Lockwood Part 6

I really didn’t want to leave Reykjavik, I didn’t want to leave a place that made me feel so happy and without any responsibility. I didn’t want to leave because I was happy, Remus was happy and if we returned, we would slip into a war that I really didn’t want to fight. I wanted to keep everyone safe, of course I did, but I also wanted my family to live the best lives we could, I wanted my brother to be able to fall in love again, to have children and make his own family.

I watched Remus making breakfast for the last time in the cabin, he wore his old grey t-shirt and underwear and hummed lightly to the radio, while I watched him, wrapped in his old green cardigan and smiled to myself. We ate in silence and on occasion I would look at the way he held his fork, the way his fingers held the silver wedding band so delicately. It looked right, Remus being a married man, it just felt like the right thing for him.

We spent the day lazing around near the fire, I lay on his chest, listened to his heartbeat and relaxed into the feeling of his fingers dragging through my hair. I didn’t want to go home. I knew that as soon as we got back to our cottage that we’d be laying down on our own sofa, with a cup of tea and talking about the same things we were talking about on our honeymoon. Maybe it wouldn’t be so different, but I would feel different.

‘I love you.’ Remus whispered into my hair. I half laughed and adjusted a little more against him.

‘You’ve said that a thousand times today.’ I smiled, I had let my eyes close and almost fallen asleep numerous times over the course of the afternoon.

‘I mean it more every time.’ I could feel his mouth curling up into a smile against my forehead. ‘We need to leave soon, the portkey will be leaving in an hour.’

I breathed in deeply. ‘I don’t want to go home.’ I sighed.

‘Nor do I.’ Remus whispered and for a moment I thought that we may never go home at all. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it? We could stay in this cabin, holding each other under the lights, under the stars and forever be in love. ‘But if we’re only these people when we’re here, then I want to see if we could be these people somewhere else. I really think we could… I think we could be extraordinary.’

I couldn’t recall a time I’d heard Remus speak this way before, he never wanted to be extraordinary, he wanted to be like everyone else. I opened my eyes to look up at his, frowning slightly. They were harsh and green, a sign that Remus was starting to slip away the same way he did last time. We needed to go home, ten days was clearly all he could handle. Maybe I was wrong about the lights.

We finished packing into the small case Remus had arrived with, savouring the last few moments of peace before catching the carriages back down to the portkey.

Apparently, something was wrong with the apparation site, a lot of wizards who had used it over the last few days had ended up in the wrong places, so emergency portkeys were set up to get people home. We were travelling to Manchester and would apparate home from there, but it was the grave look on Remus’s face that had me worried.

‘This was one of the things he did last time.’ He whispered, it was all I needed to know Remus was talking about Voldemort. There was no escaping he was back and the world would suffer for it, as wonderful as it had been to live in ignorance for a few days, the war was already well under way and we needed to step up sooner or later.

I suddenly had the urge to write to Aleksander and Kasha in Bulgaria and make sure they knew what was going on over here, to help them prepare for anything they may have needed to do.

‘We should go to my parents before we head home, see if we can get any updates before tomorrow.’ I said, quietly as we waited in the reception area of the international wizards building, it was a little bigger than last time, still wooden and still smaller than most ministry buildings, but it was comforting in a way.

Remus gave a faint smile and nodded, he knew the honeymoon was over as well. It had been beautiful, but now we needed to focus on the coming wars.

We managed to get back to my parents safely and for a while they were so happy to see us, until Remus started to feel unwell and the balance between the wolf and him began to unbalance. My father rummaged around in his cupboards and pulled out some Lockwood’s Wolfsbane that he kept handy for whatever reason. He took Remus into the living room to sleep, while I helped my mother make some tea.

‘So, how was it?’ She asked, her cheeks a little red from the excitement of us coming home.

‘It was good.’ I bit my lip to stop myself smiling too much, but she noticed anyway. I slumped down in one of the kitchen chairs and sighed. ‘It was really good.’ I confessed and all my mother could do was laugh.

‘Missing a party, am I?’ My father came through from the living room. ‘He’s asleep now, he’ll be fine.’ He assured me. ‘So, tell us about Reykjavik this time? Anything changed? You said you saw unicorns last time?’

My father sat down in his usual seat at the head of the table and ran a shaky hand through his almost entirely grey hair. I missed them so much, despite being in the same room as them, I missed them and my heart grew heavier with every passing day.

‘We saw unicorns.’ I smiled as my mother came over with the tea. I proceeded to tell them about all the things we saw, including the spring and the city.

