talking like we used to

[Claire Pierce]

Claire really hated hospitals at this point. This time, Sirius had been in the hospital for nearly four days now, and she was hoping he would be discharged on Monday, what would be the sixth day, if only he would stay patient and let his body rest so he could really recover. She was already dreading how much he would hate being stuck at home, with required rest, no work, a schedule of potions, and a list of what was acceptable and what was not. For now, though, he was complaining whenever he was awake, and she was spending her free time there with him.

But Claire had gone home after hours of Sirius urging her to take a break and get out of the hospital. She had been working in his hospital room, papers spread out across any available surface, a stack of files and newspaper clippings at her feet. It didn’t help that she been awake for… how many hours was it now? She had woken up before dawn the previous morning after only a handful of hours asleep, and hadn’t fallen asleep again since. It was nothing unusual for her, of course, but Sirius had somehow noticed, in between his various naps and actual full night of sleep. She hadn’t been sleeping at home this week, only going home to shower and change clothes and make coffee that was actually good. She was spending the minimum amount of time at her house, between the long hours at work and the rest of the hours at the hospital. Instead of going home to get a good night’s sleep, or what passed for it in Claire’s world, she had caught a few hours of sleep here and there. She slept at odd hours, and in this hard hospital chair, on the nearly as hard armchair somebody brought for her when they realized she wasn’t leaving (not a new development), in her office with the door shut. Between the lack of sleep, stress over Sirius and work, and the terrible coffee - and on top of the revelation of Monday, the resulting fight, and the events of the next day - it hadn’t been the best week.

Sirius, laying in his hospital recovering from wounds that had ripped his chest open a few days before, had the nerve to narrow his eyes at her and tell to go home and get some sleep, to take care of herself. She rolled her eyes and ignored him and drank coffee, and more coffee, more shitty coffee from the hospital that she had grown sick of years ago. Staring blankly at her notepad, Claire idly considered how she might go about getting the hospital to have better coffee, until Sirius interrupted her thoughts again. ”Go home,” he said, ”and sleep.” He finally got her to leave, but she didn’t leave until he had fallen asleep again. Reluctantly, she gathered all of the papers and folders into her bag and forced herself to leave.

The house was utterly silent and empty, which once had thrilled her but now unsettled her. Sirius was supposed to be here with her, whiling away their Saturday by making breakfast and watching the quidditch match and lounging on the couch for the entire day. Maybe they would have gone on a run, now that she was allowed to do that again. It would have been quiet and calm and relaxing, a rare thing these days, limited only to weekends, and lucky ones at that. Instead, Claire got home after two in the afternoon and stood in the empty living room for a long moment, which was interrupted by a yawn that she couldn’t stop. Grudgingly moving on to go upstairs, she left a trail of things: her bag, the stack of things that couldn’t fit in the bag, her shoes, her coat, the cardigan she had worn at the hospital, an old cup of coffee. Sirius was right, though, because by the time she had pulled off yesterday’s outfit and put on a loose shirt and old pair of shorts, she was tired enough to get in bed. Despite the weird hour and the midday light coming in through her windows, Claire actually fell asleep relatively quickly, the spot beside her empty.

She woke up at six thirty. An afternoon nap that lasted four hours was rare for someone with her sleeping problems, and those few hours left her feeling refreshed enough to get up and trail back downstairs. She still needed to get more sleep - a lot more sleep, but that’s how it always was, really - but it was late enough that it was probably time for her to get something to eat. Maybe then she’d go back to the hospital; Sirius would be up by then, and she wasn’t going to fall asleep again yet, not at six in the evening. Yawning and pulling on the cardigan she had discarded on the couch, she wandered into the kitchen, where she was staring at the unopened pantry cabinets when her security spells set off an alarm. It wasn’t an emergency alarm, more of a notification, the one that came from someone getting past the layers of security spells. That meant it was someone who knew how to get in, someone who was allowed to in the first place; it was not easy to get into Claire’s house; only a few people could directly apperate inside, and the small number of other people allowed in had to come from outside. Her complex layers of spells, specially planned by Claire with some spells she had refined herself, left her house as one of the safest places you could possibly think of. She wasn’t expecting anyone to show up at her house, and there was a short list of people who were permitted past at all, so she couldn’t help but draw her wand as someone knocked on the door. Just before she could use one of the charms to show her who was outside, the visitor knocked again, more insistently, before finally talking at her through the door. ”Claire, Sirius, are you home? I can’t tell, the way you have this house protected,” he called, cheerful and relaxed.

Teddy, she realized, so she opened the door and let him in. ”Hi,” she said cautiously, a question in her voice. ”I see you managed to get in after all.” The last time she had seen him, Claire had added him to that list of people and had instructed him how to find her house and how to get in, as well as making it possible for him to get in. Even if he knew how to get in, the protections shouldn’t let him in if she hadn’t already allow it. Because she was a combination of paranoid, extremely thorough, and brilliant, her protection methods were complicated and careful and extreme, and probably the best you could figure out for a house. Claire shut the door and stepped away, moving back to stand expectantly at the edge of the entryway. Trying to scrutinize him, she was still tired, standing there in her pajamas and a big cardigan, and she couldn’t quite figure out why he was there.

