Better Days

Harsh wind bites at his cracked, chapped lips and fingertips. There's not much that isn't harsh or cracked these days, quite honestly. Dead leaves crunch beneath their feet and the steady stride of their footsteps - too slow to be a run and too fast to be normal - pounds in his ears.

Her hand is tucked in the crook of his arm and he tries so hard to remember when it used to be there more out of want than necessity, but it seems several lifetimes ago when that was true and he can scarcely recall it now.

Her nervous eyes flit around the street, watching for uniformed men with blank expressions or suspicious residents with quick tempers and quicker trigger-fingers. But there is only the biting wind and dead leaves and a trio of drunken louts headed aimlessly in their general direction.

She tenses perceptibly as they pass the trio, who are ranting loud enough that someone in a flat three floors up slams their window.

"Bunch o' fuckin' stick-wavers, they were," one of them slurs. "Camps are too good for 'em, if you ask me. Unnatural's what they are."

"Can't bloody pay my fuckin' bar tab, half the time," one of the other agrees, his head lolling to the side in an angle that's only comfortable to the truly drunk. "An' then we've got to go an' pay taxes to run those camps for the likes o' them. Bloody terrorists. Fuckin' bullet's cheaper and safer for us normal blokes, if you know what I mean."

He has to grip her hand when she starts to walk just a little bit faster. It might be suspicious, after all. And these days they can't afford to raise suspicion.

Ironically, it's the Muggle-borns who have fared the best. Oh, it's true that some have been turned in by their own families, spat on and called a sorcerer by their own parents... like it's some kind of an insult. But most have faded back into the Muggle world they came from with a quiet ease that purebloods and halfbloods could never emulate.

He saw Colin Creevey a month ago, working at a bakery in Soho. They'd shared a look of recognition before putting on the masks of Muggle patron and shopkeeper. Recognition was dangerous. If one of you was found out, all your acquaintances were suspect, too. So, he'd asked for a blueberry scone and they'd exchanged Muggle money and he'd walked out of that bakery knowing he'd never go back.

As soon as they round the corner and there's no one in sight, she turns to look up at him with that horrible look of pained confusion that he sees so often on her face these days.

"We all fear what we don't understand," he tells her by way of explanation.

She doesn't understand any of this, but she's sure as hell terrified of it, so she supposes he's got a point.

"We're for Kent tomorrow, then?" she asks him, already knowing the answer.

It's easier to keep moving, safer. Patterns emerge over time. Behaviour is noted and sooner or later a small series of slips are enough to get you killed or worse.

"You should go on without me," he tells her for what seems the millionth time.

He's still a werewolf, after all, and he's more of a danger to her than ever before. Not only is there no wolfsbane potion these days, but there's a huge risk of being caught. If he got loose it would be the end of everything for them. If he bit her, he'd never forgive himself. If he howled too loud or at the wrong time, it could peak the interest of a nosey neighbor. And then where would they be?

She doesn't even argue this time, just shakes her head no without any of the vigorous attitude she used to have.

She really should leave him. Out of everyone in the magical world, she'd be able to hide amongst the Muggles the best. Pick a new face, a new name, settle down with no one the wiser. But she's lost quite a lot and he knows she'd sooner go down fighting next to him than leave him.

In truth, today he's kind of glad for her stubborn devotion to him. In five months of bad days, this is very clearly the worst of them. He tries hard not to think about the copy of the London Times in his pocket with Harry Potter's picture on the front page and a headline declaring his capture.

He's not successful.

They reach the building, an old Order safe house from back when such things were actually relatively safe, and she keeps watch while he undoes the wards as quickly as possible. She doesn't stop watching out the peephole for a good five minutes after they're inside, but no one comes. Not today, anyhow.

"I could use a drink," she admits.

They both know she means firewhiskey, but that's not a word anyone in their right mind would use these days and there's no one left to make it anyhow.

She lights the fireplace while he scours the cupboard and finds a bottle of vodka hidden behind a box of canary creams and acid pops. He tosses the sweets into the fire as soon as it's lit and wonders briefly what other damning evidence might be sitting around. He tries not to think about who might have left those here, because that would mean thinking about where they are now and he's not sure he can handle that today.

She pours two generous glasses of vodka and hands him one with a disturbingly blank look in her eyes. He knows his face has that same hardened quality that he can't bear to see in hers, but he rather hopes the vodka will help him forget about that for a bit. So he takes the glass and tries not to think at all.

"To better days," she says quietly, clinking their glasses together.

"To better days," he agrees.

He downs a large portion of the drink in one go and wonders how it's possible that the days during the war actually were better days. They'd thought it was bad at the time, of course. It was dangerous and frightening and people died, but at least there'd been hope. Hope, he realizes now, is woefully underrated.

There are dates and initials carved into the table and he wishes he could look at them and remember the people they used to represent instead of thinking about where they are now. But his fingers trace the rough edges and he can't help thinking about it all.

