a friendship reunited;;

[Theodore Remus Lupin]

A long sigh escaped Ted Lupin's lips as he sat back in his office chair and put his feet up on his desk and leaned back as far as the chair would allow. The Headmaster had given him an old empty office on the ground floor that had once upon a time belonged to a previous Care of Magical Creatures professor. When Hagrid took over the job he had kept his little hut he had lived in for years as grounds keeper so this room had been turned to kind of a storage space. Teddy had been in here on and off for a week or so trying to get things ready and together for the first week of lessons. In all his day's he could have never imagined he would wind up back here. His days of constant travel, regular camping and the hunt for the occasional hotel room were over. It was so hard for him to believe that after years of travel and a few years solid of living in Brazil with his children's mother, that he would somehow wind up back here.

But in a way, he had always expected to end up back here. He knew he had unfinished business around town and that he had a few people to apologize to for not writing anymore. The thing is though, it was just easier for him to live the way he had. There were no worries, no stress. It was just one beautiful day in nature after another. Half the time, he camped out in the woods. During the years of having his family travel with him, he had stuck more to hotel rooms for a while. Then when the kids were a little older, they camped occasionally but mostly they still stayed in hotels and ate dinner at decent restaurants. He had tried very hard to make his lifestyle suit the needs of his family but in the end it just wasn't enough for Maria. When she had found out that he took the job at Hogwarts and was going to own a home and such, she had tried to say she wanted to give it another chance.

Teddy couldn't do that though. He was never great with relationships that were meant to last anyway. He had only had one previous to hers and that one had never really ended at all until he one day just knew it had. Unnoticed, unmentioned and broken the relationship had failed. He shook those thoughts from his mind now, all of them. He took a look around at his extravagantly decorated office/bedroom. The walls were lined with shelving and pictures and paintings. All were either pictures of his boys and him somewhere they had visited or hand made artifacts from the many countries different cultures he had experienced over the years. Everything was on two ends of the color spectrum, either neutrals, earthy tones, or they were extremely vibrant. The more colorful things were usually how you could tell his impulse buys during the real shopping.

All these things had been in storage for years, he had never really had a place to put them. The thing is, his house that he had just recently purchased was decorated quite the same, he really had no idea how many thousands of dollars he must have spent on any little thing he had wanted since he was young. Even with the boys he managed his money well enough to provide for them and still be able to satisfy his need to collect things. He smiled to himself looking at it all. Everything told a story from his adventures while he had been away. Most were ones his kids knew and others were from before them. He couldn't wait to show the boys what all his "junk" as they called it, looked when it was put together like this. It really did look nice no matter how random the array of colors, shapes and sizes. Somehow, it all fit.

Exhausted from his constant loading and unloading of all his things over the past few weeks and trying to get it all done by the time school started, he got up from his desk and poured himself a drink, sipped it and set it down on his small dresser and then laid down on the bed, stretching his body in every direction it would go and letting out a long, exaggerated yawn. He was not expecting anyone to come by, the kids wouldn't arrive for another two days and most his things were unpacked. He rolled onto his stomach and put his arms under his pillow and rested his head on it as he closed his eyes. He would only take a quick nap...

word count, 794
tags, jana/claire
notes, not so great at starting posts, but im sure you can work with it. =]

[Claire Pierce]

words: seven hundred sixty six tag: padfoot/teddy notes: <3  

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Most people complained about a day at work feeling really long. Claire Pierce had a legitimate reason to complain about that, although she didn't: she had been at work through the night, having arrived yesterday at six in the morning, had gotten a meal sometime between lunch and dinner with Sirius, then returned to the auror department office. She didn't even notice the time, didn't even take note of everyone leaving when night came. Even Sirius eventually left, yawning widely, leaving Claire in the office alone. She had nearly fallen asleep at her desk around three in the morning, but had been unable to truly fall asleep, mostly just zoning out for a bit as she stared at case files. Several coffees and a shower and a change of clothes at home later, she was back only half an hour after leaving.

However, she had nearly over looked two things during the early hours of the day when she hadn't been as aware as usual. First, the school roster for that year had come across her desk, as part of a school security file. She had glanced over quickly for no reason, and had seen a set of two names that didn't quite make sense to her. But as exhausted as she was, at that point where for a little while she nearly asleep, she didn't notice them as she usually would have. The second bit came as she glanced over the morning paper with her coffee, but as somebody had told her there was an article of interest for her on the next page, she hadn't really processed the name she saw, although it stayed in her brain later.