”Oh,” Claire said, her rational mind belatedly supplying her mental calendar. ”Tonight was our dinner, wasn’t it?” It was coming back to her now; she and Sirius had invited Teddy over for dinner, as she had discussed with him at that lunch a couple of weeks ago. Saturday night dinner at seven, at Claire’s home, with a meal cooked by Sirius. It was the latest step in Claire letting him back in, and it was supposed to be a way to let him back into her life, this life she had built and experienced in the years since he had left. She had completely forgotten, that sort of thing pushed out of her head after everything that had happened. ”I’m sorry, I should have sent you a message,” she said. ”Sirius is…not here. I haven’t been home either. I forgot about tonight - I've been a bit distracted.” She took a few more steps and said, gesturing vaguely, ”Well, you’re here. Come in.”

[Theodore Remus Lupin]

Teddy’s weekend started as it often did – down at the growing number of enclosures he had built up at the school, feeding and caring for the various creatures and working on a new enclosure for the occamy he was expecting to bring in some time soon. By the time he had finished caring for all the creatures and coming to what he deemed an acceptable stopping point for the time being on the new area it was a little after one and still covered in dirt he headed up to the castle to see what was left of lunch in the Great Hall.

Upon reaching the castle he ended up stopping to chat with a couple students in the entrance hall, then instead of wandering up to the staff table he joined his two sons at the Gryffindor table to catch up – something they had been doing since the beginning of the school year that Teddy truly enjoyed. Knowing his kids were teenagers he had promised to give them their space while they were all at the school – but to his surprise when he suggested having lunch a couple times a month and they came back with the suggestion of every weekend.

It seemed that his hopes that taking this job would give him more time with his sons had worked out better than he could have imagined – in the last couple years prior to taking this teaching position he had been moving around so quickly from one place to another that he was lucky to have seen his children on holidays and the occasional week between jobs; and now he got to see them at least once a week, in addition to the time they spent in his class or down at the enclosures joining him in caring for the number of different creatures that were being kept either for research, rehabilitation or were brought in for purely educational purposes.

There something for each age group, plus the few injured that Teddy got called on to mend and was able to bring back to the school to use as a learning experience for the students. What Hagrid had built for the class was now far more than doubled in size – after many, many long conversations at staff meetings over the course of the entire school year so far – thanks to Teddy’s experience working with just about any magical creature you could think of ranging from the most harmless flobberworm to the most deadly of dragons. Now the class not only served as a place for students to learn, but also a place for injured creatures to heal in safety before being released into their natural habitat once more.

After having lunch with his sons Teddy headed back down to his expanding class area to clean up the mess that he had left behind earlier before heading out of the school and into Hogsmeade Village. Once inside the village and able to apparate he disappeared from the busy street and reappeared in front of a barn in the back of his property. Almost without thought he continued as though he hadn’t even left the school and his work there, heading into the barn and tending to a couple of creatures there hadn’t been room for up at the school and feeding a number of others that either he had brought back home because they were abandoned juveniles, or they had shown up from the forest surrounding one side of the property.

When he finally finished with all that the sun was just starting to set and he realized there was only an hour or two left until he was supposed to be at Claire’s house for his dinner with her and Sirius. After ensuring that everything was put up, locked up and otherwise put back s it should be Teddy headed into the old Victorian home and up to his bedroom where he gathered up clean clothes and a towel before going to take a long, hot shower, cleaning the days worth of dirt off of him and wondering for a moment how he had ever lived without access to a real shower on a regular basis now that he was used to having it – but still knowing he could do it again in a heartbeat.

Once he was cleaned up he got out of the shower and dried off – glancing in the mirror as he pulled on a pair of clean jeans that were new enough not to have any holes, tears, burns or worn patches. As he looked at his reflection his appearance shifted – the generally more youthful appearance that could have someone thinking he was half his age fading as he yawned, not quite his true appearance, but definitely looking a little more his age than he looked while at the school (at Victorie’s request he had been trying to look a bit closer to his age, apparently to his surprise she liked it, so now he is trying to get more comfortable with it).

Pulling his shirt on he took another glance up at the mirror – his hair, which all afternoon had been his usual brown with a splash of a vibrant red shifted, the brown shade darkening only slightly, the red being replaced by his favorite teal shade – a smile played on his face at his reflection, yes this would do. Maybe Torie knows what she’s talking about with this one… he thought to himself as he contemplated the slight facial hair growth but decided to leave it – one of the draw backs to looking more like himself was scars that were already hard to hide were harder to hide, and in this case the facial hair covered a the faint appearance of a nasty particularly one on his cheek from years earlier.

When he was finished in the bathroom he headed back into his room to find a pair of socks and he glanced up at the clock on the wall – already six o’clock, he had told Claire he would be there between six thirty and seven so he needed to hurry and finish getting ready. The next half an hour went by quick as Teddy cleaned up his bedroom – the only room in the entire house that was actually put together properly – and made his way through the rest of the house to search for a stack of papers he had collected from the students the day before that he needed to find so he could work on them when he got home (if he didn’t find them now he would probably put it off another night by the time he got back).