H.G. & R.W. 6-6-98... They were the first to carve in the table and possibly second-most painful to think about, after Harry. They'd been here, mostly safe if not happy, the day after Voldemort went to hell and took everything else with him.

He can't remember now if they were there to see it when the sky burned a sickly green over the Muggle Parliament just minutes after Voldemort was defeated.

If they couldn't win the war, the Death Eaters were determined to ensure the Order and the Ministry wouldn't either. It was all painfully public. Video of Death Eaters striking down the members of the House of Commons made its way to the internet and television screens across the world in a matter of seconds. There are billions of Muggles in the world and just a few thousand wizards and witches. It was only a matter of time before the magical world was overwhelmed and no spell could save them after that.

"They're both dead now, aren't they?" Tonks asks him, noticing his fingers retracing the groove.

"Worse," he replies, thinking of the television news report he'd glimpsed through a store window four months prior. Hermione hysterically tearful, a chain collared around her neck like a dog as they dragged her off to one of those camps. Ron bleeding to death on the street with no one bothering to attempt to save him. He was only a stick-waver after all. Not worth the effort or supplies.

The picture in his head is bad, but the picture in his pocket is worse. Harry with that horrible look of resignation on his gaunt face. James' son who'd fought so hard his whole life and won, only to lose everything in the process.

"I'm glad James and Lily are dead," he says quietly, wincing as he downs the rest of his drink and pours himself another. "And Sirius."

It speaks volumes that she nods in agreement and doesn't flinch at the mention of Sirius' death anymore.

"I wish my mum were," she says quietly. "Instead of being in that place... like a fucking lab rat. Like she's somehow less of a person because she can clean a bloody kitchen with a flick of a stick."

He remembers Andromeda as an elegant and intelligent woman with the kind of manners that only old pureblood families instilled. It's a hard image to reconcile with the whispered stories of internment camps that he's overheard.

He pours her another drink and looks around the room. Molly's knitting needles are in a basket by the fireplace, a half-finished sweater with a huge "B" on the front still attached to them. There are three earrings atop the dresser - radishes, a dragon tooth and a gold hoop. A violet top hat hangs lazily off the coat rack near the door. Leftover pieces of lives left in ruin. Remus doesn't want to wonder why no one came back for these things.

When he looks back up at her, her eyes might as well be a mirror. She's got that same hard, cold look he knows he has that says make this different and make me feel something else. So there's relief on her face when he stands up and pulls her to him roughly. At least this is something they have control over and it's something to feel that isn't hollow and broken... except in some ways it is.

They are not gentle.

His mouth is bruising against hers and they are all teeth and fingernails and grips that will leave marks. But at least it's their marks to leave and not something forced upon them by Death Eaters and Muggles who've left their own kinds of scars upon them both. They are warring for control because it's so sorely lacking throughout the rest of their lives and at this point they'll take whatever they can get.

He remembers vaguely that at one time they'd have done this with joy and laughter and gasped promises of a future they'd never come to realize. He doesn't think it will ever be like that again.

He pins her up against the wall and doesn't bother taking off her skirt. She's pushed his trousers and pants down past his knees and her knickers are dangling off her right ankle as she wraps her legs around his hips and sinks down onto him.

They don't say anything to each other as he pounds her against the wall in rough abandon. He knows he's hurting her as much as pleasuring her, but he also knows that's exactly what she wants right now because she just wants to feel again. Something, anything that isn't mortal fear and helplessness.

She only whimpers and bites her lip when she comes. He remembers when she used to gasp and moan his name, but that was a lifetime ago when they didn't have to worry about someone hearing something they shouldn't. These days it's safer to whimper than cry out.

He finishes a moment later, his head buried in the crook of her neck, his teeth clenching too fiercely on her skin. There will definitely be a mark.

They only look at each other after he lets her down and her unstable legs nearly collapse underneath her. He steadies her, but doesn't ask if she's okay because the answer is far too obvious. She glances at his hand on her elbow, a gentle and supportive gesture totally at odds with the last fifteen minutes he's spent desperately fucking her against the wall, and she smiles at him faintly in thanks.

She begins heading toward the bathroom to clean up, but pauses and turns his face toward her instead. She kisses him softly, in a way that echoes of another life spent together when sex was not about feeling lost and desperate.

She starts to say something, but thinks better of it and just smiles at him before turning once more toward the bathroom. He does up his trousers and collapses on the settee as he hears the shower start.

He should leave, he knows. Right now would be fine. She'd be safer for it. Just walk out the door and go. But he's weak and he needs her, needs this, like he's never needed anything else.

So instead he doesn't think about the earrings on the dresser or the knitting needles in the corner or the hat on the coat rack. He closes his eyes and scrubs his hands over his face and listens to her quietly humming some tune in the shower.

And he tries to remember that no matter how bad things are, they could always be worse.