Thicker than Water (Marauders Era) PART II

28 August, 1996 - Full Moon (II)

For nearly a month after Harry's birthday, life was, in Lavinia's estimation, going rather well. Not to say it was particularly perfect or anything even close to that, but it was okay. More okay, actually, than Lavinia had expected it to be. Then again, 'okay' during a war was very different from 'okay' the rest of the time and Lavinia could feel it chipping away at her. Chipping away at all of them.

It was the little things that got them, just like last time. The huddled masses on the streets begging for kindness that could easily be traps. The echoing emptiness of Diagon Alley. The strain of distrust and fear and the constant, quiet wear of wondering when even this little bit of relative peace would fall apart.

And fall apart it did. Just not quite in the way Lavinia was expecting.

The full moon had long since stopped registering in Lavinia's mind as occasion for stress or fear. It was, in most ways, just another day. Of course, there were still differences because however used to it she got, it still wasn't a normal occasion. Lavinia always made sure to make extra breakfast and leave it in the fridge for Remus to heat up when he woke. She left coffee in the pot and made a decent dinner no matter how long and exhausting her shift at work had been. Because the full moon was, above all, a tired day for Remus. So she did everything she could to make it easier for him.

On a normal full moon, Lavinia would have waited for the moon to rise, case spells around the house just in case, poked her head into Remus's room to check in on him - a habit he encouraged in case the wolfsbane potion had failed for whatever reason - and then gone to bed and slept until the morning when she would have risen early, checked on Remus again to make sure he was doing alright and made an extra large pot of coffee. It was a routine Lavinia was used to after her many many years of doing every single month like clockwork.

But this month proved different.

There had been only a handful of occasions in the nearly fifteen years that Lavinia and Remus had lived together that a potion had been missed. Twice it had been Lavinia's fault: once because she'd forgotten to brew enough for the full week and by the time they'd realized it had already been too late and the second because she'd mismeasured one of his doses in a slip up she still couldn't explain to herself. The rest had been little moments of forgetfulness. A late night when Remus had fallen into bed without thinking twice. A time he'd misremembered the date a week before the full moon. A time when daylight savings plus a late night had made a dose too late to be effective. Little things. Silly things. And always things Remus beat himself up about far more than Lavinia would have liked, especially since the reality was that it was more than possible to manage those missed doses with a few quick spells and a handful of precautions. Precautions that, no matter how useful, Lavinia always hated. She hated making a prison out of his room. A prison out of his home. Which was why she insisted on only warding the windows and backdoors unless something really did go wrong, in which case she was perfectly capable of quickly charming his door or the front door of the house if need be. She hated this too, but she did it when she needed to because if the potion failed, it was the only way to be safe.

It was a rare thing, of course, but each instance was one Lavinia remembered perfectly well because there was something heartbreaking about poking her head into Remus's room only to have him lunge at her. And it was always worse the next morning. In the aftermath. It was when the insecurities came out, the ranting and raving about what a monster he was as Lavinia tried and tried and tried to talk sense into him because it didn't matter. It never mattered. It was a moment of fear and never anything else. And she didn't let it get to her. She never would. But in those mornings after a true transformation, it was hard to get Remus to see that. And those mornings were the only times Lavinia could remember that the two of them had really truly screamed at each other because the arguments were filled with Remus's fear and Lavinia's agony and the protective loyalties of two people who just wanted to keep the other safe.