Finally finding the essays – the worst part of this job by far – he made his way into the kitchen and set the pile of parchment on the dining table and flicked his wand at a sink full of dishes charming them to cleaning themselves. By this time he glanced down at the watch on his wrist and noticed it was six-thirty now – time to get going, if Claire’s protections on her home were as drastic as she described he expected it could take a few minutes to even make it to ringing the doorbell. So he apparated to a place Claire had suggested nearby, walking a short distance and then performing a series of different spells to get past barrier after barrier, before finally reaching her doorstep. And she wanted me to believe nothing dangerous is going on after all this?

Knocking on the door he took a look at the outside of the townhouse – smiling a little – it really was the kind of place he could have imagined Claire living, oddly enough. What was probably just under a minute felt like much longer and he impatiently knocked on the door again, wondering if perhaps they had gotten stuck at work late or something and hadn’t had a chance to let him know. “Claire, Sirius, are you home? I can’t tell, the way you have this house protected,” he called, cheerful and relaxed. It really was an insane amount of protections that made him realize not only had she put up the protections around the school, but likely a lot of them were of her own creation, or at least her own variations of a multitude of protections.

When Claire finally opened the door she looked at him with an odd expression, a mixture of confusion and almost annoyance – she didn’t seem to know what he was doing here and she was clearly not dressed for work right now, it almost appeared as if she had just woken up. She commented on him being able to get through all the protections and he laughed lightly, ”Yes, I managed. It was all very impressive I must say – if you hadn’t given me instructions beforehand I would’ve been lost on how to find this place, but I suppose that is the idea right? A relaxed smile on his face as he followed her inside to the entrance as she seemed to contemplate why he was here – and then she suddenly realized as she said, ”Oh, tonight was our dinner, wasn’t it?”

To this Teddy nodded, realizing that something rather important must have happened for Claire to forget entirely – even running on little sleep and under what is likely endless amounts of stress on a regular basis Claire never forgot about things like this. ”I’m sorry, I should have sent you a message,” she said. ”Sirius is…not here. I haven’t been home either. I forgot about tonight - I've been a bit distracted.” She took a few more steps and said, gesturing vaguely, ”Well, you’re here. Come in.” Though she admitted she had been distracted he knew there was more to it than that – and she avoided telling him why Sirius wasn’t there to join them – but she did invite him in and he followed, his smile still in place.

”Hey don’t worry about it, I nearly lost track of time today myself… I’ll admit I was looking forward to seeing both of you tonight and picking on Sirius while he made dinner, but it will be just as nice with just the two of us,” he said, adding with a slightly concerned tone that he was trying to mask. ”Everything is okay, right?”

[Claire Pierce]

Out of habit, Claire eyed the street beyond Teddy; it was quiet as ever, tucked away from the busier roads. There was just one person walking a dog down the street, several houses away, and she wouldn’t be able to see this house, or Teddy standing on the stoop, or Claire in the open doorway. People simply could not notice her house, disguised and protected by a remarkable number of complex spells, which prevented people from even seeing the house, let alone get remotely close to stepping inside. The small townhouse, sitting on a residential street in central London, was surrounded by a row of nearly identical houses, and had allowed her to blend into the city. It had not always been that hidden, but the protections had been built up over the many years she had lived there, as her life became more dangerous, until the house essentially disappeared from the street. Teddy was the first new visitor in a long, long time. Stepping back to let him in, Claire then shut the door behind him, shutting out the sight of the passing dog-walker and the sound of a car around the corner.

As she took a few steps back and then stood tentatively across from him in the small entryway, she studied him as she decided what to say next. Teddy looked closer to his age today, rather than keeping up his habit of making himself look far younger. That disconcerting habit, which left him seemingly frozen in time, as if he had not been away for so many years, irritated Claire for a number of reasons, and so she felt a kind of distanced pleasure and satisfaction at the more honest lines of age, even though his hair was still one of his trademark bright colors. Those lines deepened when he laughed and said, ”Yes, I managed. It was all very impressive I must say – if you hadn’t given me instructions beforehand I would’ve been lost on how to find this place, but I suppose that is the idea right?” Claire shifted a little, and said, ”That certainly is the idea.” She hoped he wouldn’t ask why she didn’t want people to find the house, and hoped that he wouldn’t press her for details of the people who wanted to find the house, why she had learned to build such complicated and strong protection around her home. Watching his relaxed smile, she softened a little, still tense but without a reason to worry about the person standing at her door. ”You wouldn’t even get close without instructions, but you need to have my permission anyways,” she explained. ”It’s built into the charms. You’re on a very short list.”

Teddy was still smiling, which was just like him, but she could feel his eyes on her at the same time. Meanwhile, she led him into the living room, pulling her cardigan around her. As she expected, he sounded concerned when he spoke up again, although she guessed he was trying to be casual enough, rather than push her too hard with expressing extreme concern. ”Hey don’t worry about it, I nearly lost track of time today myself… I’ll admit I was looking forward to seeing both of you tonight and picking on Sirius while he made dinner, but it will be just as nice with just the two of us,” he responded pleasantly. Teddy was perceptive, though, so she wondered how much he would guess, or how much he could already figure out just from these minutes with her.

So she wasn’t surprised when he asked, ”Everything is okay, right?” He had been asking this a lot recently, as well as variations of each question he could get in on the topic. Claire immediately chose to ignore the question and answer only the rest of what he said, gesturing half-heartedly at the couch as an aimless suggestion. She didn’t really want to lie to him, even though her instinct was still to say Yes. Of course, everything is fine. There’s nothing to worry about. Claire didn’t want to drag him into this or introduce him to what they were dealing with. ”I know Sirius will be disappointed he isn’t here tonight,” she said instead of saying the truth - he’s in the hospital. No, things are not fine. ”We’ll have to find another time for the three of us to do this, all together.”

