Where the Heart Isn't

Remus pauses in the doorway. He's remembered not to ring the bell, but Mrs. Black doesn't like him much. She keeps going on about how he's responsible for her son's further perversion, how he's less than human, how he defiles her house by his very presence. She's taken to commenting on his clothes recently, too. His cloak is wearing thin, and it's growing cold outside, a London damp cold that eats right into his bones. There is not much paying work for a werewolf these days, but he forgives the people who've turned him down - they are afraid, and ignorance bred of fear is near impossible to fight in a time of terror.

He needs a hot meal more than almost anything right now, though, so he goes in, hanging his cloak over the old bat's picture frame. She is reduced to impotent hissing at such impertinence, and her muffled curses follow him down the hall into the kitchen. Molly Weasley is there, arguing with a cookbook on the proper way to make something. Apparently the Weasleys are not fond of - he listens - paprika. Remus takes in the scene with a small smile on his face. It rings of home, and he hasn't been home in a long, long time, over sixteen years' worth of wandering.

He sneezes, startling himself, and she turns around, striding towards him with a disapproving 'tch!' He is suddenly in a chair without any memory of actually sitting, and Molly is feeling his forehead and tutting to herself. He insists that he is fine, however, so she starts fussing over how thin he is and putting food in front of him, despite protests that he's always been thin. He eats to please her, dipping bread into the thick vegetable soup, and watches her bustle around. She tells him that Arthur will be back soon, and of Charlie's latest mission for the Order, and has the grace and good sense to slide his bowl away when his spoon stops moving and his head droops toward the table. He is dimly aware of mounting the stairs to one of the bedrooms, and turning into the one which feels right.

He wakes the next morning from a dream which was pleasant, and turns over to look at the man lying in bed next to him, the man whose arms he still feels curled around him, but there is nobody there. The room smells like him, though, spice and lemon, creating a sense-image which pricks at the back of Remus' eyes and makes the place where his love's arms are not ache. He cannot remember how long it's been - the days have dragged on, but the remembrance of the days he'd hoped for home is still fresh, brought back by the smell.

He wants to curl into a ball right here, surrounded by spice and lemon and the dust that dances in the sunlight by the window (so much dust, it seems, more every time he looks), but he crawls out of the tangled duvet and makes his way downstairs. He pauses, unseen, outside the kitchen, where the Weasleys are having breakfast. They are laughing together. Scattered all over, that family, and torn apart, and they can still laugh for joy of each other. He is no longer hungry.

He heads back down the hall, sweeping his cloak off of the portrait frame. Mrs. Black's shrieks follow him into the wind, cut off by the slamming of the door.