Moon Dust | Mattheo Riddle

Chapter 15: Eggpedition Unknown

The cottage isn't the same when he's alone, doesn't have the same energy. It's void of light and music and everything that Remus always vows to want peace and quiet from, but now that he has it, it's worse than he could imagine.

He wants to walk in to the livingroom and be bombarded with a million irreverent questions and tiredly explain again for the thousandth time why they can't get a niffler as a pet. He wants to hear laughter spreading through the room like the warmth of the sun in the morning sky. Remus waits for it when he wakes up, the familiar soft, shushed giggling followed by a shuffle of feet bouncing around in the next room, though now the floor boards remain untouched.

He misses the long-winded debates between his daughter and nephew, going back and forth on pointless quibbles whilst they sat around his office, waiting for Remus to finish grading papers. Who would win in a duel between a grindylow and Professor Burbage? How long would it take Professor Snape to notice if they replaced Ginny with Ron in a wig? How high up can someone travel by broom without a loss of oxygen? The last one, Remus, had to step in before Harry actually tested that theory out, though he was pleasantly surprised to find that Nova had placed a spell on her little cousin first, that allowed him to breathe easily even without any oxygen.

The house is too empty now and there's an underlying feeling in his stomach, a sickly sort of dread, like déjà vu. It's too quiet, too lonely. It gives him an idea of what life would have been like had he and Sirius not decided to have a child, had he not had Nova to get him through the worst time of his life.
Remus has a had a look into what that life alone could have been like and the idea fills him with dread, everything is so dull, so lifeless. He spends most of his time in his daughter's room these days, feeling guilty because he knows she wouldn't want him to live like this, but he doesn't know what else to do. He can't teach anymore, as much as he wants to go back to Hogwarts he simply can't.
There's the Order, but a part of him is keen to avoid that too, too many bad memories. Dora visits from time to time, always back from another secretive mission, just popping in for tea or a chat and though she tries to hide it, the worried, watchful look behind her eye is always unmissable.

Maybe this is what he needs, a break to really think things through. His life has just been turned upside down, things that he'd been led to believe had been a lie and it feels like he's been robbed of the life he could have led. Which makes him feel awful because that's nothing compared to what Sirius has gone through... Oh, Sirius, wherever he is.

Remus wonders if Sirius would even want him to find him. After all this time, and the one thing on his mind remains the same, it always has, the same mischievous smile, same cunning silver eyes. He wonders where he is now; he was happy to see Remus at first, but maybe that was because it was a glimpse into the past for him, maybe if he saw him now, it wouldn't be the same, too many bad memories.

Memories are the things he keeps coming back to.

He could simply walk into a room and find himself reliving the days of his youth.
Certain songs take him back to certain times of his life, and some days he listens to them on repeat, but then other days it's too painful.

Just this morning Remus was making an omelet and as soon as his hand touched the shell he was filled with nostalgia, an overwhelming rush of emotion that had him needing to sit down. Everything, everything takes him back to his youth, back to Lily, to Peter... to James and mostly, to Sirius.

-

Remus waited patiently as McGonagall circled around the room with a small circular tray in her hand. Beside him, Peter was biting his finger-nails in anticipation of what waited inside the box.

The Professor had an assignment for them, that much was clear, though they didn't know what that would entail.

Remus had spent the previous night listening to Sirius and James devise a whole long-winded conspiracy on what that assignment may be. Three hours that conversation had lasted before Remus finally sat up and threw pillows in each of their directions to shut them up. The taller boy tilted his head with a small smirk as he watched his friends jitter with excitement from their seats on the table ahead.