Standing hesitantly by the table, Claire glanced at the kitchen and then back to Teddy. "I'm sorry, I'm not much of a cook," she said, considering. "That's Sirius's job. He's good at it, you know. Not really sure how that happened but... well, he cooks for us. He was going to make something good tonight." She trailed off, looking down at the table and scrutinizing it, as if it would tell her what to do. To have Teddy leave, to cancel and reschedule, leaving her to be alone? To make something to eat, halfhearted and basic? To just sit down here with him? She was supposed to go back to the hospital at some point, but she could already hear Sirius's voice, telling her to stay with Teddy, telling her to talk to him, instead of coming to sit in an uncomfortable hospital chair at his side. Claire looked back up at him, unsure, but not wanting to say the words Teddy was looking for, even though he didn’t know the exact ones: Sirius was hurt. He’s in the hospital.

Suddenly, Claire changed her mind. Maybe she was just too tired of avoiding the subject, keeping the facts close to her and her emotions even closer, and acting as if everything was just fucking fine, if not excellent. Maybe she was sick of the weight of not telling anybody about this; very few people had even been told about what happened this week, even most of the family, and she had been more solitary than usual at the hospital. Maybe she wasn’t thinking too much about it, having just woken up, still extremely sleep-deprived. Maybe she was just angry and bitter and exhausted. Whatever it was, Claire changed her mind, and spoke again, although she didn’t look at him. Her gaze was fixed on the table again instead. "No," Claire said flatly. "Everything is not okay."

[Theodore Remus Lupin]

“That certainly is the idea,” Claire said as they wandered into her entryway. She continued to say, “You wouldn’t even get close without instructions, but you need to have my permission anyways. It’s built into the charms. You’re on a very short list.” To this he resisted the urge to press her as to why there was such a short list of people who could find her place, or why it needed this many protections in the first place. Ever since he first asked her to clue him in as to what the hell was going on she had seemed tenser around him, not wanting to tell him what they were up against. Of course, he understood why, they were trying to keep their family and friends safe by keeping the danger of their jobs at a distance – but they needed at least one person to be able to fall back on outside their office, and he was trying to be that person for them now, sometimes wishing he had been all along.

”I know Sirius will be disappointed he isn’t here tonight,” Claire said after sort of gesturing at the couch as though offering a place to sit. ”We’ll have to find another time for the three of us to do this, all together,” she added, and Teddy nodded as he looked around noting all the details he could of the place Claire and Sirius called home as though hoping it would give some insight as to what was going on in their world. “We definitely will,” he agreed. He caught her glancing at the kitchen before she said "I'm sorry, I'm not much of a cook Sirius's job. He's good at it, you know. Not really sure how that happened but... well, he cooks for us. He was going to make something good tonight."

There was a terrible feeling brewing in his stomach by her flat tone – there was very little emotion in what she said, and even with as tired and stressed as she often was, Claire was never short on her sharp and often sarcastic personality. It was a feeling he just couldn’t shake – something was wrong, and she wasn’t telling him what it was. She still hadn’t answered his question – rather she ignored it entirely, choosing to end what she said with talking about Sirius, and she wouldn’t say where he was. To him, the secrecy was frustrating when these were people who once would have trusted him with anything. It was still killing him how different certain dynamics felt since he had been home, often realizing he may have been able to do some good for everyone if he had kept coming around.

Ted watched her as she stood there at her kitchen table, giving it a look as though perhaps the answer to whatever she was struggling with would just appear there. Claire was silent for a long moment, as though contemplating how to move forward now that he was here, and she wasn’t prepared. He wanted to know what it was that had her so distracted that she forgot in the first place, something was far from normal about the way she was acting, and it was driving him crazy to be left in the dark. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, prepared to ask her where Sirius was tonight, she spoke again. "No," Claire said flatly. "Everything is not okay."

This was far from what he had been expecting her to say. Until now, Claire had done her best to keep anything that was going wrong at a distance. When he had finally managed to pull something out of her, it had been cluing him in on some of the tragedy that he had missed while he was away – but she wouldn’t tell him why she had gotten hurt, and she turned down his offer to help in any way he could – including just being there for them when they needed someone they could trust to talk to. It seemed that perhaps she was finally going to tell him what was going on, or at least what had her acting like she was now. “I had a feeling…” he said somewhat softly, folding his arms across his chest, still watching as she avoided his gaze by looking at the table. “So, do you want to talk about it?”

[Claire Pierce]

Ted wasn’t asking her questions, though she knew he had a million. He was talking, but letting her be evasive. He wasn’t pushing against the way she was being as casual as she could muster right now. Whenever she did look straight at him, she could see how he was watching her carefully, or else staring around her house, the first time he’d seen the home she shared with Sirius. The place that was where she was most comfortable and safe and herself, these days. Either way, she could see how many questions he had, the worry and the way he wasn’t convinced by anything she was saying. He wasn’t pushing against it, though… That is, until she had to say it.

