Bobbie and Remus moved about their home in absolute silence for days. She had been picking up more shifts at St. Mungo's to escape the hostility that surrounded the cottage.

Remus was becoming used to his spot sleeping on the couch, though he had made several desperate attempts to speak to the girl the past few days. He poured the rest of the Fire Whiskey he had purchased down the sink drain, trying to prove to Bobbie he wanted to make real changes. Part of that encompassed him not turning to alcohol anytime life threw him a curveball.

He had written to Harry, needing someone to vent to and gain another's perspective, and he figured Bobbie already claimed Hermione. He figured his sister-in-law wouldn't want to hear from him anyhow.

Bobbie plopped in the plastic chair next to Camille in the dining hall of St. Mungo's, throwing her lunch sack in front of her. She was too stressed to even think of eating.

"Still not talking to the hubby?" Camille asked as she observed her friend's mannerisms.

Bobbie ran a hand through her hair and nodded. "I'm not even sure what to say to him."

"He has to do what Dumbledore says, we all have to," the girl shrugged as she poked her fork in her pudding.

"You don't think I know that?" Bobbie snapped. She took a deep breath before apologizing to her friend. "Molly said he did the same mission during the first war, and they wouldn't see him for months at a time."

"Maybe he could check in more often, now that he has a reason to?"

"That's under Dumbledore's discretion I assume." He had his reasons to check in before, all of his friends were still alive. Sirius, James, Lily, even that little rat Peter. And yet he still stayed underground to live with the werewolves. He would simply be gone.

The girls quickly finished their lunches before returning to their respective floors to perform their duties. Bobbie was meant to work on the fourth floor that day The Department of Spell Damages.

It was always a daunting task being on the fourth floor, many of the residents were permanent, such as Alice and Frank Longbottom. Bellatrix Lestrange used the cruciatus curse on them so terribly it drove them mad. They weren't dead, but they were gone. Broken shadows of their former selves. Her heart shattered every time she saw the young Neville Longbottom come to the ward to visit them, clinging onto the last piece of his parents that existed.

Bobbie picked up her stack of paper charts to review the caseload she would be taking on for the rest of the day, the papers falling from her hands as she read the name Nymphadora Tonks.

Her feet carried her feverishly down the hall as she entered the room to see Tonks laid in a hospital bed, El clinging onto her hand from her spot next to her.

"What...what happened?" Bobbie gasped. Why had no one in the Order sent an owl that she had been injured.

El sniffled a bit, wiping her wet cheeks. "We were tailing Death Eaters and got spotted by Narcissa."

"Narcissa Malfoy did this?" Bobbie asked in disbelief as she rushed to Tonks's side.

El shook her head. "She seemed hesitant, like she was going to let us go. But then Lucius came...he's a powerful wizard."

"Is she..."

"She'll be just fine," El finished for her. "Just a nasty hex. It all happened so fast Bobbie, I didn't even have time to alert the Order."

Bobbie reached to place a hand on her friend's shoulder in understanding. "I'll write to Dumbledore and explain what happened."

"You don't have to, I know he's not your favorite person right now."