black coffee | remus lupin [2]

73. happy birthday on a distance

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FEBRUARY PASSED AS QUICK as it came, and it left no further progress when it came to anything in Claudia's life. She was still set in stone about taking some distance from the Horcrux hunt. She was still not aware of the fact that everyone else in her house were making plans on continuing the hunt for the remaining Horcruxes. And lastly, she was still not talking to Remus.

She was, however, still talking to James, who arrived at Grimmauld Place one morning, free from his isolation in his and Lily's hiding place to make a little visit to all of his friends.

First on the list of people to see was Claudia, who he also was the most scared to meet, in all honesty. He had recently been owling Remus back and forth, you see, and so he had no idea what Claudia was going to be like.

"So how is it to leave the house for once?" Claudia asked James with a little chuckle as she placed down a cup of coffee in front of him.

She sat down next to him and immediately began pouring exactly three spoons of sugar into his coffee, doing so without showing all the judgement she felt towards his way of drinking coffee on her face.

"Well, I do leave the house sometimes," James said with an amused smile. "To buy food, of course. So yeah, if feels pretty fucking great."

"Understandable," Claudia laughed. "But didn't Lily want to come with you?"

"Oh, well, she did, but I thought it would be better if she stayed at home."

"Alone?"

"No, Sirius is there, actually," James replied.

"Sirius?"

"Yeah."

"But...isn't that kind of...dangerous? I mean, bringing others to your hiding place?"

"Not really," James shrugged. "I mean, it's not the best idea ever, but it's Sirius. I just can't live without him. But he doesn't come see us often. This is the longest he's stayed, and it's only been a few days. And he can't exactly tell anyone where I live, so..."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," James said with a shrug. "That's a bit too complicated to explain. Anyways...I kind of meant to ask you...do you know how Ella's doing after what happened between them?"

"Ella?"

"Yeah," James nodded. "I mean, Sirius has been acting strange for a while, but this is on a whole different level."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," he said with a small grimace. "Ever since we announced to everyone that we're having a baby, he's been acting kind of weird. I mean, he's still Sirius, don't get me wrong. It's just that he's..."

"What?"

"He doesn't seem to be the same, I guess," James shrugged. "He's been shutting everyone out quite a bit. Especially..."