Of course, she knew he couldn’t be surprised. It had been many years, but she still knew that he was smart, and that he knew her, even if there were years and distance and more walls now. Ted had been taking notes on her every time she saw him, no matter what she said to him. “I had a feeling…” he said, sure enough. Ted’s voice was soft; she figured he was trying to be calm and encouraging, trying to get her to open up more and really explain this time. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see that Teddy had crossed his arms as he spoke, and she could feel his eyes on her. “So do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

The truth was that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to talk about it. Claire really didn’t want to drag him into this, to make him worried about her, or to have to talk about much of anything that had happened - a growing list of injuries and near-death experiences, being stalked, being a top target, her mother, her constant fear. Although she’d said that things were not okay, now she didn’t know where to go from there, even though she didn’t exactly regret saying it, not yet.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly, and stepped back from the table and turned to the kitchen. Although she wanted coffee, it was late, and she doubted that Ted drank coffee at seven in the evening as she sometimes did - in her defense, she was tired, and her schedule had gotten entirely messed up over the last week - so she asked, “Tea?” Claire was silent as she made tea - tapping the kettle with her wand to speed up the process, sorting through a few boxes of tea to decide which kind she wanted, pouring water into one of her large mugs - until she returned to the table.

She took a sip of the hot tea, almost burning her tongue, and set down the steaming mug. “I’m sure you’re wondering where Sirius is,” Claire said finally. She chose a route at last, possibly the one that was most relevant, or at least the one most immediately relevant. She was completely still, her voice as flat as possible, when she continued. “He’s in the hospital. He’ll be home in a few days. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you. I know you wanted to know. His parents, Albus, and Lily are the only ones who have visited so far.”

Her gaze was fixed to the mug, stopping on him for only a second before she couldn’t look at him again. She wanted to clench her fists, but her hands weren’t shaking, and she was just as still as before. Before he could ask why Sirius was in the hospital, she added, “It was sectumsempra. I could barely get us out of there, and he was bleeding everywhere, and I could hardly get the bleeding to slow down before we got out. It ripped him open, Teddy.”

This time, her voice shook, just slightly, on the last sentence. It was rage and leftover fear and the memory of seeing him like that. There was a pause, one that would be imperceptible to anyone (except for a tiny group that unfortunately probably included Teddy, even now), and then she regained her perfect self-control. She looked straight at him now, a sharp direct gaze, and said, “So yes, you could say that things are not okay.” She didn’t say she wanted to talk about it, and she didn’t know if she did, but there was something in her that had made her finally tell him something about her life. Her deflecting methods were present - there was a hint of sarcasm, covering up any possible waver.

“There’s a lot I can’t tell you, Teddy,” she said. It was an explanation and a warning, but also a shift. Maybe she couldn’t tell him many things, but there were things she could, and maybe this time she actually would. The last time they had spoken about this, when she had snapped and unloaded a rant on him, it was still brief, a skimming through of the last several years in a flippant, minimal way. She also hadn’t touched on much of anything that was happening now either. Finally, she sighed, and sat down in the nearest chair. While her voice was nothing but strong and measured, that simple motion had so much exhaustion in it.

[Theodore Remus Lupin]

It was killing him to stand there knowing that something was eating her away and she was holding it all in – he knew just how much worse that could make things. Being naturally more observant than most he could tell from the moment he walked in that something was off – but it wasn’t until she finally said that everything was not okay that he got that confirmation. Teddy sighed, folding his arms across his chest and asking if she wanted to talk about it – but he already knew the answer: she did, but she didn’t at the same time. It was a feeling he knew well – like himself, Claire was very guarded, reserved in who she let in and always maintained a strong appearance no matter what was going on, clearly that hadn’t changed since they were teenagers.

Once again, his suspicions were confirmed when she told him honestly that she didn’t know if she wanted to talk about it – she then distracted herself for the moment, asking if he wanted tea. Teddy nodded, following her into the kitchen, still looking around at the place her and Sirius called home as he nodded, “Sure,” he said, letting his mind wander. It was odd enough that she had forgotten that he was supposed to come over – even more odd that Sirius would have forgotten or not been around when he got there. They were like brothers – it wasn’t like Sirius to miss out on a chance to get Teddy to drink too much; and he was supposed to be making dinner after all. If things were chaotic at the office, why was Claire here instead of there with him?

After she looked through the tea boxes, he sifted through for only a second before choosing one for himself and grabbing the mug that was near hers to fill when she was done with the kettle. Just as he was about to voice his curiosity about where Sirius was now, it was like Claire had read his mind. “I’m sure you’re wondering where Sirius is,” she said finally – which immediately brought his attention away from the mug he was fixated on as he tried to decide how to navigate their conversation to get her to tell him something at least. Well, this was something – but not something he had hoped to hear by any means.

“He’s in the hospital. He’ll be home in a few days. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you. I know you wanted to know. His parents, Albus, and Lily are the only ones who have visited so far.” she went on to explain – and he was just about to open his mouth with a flood of questions when she answered the most important one – what happened to land him in the hospital again? It had only been maybe six months – if that – since the last time he had been there, and even more recently Claire had been. It was worrying him more and more that they wouldn’t let him in, wouldn’t tell him what was going on – but in times like this, when there was a real chance of losing one of them, he didn’t want to be the last to know.

