Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
CHAPTER ONE
moving on
"YOU'LL NEVER WIN!" Betty exclaimed joyously as Remus tried to complete the Pictionary drawing after the sand in the toy hourglass had run out.
Lyall had insisted upon a family only dinner, but eventually relented to Remus when Betty as well showed support for Sirius joining in that night.
They had food that was given to them by neighbors and friends, so they were trying their best to stomach anything in the pursuit of some sense of normalcy. An addition to eating was playing a board game and since none of the Lupins could comprehend anything being even remotely fun, Sirius suggested playing Pictionary as he'd never played it.
Remus Lupin broke into a fit of laughter at how horrible his rendition of a dog was ( at the prompt of a Dalmatian ) and how hard of a time Sirius was having guessing what it was. He had guessed a sea manatee before he had even thought of guessing a dog.
Lyall and Betty sat together on the other side, watching Remus's first laugh in months. It had been two months since Hope left the Lupin household and you'd have to be a fool or lying to say that her absence had taken a toll on the family.
However, Betty Lupin became sister, daughter and mother: filling some of the space left by her mother. She cooked and cleaned, keeping busy during the summer. If she was being honest, she didn't just do it to help her father. The more she kept busy, the more 'other' things she had to think about, distracting her from her ever-consuming grief.
She stopped laughing herself and just stared at her brother. She felt weird, like she was watching herself go through the daily motions. Like her body wasn't her own and she was actually floating somewhere up in space, because she couldn't recognize anyone here and yet she could tell you every detail of their faces with a blindfold on.
She snapped out of her trance and looked back at Sirius trying to figure the blob her brother had drawn with little patches of black everywhere. It took him practically years to figure it out as he kept turning the page to see if it brought a new result. What made it even funnier, for Remus at least, was that Sirius was a dog.
"Is it a dog?" Sirius asked finally.
"Finally!" Betty exclaimed, causing Remus to look at her and grin.
"So you're telling me you all knew, but didn't tell me?" Sirius gasped.
"That would be against the rules, Sirius and you know it," Betty replied with a cocked eyebrow.
