Taxi Ride

Taxi ride

Remus lit a cigarette. Hermione made a quiet noise of disapproval.

Golden-grey eyebrows lifted questioningly, tawny eyes glancing at her. Her answering scowl and the swell of her belly made the back-seat of the taxi seem all that much smaller.

"Don't even think about it, Remy."

Remus snorted, tossing the unlit cigarette out the open window, his silvering hair catching and twisting in the breeze. "I wish you wouldn't call me Remy."

"I wish you hadn't knocked me up." Her smile was brilliant, semi-serious. "We all want things we can't have. Remy."

He grinned, shifting. The cab driver glanced at them in the rear-view mirror. Remus glared back at him until he returned his eyes to the road.

"Where are we going?"

Remus smiled slightly at her, a faint glimmer in his eyes, in his breath. "You'll see."

Hermione rolled her eyes, edging toward him. "Just tell me. I can't stand surprises."

"You made me throw out my cigarette."

"I prevented you from damaging our unborn offspring. That doesn't justify you annoying me by keeping me in needless suspense."

He laughed through his irritation. "You could do with more needless suspense. You're much more fun to be around when you're unsure of yourself."

Hermione's glare made her face fall into cruelly beautiful angles, his breath to hitch. "Lupin, you're making fun of me."

Remus sighed, drawing one knee up, sprawling lazily across the seat. The cigarettes, the posture, the attitude; he felt like Sirius. Breath catching again, but not in arousal. "I wouldn't make fun of you, Hermione," he said. Sadness. "I'm too scared of you."

"Then tell me where we're going, before I give you justification for said fear."

He looked away from her, out the window. London sailed past at a leisurely pace; he was in no hurry. The cab driver knew where they were headed, he knew the time table. He knew the situation. Remus wondered at the fact that so many people, their friends, their family, knew the situation, but couldn't make themselves as blandly accepting as a two-bit cab driver with a lot more reason to be mad at the world than most, judging by the state of his clothes and teeth. Knowing the situation doesn't mean you really know anything, I guess. "I remember when Harry's dad asked Lily to marry him," he said, still not looking at her. The wind was making his eyes water, the roar in his ears masking any sound of her. "She was drunk. Surprisingly, he was not." He chuckled silently. "We all thought she was going to take back her answer when she got rid of the hangover the next morning. But she didn't." A sad smile that only the people walking down the sidewalks, giving the passing cab a cursory glance, saw. "Anyway. She was drunk, and she had this Curt Wild album on, loud, so loud. She was dancing on the table in the Gryffindor common room." He looked back at her, then. Her face was carefully interested, but he could see the gears of her intricately frightening mind turning at full speed behind her irises. "We were all ignoring her; Peter was hiding in his room, her roommates were out, I was . . . with Sirius." A blush, on both their parts. "But James . . . James was watching her. I remember, because I came down to see if the house elves had brought us any more food. And James was sitting there in the dark, just listening to the music, watching her. I stopped on the stairs, because I didn't want to . . . I don't know. Break the moment." Smiling; the cab driver's eyes always glancing back at them. Remus could see the spire of the church rising up in the distance. Not much time, now. "And as I was standing there, watching . . . James got up and walked over to the table . . . and he got down on one knee . . . and he asked her to marry him. And she said . . ."

Her hand was in his, suddenly, somehow. Squeezing tightly, the color both drained from her face and rising in her cheeks. Gleaming happiness in her brilliant eyes; the back-seat of the cab growing smaller and smaller as she scooted even closer, pregnant belly brushing his side, breathing joy against his cheeks. "Yes?" she asked. "She said yes?" A kiss, a hand on his thigh, his chest.

"Yes," he answered.

"Yes," she answered back.

When the cab driver pulled up at the steps of the church, Remus paid for the ride, and then some. He hadn't expected her to come so willingly, so suddenly, to dance up the steps with him into a hall packed with the friends and family who couldn't understand their happiness. Remus wished the cab driver could have come to the wedding. The man had told them "congratulations" as he pulled away from the curb.