When she described what had happened – the sectumsempra curse – he knew immediately that this was more serious than some of the other injuries over the years. If Claire wasn’t the encyclopedia of spells, curses, jinxes, hexes and the counters to them all that she is then he might not have made it to the hospital at all. It had been enough to truly terrify Claire – he could tell it was still unnerving now just to tell him about it – to have those images play in her head all over again must be awful. It was subtle, most wouldn’t notice, but her voice was starting to shake as she spoke – and that’s when she paused for a moment, presumably to regain her always strong composure.

“So yes, you could say that things are not okay,” she said somewhat flatly, their eyes locking as she finally looked up to meet his gaze. Her eyes were fierce – but they were also tired, sad, worn down – there was only so much of this that anyone could take; tonight was originally supposed to be the three of them taking a night off from real life to enjoy dinner together and now one third of their group was in the hospital from yet another near death experience; possibly the closest call he had from what Teddy knew, but he also knew he had missed a lot in twenty years.

“There is a lot I can’t tell you, Teddy,” she said before finally let herself sit down in the nearest chair – the exhaustion of recent events written in her movements. Teddy stood in the entrance to the kitchen, fiddling with the teabag in his mug and trying to decide which of his many thoughts and questions he should act on first. Sighing, he wandered over to the table and pulled up the chair next to her, sipping his tea and setting it down on the table though keeping his hand wrapped around the warm mug. “I know you can’t tell me everything… and I won’t lie and say I’m not a little hurt that I wasn’t included with immediate family…” he said, as always being honest whether it hurt or not.

“Tell him I’m glad he’s going to be alright… I can come by and keep him distracted once he’s home… I’m sure you’ll need help making sure he rests…” Teddy turned his gaze from her to the mug of tea once more fiddling with the teabag – there was so much more that he wanted to say, that he wanted to know… but where would Claire draw the line and decide to put her walls back up, pushing him away again? A sigh escaped him again as he looked back up at her, “How have you been holding up?”

The question itself was simple, but she knew what he was really asking – how was she handling all this? Was she taking care of herself still while taking care of Sirius and the auror office? Where was she mentally, with Sirius having come so close to death – with him knowing without her there likely he wouldn’t be coming in in just a few short days. Claire could handle a lot – she was stronger than most people – but everyone had their breaking points; and Teddy just wanted her to know that she didn’t have to be going through all this alone.

[Claire Pierce]

Teddy had always been observant, and he knew he better than most. Claire had changed over the years he was gone, grown even harder to read, tough and strong and more and more guarded. But she still caught him studying her and how she was now, and she knew he still had the unusual ability to read her, even if it was in flashes. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that, actually; it was more uncomfortable than ever for someone to be able to see past her layers of calm and sarcasm and evasion. But there was a comfortable familiarity there too, that almost made her feel like it was a different year, a different time of her life, and that itself was somehow both unsettling and reassuring.

And then it was out there, hanging between them, the words she hated to say. Claire watched his reaction as he processed this news, reminding her why she wanted to protect him from this - all of these things she had to deal with, but didn’t want everyone else to. Then he took the seat beside her, a steadying and warm presence as she prepared herself for what she would inevitably have to talk about now.

“I know you can’t tell me everything… and I won’t lie and say I’m not a little hurt that I wasn’t included with immediate family…” he told her, stubbornly honest. She sighed, tapping a finger on the table, and said what came to her own stubbornly honest mind. “I’m still not entirely used to you being home,” she said, and she didn’t say it to hurt him at all. It was just honest, and tired, and still a little sad, the result of years of accepting he wasn’t there. “And I wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind. I wasn’t really able to think about that right then.”

She had been only half-aware of her own injuries and hadn’t been able to alert his parents and siblings right away this time, but otherwise she’d been entirely present and in control of herself. In these situations, she was almost ruthlessly in control of herself; she managed to get through these things without falling apart in the moment, remaining fully focused and composed. But that meant she remembered every detail of what had happened. She remembered exactly how he had looked, how he’d fallen unconscious in her grip, how he’d bit out a few words just before that; their arrival and the way she’d shouted and tried desperately to control the situation; the moment he had been taken away from her and she had been left in the waiting room. She remembered having her broken wrist fixed and her stray injuries healed while being otherwise frozen in those painful early moments in that hallway outside his room. She remembered every bit of pain and panic and deep, wrenching fear she hadn’t felt in a long time.

“I didn’t think Sirius could handle a room full of people, the way he was. I didn’t think I could handle anyone else, either, if I’m honest, and I’m very used to the way it’s been. I have lots of practice at this,” she explained. Claire and Sirius had been through an incredible amount together over the years, and a few of the many things she had learned from these experiences was that she needed control over a stressful environment, that she generally accomplished this as much as was possible for someone who didn’t actually work at the hospital, and that she hated a crowded hospital room. All she had wanted was to sit there beside him, holding his hand and feeling him squeeze hers, and seeing him alive and well, or on his way back to well. It had been too impossible to think about anything, anyone, else. It was pure tunnel vision; the worse the injury, the more hyper-focused she got. “But honestly, all I could think of was being there with him,” she admitted.

