Thicker than Water (Marauders Era) PART II

19 July, 1996 - History

The following morning, Lavinia was thoroughly prepared to give Remus a very long lecture regardless of how exhausted she was. This, however, ended up being unnecessary. Lavinia was only a few sentences into this planned talking to when Remus sighed and agreed and told her he was going to Tonks's house in the afternoon to apologize. That drew Lavinia up short.

"Really?" she asked, blinking and trying to decide whether or not she believed him.

"Really," Remus promised with an expression that said he knew exactly how much she was second guessing him and didn't entirely appreciate.

Lavinia felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment and shame. "Well," she muttered, the word coming out almost defensively. "That was easier than expected."

Remus snorted, but didn't reply and Lavinia decided to let the issue drop at least for the moment. Truth be told, she didn't enjoy having these conversations any more than she supposed Remus did. She hated having to argue with him. Hated the sharp words and that hot rage that bubbled up inside of her at the idea that even after all this time he still didn't see himself as the wonderful person she knew he was.

So for now... for now she would step back. And she would wait.

She knew it was probably awful of her, but Lavinia couldn't deny that she didn't entirely trust that Remus was telling her the truth about realizing that he was being an idiot. It wasn't that she didn't trust him, it was just... well. He had a history where this was concerned. And Lavinia couldn't bring herself to entirely forget that.

But of course, in the same breath, she decided she didn't really want to spend time dwelling on that if she could help it because her head and heart ached enough as it was. She had put the bottle of sleeping potion back in the top drawer of her nightstand that morning and promptly realized what a horrible idea that had been.

It was like she was trying to make herself feel awful. Trying to prevent herself from moving on. Because how the hell was she supposed to leave him behind if she found that ring whenever she just wanted a dreamless night?

But by the time Lavinia had come to this conclusion, it was too late and the bottle was in there and she didn't want to risk touching that ring case now. So she'd left it where it was and hoped she didn't need any sleep potion anytime soon.

It wasn't a realistic hope, of course, but Lavinia didn't let herself think too much about that either. The truth was that if she wanted to have any chance of functioning like a normal human being these days, she needed sleep. And sleep... well sleep was hard to come by.

It was even just the grief, though, in a lot of ways, Lavinia knew it came back to Sirius. Just not in the way she'd expected. Because the grief was awful, yes, and her dreams too often fooled her into thinking she would wake up in his arms and when she didn't... well then sleep wasn't going to come for the rest of the night, no matter what god awful hour it might be.

But if it had been this and this alone, Lavinia knew she could have handled it. Because it wasn't every night. And besides, even on these nights, she at least managed to snatch a few hours. So with the grief alone, it would have been fine. Unpleasant, to be sure, but fine.

But the grief wasn't alone. Because the world was falling apart in too many other ways as well. People were dying. Going missing. Giants were spotted in British hills they hadn't occupied since the last war. There were rumors of inferi haunting secluded lakes, dementors wandering freely across the countryside, now not only feeding on the despair they brought, but actually breeding.

It hadn't happened overnight, of course, but sometimes, Lavinia thought, it felt like it had. Like one moment she had been fearful of the onset of the war, afraid of what was yet to come and then the next... well the next it had come. And suddenly they weren't making preparations, they were taking precautions. Protections of all sorts were put on the homes of Order members and their families. Code words were established for communications that might be intercepted and every time two people met, questions were asked because it wasn't even possible to trust that someone was who they said they were.