She spent the day continuing to work. A little past noon, she ate a quick lunch at her desk and then stood up, slipping on the robes she wore as a jacket when she went out for a case, over her work clothes. Grabbing a file from her desk, she told Sirius that she would see him later and went out to visit someone for a few questions about a case.

After a fairly successful and helpful conversation with the man she had gone to see, Claire suddenly thought of what she had seen that morning, as she found that she had accidentally put the slip of paper from earlier that day in the wrong folder. A few of the sheets from the school security file had ended up in this folder - including the school roster, where she quickly found a very familiar last name on there twice. Moments later, she recalled the name she had skipped over in the little article, more of a mention of the event than anything, that had named the new professor at her old school. Very quickly, she made sense of it and knew what she wanted to do, The anger had come back to her; that anger that she had pushed away, put behind a wall, and hadn't let herself think of for years at this point.

She disappeared on the spot and was standing outside the gates of her beloved school in seconds. The gates allowed her in, and she had to make herself walk at a merely fast pace to the doors. Once inside, she found a professor passing through the hall on their way upstairs from a ground level room. After a minute of 'how are you's and other courtesies that Claire had never had patience for, Claire asked in a way that was completely opposite from her anger, "Have you seen the new professor, Ted Lupin, today?" She smiled sweetly and said, "I wanted to visit him at his new job; it's been so long since I've seen him or the school." The professor smiled and directed to a room close by.

Claire's smile faded away right after she turned from the professor and headed down the hall way. The door was shut, but that never stopped Claire; she swung it open and shut it behind her, her eyes noticing just for moment the decorations of the office, but found him within moments As if the sound of the door opening hadn't probably woken him up, she said, in a loud but deceivingly calm tone, "Hi, Ted." Settling down in a chair to face him, she smiled and said, this time her anger, just a fraction of it, showing on her face and able to be heard in her voice, in an obnoxiously rude tone that she had never quite lost from the last time he would have heard it, "Long time, no see, right?"

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[Theodore Remus Lupin]

Always just when he shut his eyes did someone need something. Or so it seemed. In actuality the slam of the door closing behind his intruder happened at least twenty minutes after he had fallen asleep on his small bed. Teddy disregarded the noise as he heard familiar footsteps walking towards his bed. Better to play innocent and pretend he was still asleep, because he knew exactly who those footsteps belonged to. Just as he thought maybe he was going to get to drift back to sleep and maybe this was all part of a dream, that fantasy was torn away from him as Claire Pierce's voice rang in his ears as familiar as though he had just last seen her yesterday, rather than about twenty some years ago.

"Hi, Ted." Well, that's good. She didn't sound too angry. He expected a lot worse from Claire when she found out he was back in town. He expected her to be prepared to murder him, bring him back just to murder him again. Just as he heard that he yawned loud and obnoxiously and mumbled, "Ten more minutes..." as he buried his face further into the pillow hoping she would take this joke and run with it instead of unleashing the fury of an angry Claire. "Long time, no see, right?" Those words, in that tone, were all Ted Lupin needed to know he better watch out. She was pissed and he knew it.

With that Ted rolled on his side and rubbed his eyes until he could look around and focus on the room in front of him and Claire sitting opposite of his bed in his office chair. He gave her a sheepish grin like he always did when he was not sure what to say. After all, what do you say to a best friend that you basically up and left for twenty years? He honestly was not sure if he was more worried about when he ran into Victorie or Claire. For some reason, probably because of her presence right in front of him, it felt that he was more worried about Claire. The thing is, Claire had a way about her, and if you knew her, you knew better than to get on her bad side.

And oh boy, was Teddy sure he was on her bad side. Finally he found the right thing to say. Or so he thought. "It has been a while, quite a while. You never write me anymore." Okay. So in honesty, he knew that was the wrong thing to say. Claire was bound to go ballistic on him for that one! But hey, who was better at trying to manipulate a situation into making people laugh to keep out of trouble than Teddy Lupin? No one! But if there was one person around who could look past that joking side of him and make sure he knows how bad he messed up, it would be Claire.

He sat up, reached over and grabbed his drink off his dresser and took a sip and then looked right at Claire with his goofy grin that he never grew out of as he waited for her to either A, forgive him and they could catch up on everything like two good old friends, or B, she would blow up and scream and rant and yell about how he never wrote to her and he left and he was an ass hole for it. He knew option B was more likely, and he fully expected it and this goofing off was his way of saying he was sorry without actually saying it.

word count, 616
tags, claire/jana
notes, crappy post >.<

[Claire Pierce]

words: eight hundred thirty six tag: padfoot/teddy
notes: ahh, sorry that it's all over the place! i kind of briefly hit the
main points of her anger so i guess that you can do whatever you want
with those! 