She drank her tea and drew her legs up on the chair, crossing them and straightening her back. “I’m sorry,” Claire said finally, and she meant it. “I should have asked for you to come.” She knew this, and she was continuing to try to bring him back into her life, but it was still hard for her. After years of building walls and life forcing her to narrow her circle of people more and more (from necessity and loss, trust and comfort), it was nearly impossible for someone to slip in, even if it was to reclaim a spot. And then she said something she didn’t expect, something she had finally unpacked and accepted. “You’re supposed to be there. And it would have been good to have you there with me.”

Teddy was never one to selfishly linger on the hurt, though, and his next point was bringing this back to Sirius. “Tell him I’m glad he’s going to be alright… I can come by and keep him distracted once he’s home… I’m sure you’ll need help making sure he rests…” he said. “He hates the hospital, Teddy. He doesn’t like to rest, and he doesn’t like to listen to what he’s told to do or take or wait on doing. He’ll be home in a few days, but it’ll be a bit longer before he can even come back to the office, which he’s thrilled about,” she said, and then added, reflexively light and flippant, ”Honestly, you should be glad you missed years of this.”

He sighed, then, and she thought it was that he maybe couldn’t help himself, and asked her, “How have you been holding up?” She laughed a little, not amused but a bit bitter, though not at him, and said, “I’ve been through worse.” She shrugged. “I’m okay.”

This was true enough. She’d been through her mother’s death, which had seen her at her worst, propelled into mourning and into obsession that was still hard to leave behind. She’d been through the loss of Sirius’s family, which entailed surviving her own grief and surviving Sirius’s devastating, self-destructive grief (and making sure he survived it). And she’d been through so much else over the years. Claire had survived these things - enough. They still haunted her, but she was still going. Still, the memory of Sirius earlier that week - unconscious, pale as anything, unfathomably bloody - was enough to shake her again. She wasn’t sure if it was the sum of all of what had happened in the last few years, or the heavy weight of all that had happened over all of her adult years, all coming together to make it all worse. It could just be that now they were together at last, and there wasn’t really anything to protect herself now. No compartmentalizing, no distance, no walls, no secrets.

If she had learned one thing over these years, though, it was how to get through it, how to keep going and keep control. “I’m at work as much as I can be, and I’m with him as much as I can be,” Claire said. It was a simple way to put it, although accurate. She just wasn’t adding the details - barely home at all, hardly sleeping, drinking an extremely unhealthy amount of coffee, using a hospital room as a makeshift office. “You can probably see how I forgot about dinner,” she pointed out wryly.

[Theodore Remus Lupin]

This certainly wasn’t what he had expected when he had gotten cleaned up to head over to Claire and Sirius place that evening. It was supposed to be a lighthearted, relaxing and fun night between three old friends having dinner – but instead now he sat there drinking tea with one friend as she described the very recent and very near death experience of their other friend, her boyfriend now – he couldn’t imagine how she had been holding herself together. It wasn’t like when they were in school and Sirius got hurt playing Quidditch – they had been face to face with dark wizards, fighting for their lives quite literally – and he knew it wasn’t the first time but he also knew it probably never got easier no matter how many times something like this happened.

At first, he was perhaps too honest – letting it be known that he wished he would have been called during the notifying of immediate family. Teddy wasn’t trying to make Claire feel bad about it by any means – he just didn’t like finding out so long after the fact. If things hadn’t turned out to where Sirius had been okay – well, he couldn’t think about it; losing either of them just wasn’t an option in his head – it wasn’t something he could handle, and he knew it. “I’m still not entirely used to you being home,” she said – just as honest as he had been – and while it made him sad for a moment but it wasn’t like he didn’t understand. After twenty years of being away it shouldn’t surprise him that people still wouldn’t have him in the front of their minds – especially in a crisis situation.

“And I wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind. I wasn’t really able to think about that right then,” Claire added and he nodded as he took a sip of his tea. “I get it, I do,” Teddy said evenly, still watching as she did what Claire did and managed to keep herself calm and collected – honest and in control of herself – as she finally, in a way, let him in again. It wasn’t how he had opened this would happen – especially after the last time when she had unloaded years-worth of devastation and loss on him all at once – but it was still under circumstances that could have been a thousand times better. She went on to explain that she didn’t think Sirius could handle a room full of people – or that she could either; adding that she had plenty of practice with these emergency scenarios.

“I imagine knowing Sirius you’ve done this more times than you are comfortable with, and probably too many to count,” he said with a half-smile. Teddy loved his younger god-brother – but he was reckless and tended to act first and think later and he knew that it would land him in trouble throughout his life. It was hard to imagine all the times they had been through this and he hadn’t been there – although, it probably amount to the close to the number of times he had been through hospital stays of his own, not notifying family back home and waiting it out by himself until he could return to work. Sometimes, he wondered how different things could be if he had just come home sooner – even if he couldn’t have stood to see Tori and her new family, he should have still been around for everyone else, even after the letters stopped coming.

Then something happened that Teddy certainly hadn’t expected – Claire apologized, genuinely realizing that now that he was back, it was right for him to be there. He had been gone for a long time – but he was still family and he had been doing just about anything he could think of to try and make it right with everyone, especially Claire and Sirius. They had been his best friends – and he had just abandoned them the way he felt everyone had abandoned him and that wasn’t right. They had all been through so much personal trauma over the years, the loss of Claire’s mother and Sirius family, and so many other hardships – he should have been here for all of that, just like they should have been there when his sons were born, when he was hurt, when he was lost and trying to figure out life without Tori in it – they should have been helping each other through all of it they way they had life up until he left.

