UNDER THE MOON, Remus Lupin

lvii.

FOR LACK OF A BETTER WORD
⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

'Dear Alice,

I'm so excited to hear that you and Charlie Weasley are working out plans for dragonology! I've met him before, he's a great guy! He really has the dragons in his best interests. Aside from that, how are you? How's that boyfriend of yours?

Hope to hear from you soon!
~Sage Juniper.'

How was Alice? Shitty. How was Remus? Shitty.

After an awkward fight full of defensive arguing about whether or not Remus killed Blue, Alice had left to give him space. That was a day ago. It was now late at night and tomorrow she'd have to see him, regardless if she wanted to or didn't want to. She did. But she wasn't sure what she'd say.

Accusing Remus of killing Blue was awful. However, she hadn't accused him. She'd asked him if it was a possibility.

That hurt Remus enough. That she'd ever consider he was capable of that. It wasn't anywhere near the full moon when Blue had died. All because of a stupid dream she asked a stupid question. And to make it worse, she didn't feel at liberty to apologise. Neither did Remus.

Therefore, they clearly had a problem.

"I think you're being irrational, Alice," Isabella said. Even though Alice still had mixed feelings about her, she agreed to a day out. It's not like she was spending it with Remus anyway...

"I am not!" Alice gasped. "Duran Duran is the best band ever."

Isabella giggled and shook her head slowly. "Agree to disagree."

"But I don't agree."

"Oh, come on," Isabella playfully rolled her eyes and dragged Alice with her down the streets of Hogsmeade.

Irrational. Perhaps Alice was being irrational, but it didn't have anything to do with Duran Duran.

As Alice tried to enjoy her time out, she realised she was incredibly unhappy with the fact that she and Remus were fighting. They had hardly ever fought like this before. Never this bad. The fight was usually resolved within the same day. And now they'd been separated. It was like a divorce, and so far Remus had full custody of Angus.

Which he wasn't sure he was too happy about. Remus was aggressively flipping through a book so hard that he thought he might tear a page out. Angus was bored without Alice to entertain him, chewing on everything in sight. That included but was not limited to Remus' fingers.

He felt the same way Alice did about this little... period of theirs'. Remus didn't feel he owed Alice an apology at all. If anything, the other way around. She had completely violated everything he'd been trying to prove to her. That he wasn't a monstrous werewolf that preyed on every little living thing.

This whole predicament made him wish he never had the nerve to ask her about her dream anyway. It made him nervous. Like they'd never discuss it. If they never discussed it, would they just... break up? If neither of them apologised, would they break up? The thought of losing Alice was almost enough to make Remus cave and apologise, despite not knowing what he would be apologising for.

"Fucking hell," Remus muttered quietly, tilting his head back and staring at the ceiling. It would be a lot more interesting if he was staring at the ceiling while Alice delicately kissed his neck, toying with his belt buckle.

He wondered what she was doing at this very moment. Was she coming to see him? Practicing what she'd say? Thinking about him too? Falling in love with someone else? Endless possibilities and each one made Remus more and more restless. What if she was busy falling for someone else? It wouldn't be the first time she'd fallen for someone else whilst in a relationship. Would she do it again?