'where we are now' remus lupin & regulus black

From now on

"Dreamed last night about a time and place. Where from our troubles, we escaped. I held your hand and felt complete, as you turned and said to me; 'From now on, from now on we'll be you and me, we will be,'

Sexual content. Viewer discretion is advised.

DAY THREE
DECEMBER 25, 1978

It's been one day, Cordelia, but I miss you too. Now get to sleep before you kill Lily's owl, i'll see you tomorrow. --R.L

I run my fingers across the page, feeling the dents where he had pressed the quill to the paper. I can picture him writing this--scrawling the slanted letters in his intricate handwriting. I can imagine the concern pulling his brown eyebrows together and crumpling his forehead.

If i'd been there, I might have laughed at his senile tendencies, only he demands eight hours of sleep from every night.

Laughing is the last thing I feel like doing now as I reread the words i've already memorized. His answer to my pleading note, was no surprise. I'd known he wasn't going to answer any questions about the full moon through a letter.

What's surprising is how much his response, or lack there of, wounded me.

Are you afraid? I'd asked.

Behind each careful word lurks a vast pool of fear; Remus' pain cuts me deeper than my own.

While i'm pondering this, I catch the unmistakable scent of smoke rising from the kitchen. This wouldn't be so odd if Lily's parents hadn't already cooked for us before leaving with Petunia for a family outing. (Really just a way to get Petunia out of the house so we could invite the marauders.)

I shove the wrinkled paper into my back pocket and run, making it downstairs in the nick of time.

An egg on the frying pan is on it's way to becoming charcoal as I turn the burner down.

"What did I do wrong?" Someone demands.

I yelp at the sight of James frowning at the kitchen table.

"You're supposed to scramble them with a spatula, James. And you had the burner on too high," I swiftly dump the eggs into the trashcan as I speak, take out a bowl from the cupboard, and crack three new eggs before whisking them with a fork; I dump them onto the pan and scramble. "What the hell are you doing here so early? Where's Lily?"

James watches my adjustments with pursed lips. "Did I get the pancakes right?" I look to the stove, there's no pancakes.

I open the oven--the source of the smell that alerted me. "Pancakes aren't cooked in a literal cake pan," I say mildly, taking the pan out of the oven and shutting it off. I find a knife and attempt to cut the pan-cake that's scalded to the bottom. "Answer my questions,"

James sighs, he folds his arms across his chest and glares out the back window into the sheeting rain. "Lily's helping Remus with something, i've been sent as a diversion."

"You're a bloody bad one," I scoff.

I'm mystified. James cooking? And what could Lily and Remus possibly be doing? Lily isn't here; usually this type of behavior is for his girlfriends benefit. James' efforts are unnecessary--Lily knows exactly how much he loves her without the show.

The word girlfriend has me chewing on the inside of my cheek with a familiar tension while I cut. I want to be someone's girlfriend, desperately, but when I think of Remus and I, it's not the right word, not at all. I need something more expressive of eternal commitment...But words like destiny and fate sound so melodramatic.