Smiling a little Teddy set down the mug of tea he had his hand wrapped tightly around as he listened and thought to himself. “I appreciate that… more than you know,” he said, the smile in place though he was looking down at the tea as though it were helping him find the words he was looking for. Then he went on to try and lighten the conversation at least a little – suggesting that perhaps he could help keep Sirius occupied and in bed once he was allowed to come home, after all they all knew how restless the man was, Teddy was sure that hadn’t changed much over the years. It was like that clicked and Claire’s words told him just how true that was – it was almost a rant the way he remembered her ranting when Sirius wouldn’t listen when they were young. He doesn’t like to rest, or do anything he’s supposed to – and to top it all off he’s not allowed back at work for a little while. He couldn’t help but smirk a little when she said, “Honestly, you should be glad you missed years of this.”

“Oh, trust me, I believe you there,” he said through the grin, taking another sip of his tea before finally asking how she was in all of this. Claire was strong, she was someone who didn’t show weakness and certainly didn’t break under pressure – but there was only so much one person could handle and with her already insomniac behaviors, it wasn’t unbelievable that she was having a hard time. Between keeping an eye on Sirius – in the hospital or not, thirty-something-years-old or not, the man still needed supervision – and keeping things moving in the auror office didn’t leave much time for her to rest herself. “I’ve been through worse,” she shrugged, “I’m okay.” she said, being as honest with him as he thought he was likely to get out of her.

After a few moments of quiet and thoughtfulness Claire added that she was at work as much as possible, and with Sirius as much as possible – meaning his assumptions were right – she was running herself into the ground, fueled by caffeine and some insane ability to work consistently on two or three hours of sleep (something he would just never understand, and he’s a fairly bad workaholic himself). “You can probably see how I forgot about dinner,” she pointed out and he smiled a little. “I think all things considered, you’re allowed to forget about dinner,” Teddy said with a soft tone and an understanding smile as he took another sip of the steaming tea.

[Claire Pierce]

“I imagine knowing Sirius you’ve done this more times than you are comfortable with, and probably too many to count,” Teddy said. There was a trace of amusement there on his face; he knew very well how reckless Sirius could be, impulsive and thoughtless and stupid, as Claire would yell at him. Teddy may not have been here for their adult years, but he could probably imagine some of what he had missed, just from Sirius’s earlier childhood and teenage years of stupidity. That particular element of his personality seemed to have settled quite early, as had Claire’s habit of folding her arms and glaring at him as he did said thoughtless thing.

”Way too many to count,” Claire replied, though she could remember all of them, in her mental filing system of incidents. ”Not all work related, though that is the majority now. Not so many Quidditch incidents these days.” She was quiet for another moment, and then said suddenly, ”I've spent a lot of time in the hospital with Sirius. I didn’t expect my life to be so full of time in the hospital.” Claire sighed, restlessly brushing some hair back unnecessarily. She wasn’t sure where she was going with this, or what she wanted to tell him, but she knew he wanted to hear more - or at least he thought he did, and he’d been asking and asking. Maybe she wanted to share a bit too, parts of her life now that weren’t so put together and efficient and strong. Teddy knew she did a lot of the work of running the auror department, and that she was now a writer and adviser and more than that, and that she put a lot of work into this family too, protecting and spending time and honoring her place with them. But he didn’t know much of what was behind and around the tragic and hard parts of years and years that he was now aware of.

“Sure, I've had a few of my own injuries over the years,” Claire’s said, fingers drifting almost unconsciously over the old scar on her leg, scar concealed by her pants and her hand underneath the table. ”But the balance of incidents is definitely tipped over to him.” Her voice was dry, with an undertone that was maybe amused, maybe sad. It was unclear. ”They officially assigned a healer to him a few years into our jobs, once they realized it was best to have someone ready to deal with him. The room he's in now, he's been in there multiple times. He hates it. I don’t like it either, of course.” She hated that room, and she hated being in this house without him. There was no winning here. She wasn’t sure what to say next, and reflexively said, sardonic again, “The coffee is terrible.”

After Claire admitted that she should have told him and asked him to be there, she could see that he was glad to hear it, even if it was a surprise to actually hear her say it. He smiled and looked down at his tea, not looking at her as if he knew she didn’t really want to make eye contact, then said, “I appreciate that… more than you know.” She was trying, it was just taking a while. Teddy was impressively patient throughout all of this, even when he got frustrated with her. Like the good friend he was, as someone who still knew her so well, he then allowed her to lighten the conversation with her flippant comment. “Oh, trust me, I believe you there,” he said, grinning, and she sighed dramatically. ”He’s the worst.”

“I think all things considered, you’re allowed to forget about dinner,” Teddy said, kind and understanding, and she felt, in a rush, a wave of… of missing him. It was stupid - a delayed wave, a feeling from years ago that she’d buried as well as she could - and came from just a nice response, and he was sitting right in front of her. Maybe she was still missing him from years of needing him there, kind and understanding of her, and maybe she was still missing him being fully in her life, as he sat across from her trying to get her to let him back in. Instead of any of this, though, she said, “I’m sure Sirius will be happy to do dinner another night. He’ll need something to do while recovering, for one thing, and I’ll need someone to balance him out here,” but there was a thank you there in her voice.