Thicker than Water (Marauders Era) PART II

27 June, 1994 - Goodbye (III)

Lavinia apparated to the end of the front walk of the little house by the sea with her heart rather heavy and a seemingly endless sigh in her lungs. It wasn't that anything about this was surprising. Far from it, really. She had known this was coming, had known this day would arrive eventually. She'd just hoped it wouldn't come so soon because the truth was that she wasn't ready. She didn't know what to say, didn't know how to leave it, didn't even know what they were anymore because it was one big, confusing mess and this all too brief time they had had hadn't cleared things up at all. Actually, it might have just made it more confusing.

Sometimes, things were awkward and tight and tense and Lavinia didn't know what to say or do or who to be around him. And other times she found herself laughing with him like... well like she always had when they'd been younger. And there had been that moment when they had come back from the beach and her fingers had brushed his as they'd walked and it had taken her a moment to remember she didn't get to twine her hand with his. And when they went to bed that first night after they'd reconciled, Lavinia had done a bit of a double take when he hadn't just followed her to her room. Because of course he hadn't. And he shouldn't. But in those odd moments when she wasn't thinking, wasn't remembering, she forgot to blame him. Forgot that time had passed. Forgot that he had lied to her. That he had left. That even if it made sense why he had... it still meant something. It still mattered. And she couldn't do this. She couldn't let herself love him again.

But she also didn't want to lose him again. And she had to.

So it was that Lavinia mounted the porch and opened the front door with her limbs heavy and her heart trailing a ways behind her on the floor.

Inside, Remus was sitting on the couch, reading a book, as was entirely normal for him on a summer's afternoon that was a bit too hot to be outside on. The anomaly, of course, was that Sirius was sitting next to him, reading The Daily Prophet. Lavinia's heart stumbled on the sheer ordinariness of it. Reading the paper. He was just reading the paper. He was living in some strange, brief blip of the world he should have been a part of with a home that was always there and a life that was stable. A life he wasn't going to get. Because Lavinia knew - they all knew, really - that Sirius would never be able to stay in one place for long. That his life would be spent on the run, outsmarting and outwitting the Ministry officials who would hunt him until the day he died. Or the day he was captured. Which, Lavinia knew, might well mean the same things, when it came down to it.

Seeing him there, looking utterly ordinary, Lavinia didn't want to do it. She didn't want to condemn him to that life. Didn't want to have to tell him he had to leave this behind. But he did. And she rather thought he already knew that. They all knew it really, that this weekend, strange and lovely and painful as it had been, was merely the calm before the storm. The brief breath before everything started up again. A pause during which things had briefly, momentarily, felt almost... almost like he had never gone away. But even if they all knew it, none of them had said it. None of them acknowledged it. Which was perhaps what made it so unpleasant for Lavinia to open her mouth and tell the two men in her living room what had happened at the end of her shift today.

Sirius swore quietly at the news, tossing the now folded newspaper onto the coffee table. Remus, book in his lap, just sighed and nodded, giving Lavinia a look that told her plainly that he too had seen this coming. And he too didn't like it at all.

"I need to go," Sirius said suddenly, standing up and nearly running into the coffee table. "Now."

Lavinia frowned, pursing her lips as she watched him, privately rather impressed that he was so quick to come to this conclusion. He'd likely seen it coming to of course, and much of it was probably for his own self-preservation but something about the speed with which he said it, with which he stood up and looked like he really truly meant it... it made Lavinia think that there was more to it than just his own safety. Either way, however, he needed to be intelligent about this.