My parents just smiled and laughed and made more tea as they listened to my stories, it only occurred to me at that moment that this may well be the most they had smiled in the ten days I had been away.

‘Yes.’ My father nodded. ‘Yes, it is.’ My mother slid her hand over his and suddenly a wave of sadness and fear came crashing down on my chest. ‘I’ll see if Remus is ready to wake up yet.’ He said and wandered away into the living room.

‘It’s been a difficult couple of weeks Angie.’ My mother swallowed and wrapped her cream cardigan closer to her body, it was only then that I spotted a few light strands of hair, she was greying just like my father. When did they grow old? ‘But we’re so glad that you found time to live a little peacefully. We all deserve a chance to see what that’s like.’

I knew what she meant. The ‘dream of life’ was what Remus referred to it as, but I didn’t want it to be a dream, I wanted that to be my life, after everything I had suffered so far, surely I deserved something. Though, I could constantly hear a ringing truth echoing through my mind. “You’ve suffered nothing yet.”

‘He is, fighting fit again.’ My father distracted me, coming through from the living room behind me with Remus looking a little more tired than he should have done, but his eyes were back to the blue I remembered them as.

‘Thank you, George.’ He said, his voice unusually hoarse. Remus slowly sat down in the seat next to me and I could my face had formed a frown.

‘You okay?’ I gave him a half smile, which he returned in kind.

‘Better.’ He nodded and sipped the hot tea my mother had put in front of him.

‘Right, let’s get some chocolate into the both of you.’ My mother announced and placed a plate of brownies on the table in front of us, she must have made them with my father’s stash of chocolate because I really did feel better and more relaxed the second I took a bite. ‘And let’s get you up to date on what’s been going on.’

My parents told us all about Harry’s troubles with Umbridge at the school, reminding me that I still needed to see Trelawney at some point, neither myself nor Remus was surprised that she was being unreasonable, but we just hoped Harry wouldn’t antagonise her too much. Very little progress had been made towards recruitment and even less with intelligence, but people had already begun to disappear and that was not a good sign.

My father told me that Darren and been more than pulling his weight where his celebrity status was concerned and a few articles had cropped up in various publications detailing the fact that Voldemort had in fact returned.

‘He needs to be careful though,’ my father said, sighing. ‘If he carries on preaching, no one will listen and we may need his voice later on down the line.’

‘Kingsley says the minister is catching onto him as well,’ my mother agreed. ‘Darren won’t be able to keep this up and he’ll cause more damage than good.’ I was certain my mother no longer cared a great deal about her position in the ministry, but it was useful to the Order for her to remain where she was and that was all she was focussed on.

‘What about Sirius?’ Remus asked, he was still a little dazed, but looking much better than he had done. ‘And James?’

‘They’re fine,’ my father nodded. ‘Both of them are keeping quiet, I think James is trying to keep Darren on track as well, I think Sirius was last spotted somewhere in Italy so Fudge is having a few Aurors chase that lead, but otherwise, they’re safe and sound, well… as safe as any of us are.’

‘What about Benji?’ I suddenly asked.

‘He’s tracking the packs,’ my mother was getting tired. ‘But he had an altercation with Malfoy and we think he’s going to be sent to Italy with Dawlish to chase the Black case as a result.’

I nodded and whilst Remus and my parents began talking a little more about the progress being made towards patrolling the Department of Mysteries, I was formulating a plan to get myself to Italy with Benji.

Eventually it was time for us to leave, the sun was just about to fully set and Remus and I still needed to walk back to the house. We said goodnight to my parents and I feared that it could have been the last time I saw them, there was no logical reason for the fear, but I figured war left so little room for reason or logic when you were right in the middle of it.

Remus held my hand all the way back to the house and I was glad to see someone had been tending to my garden while we were aware. I loved my friends. Remus cleared his throat and I just looked up at him, frowning.

‘One other traditional thing I’d like you to indulge in, for me.’ He said, getting his keys out and unlocking the front door. I couldn’t help my smile and rolled my eyes.

‘What is it?’

‘This.’ Remus opened the front door and without any warning he slid his arms beneath me and lifted me up. I just laughed and wrapped my arms around his neck, kissing his cheek and we stepped into the house. He turned his head to kiss me properly before putting me down. ‘There we go, no more tradition.’ He chuckled and put me down, retrieving the case and closing the door. I just laughed again, hanging my long black coat up and heading through to check everything was okay within the house.