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When she had thought about Teddy Lupin, and if he were to ever come back, she certainly had not imagined this scenario, of Ted trying to pretend he was asleep. She had never thought that he would be teaching at their old school, twenty years later after disappearing without contact, and with sons at the school. Although she had always known that if he had come back and she saw him, the way it was going to go was just like what was about to happen. She could feel all the anger she had felt towards him over the past twenty years beginning to return, and everybody that knew Claire knew what that meant. Teddy had been away for twenty years, but there was no way that he had forgotten what Claire was like when she was angry.

He tried to pretend he was sleeping, or something, and mumbled, "Ten more minutes...." She hoped that he could feel the force of her glare on him before he even saw it; it was just that much of an angry, terrible look coming form across the room, where she leaned back in his office chair. He tried to grin as he sat up in the bed, in some sheepish manner that just irritated her further. She sent him an even dirtier, furious look as she mentally gathered her thoughts.

It had been twenty years since the last time Claire had seen him. They had been best friends, had grown up together and changed from a brother-sister relationship into best friends as they got older. Claire had been absolutely furious with him when he had left; it had taken all her restraint - and everybody else's ability to hold back the nearly extremely not restrainable Claire - to not go on an angry mission to track him down once he stopped answering her letters. After a while, she sort of gave up; she graduated and starting working, and she watched Victoire begin to move on from him. So Claire pushed away the desire to find him and give him a piece of her mind, instead focusing on the people that hadn't just left everybody behind.

She getting ready to start ranting and yelling at him when he decided to say something. "It has been a while, quite a while. You never write me anymore," he said, and her glance sharpened on him, and she wondered why in the world did he think he should say that? It had been twenty years, but Claire hadn't changed, not too much, and her anger and tendency to explode had not left her in that time. "Ted," she said, slowly, "are you really going to say that to me right now?" Standing up from the chair, she glared across at him, and said, her voice rising already, "Let's talk about twenty years ago. You left everybody. Me. Sirius, Harry, Ginny, Albus, Lily - they were like your family. And Victoire. What about her?" The anger was seeping into her tone as she added, "So you just left to travel the world or whatever the hell you have been doing for the last twenty years. No letters for nearly that whole amount of time, and I have to find out that you didn't, I don't know, die or something, by finding a very familiar last name on the school roster and coming across a brief mention of you in the newspaper today."

She smiled, in a cold, mad sort of way, and continued, "And I get to find out that you're back because of that. Twenty years and you're back home, but were you even intending to go see anyone? Maybe apologize for leaving everybody with barely a word?" She closed her eyes for a moment before continuing again, nearly reaching the point of completely yelling, "Even if you were, you can't fix the fact that you left. Life went on without you, and you missed so many things, Ted. What were you planning to say to me, or Sirius, or Harry and Ginny, if you even went to see them at all? You were bound to run into one of us eventually, and were you just going to say, 'Oh, hey. I'm back after twenty years!'" She looked away, realizing that maybe the last bit was not what she intended to say. That was a little more personal to her; she had thought in the past, especially a shorter time after he had left, about the fact that he was gone and couldn't help them through things anymore.

Looking back at him, she moved on quickly, not lingering on her anger that was more personal, more related to how she had missed him, and wondering what he would have done if he had seen her. Instead, she said, "You just disappeared back then. Did you even think about what you were doing to everybody? What about Victoire? Any people in your family, because Harry and everyone was your family, Ted. Why did you chose to leave all that behind?"

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[Theodore Remus Lupin]

"Ted," she said, slowly, "are you really going to say that to me right now?" Oh yes, he did it. He knew the moment the words left his mouth and not a second sooner that he should have thought more before speaking. But since when was he ever good at that sort of thing? His attention span and his tendency to blurt out whatever was on his mind took over far too often, leaving his common sense behind. Now he laid on his side and propped himself up on his elbow, looking at her with his best attempt at an "I'm sorry" look as she started to tear into him.

"Let's talk about twenty years ago. You left everybody. Me. Sirius, Harry, Ginny, Albus, Lily - they were like your family. And Victoire. What about her?" she started off with, and if that already didn't make him feel bad enough, he knew it was far from over as her the volume of her words grew with her anger as she spoke. "So you just left to travel the world or whatever the hell you have been doing for the last twenty years. No letters for nearly that whole amount of time, and I have to find out that you didn't, I don't know, die or something, by finding a very familiar last name on the school roster and coming across a brief mention of you in the newspaper today." At this he frowned, why did they have to mention him in the paper? Hadn't he asked them not to do that? For this exact reason, actually.

He opened his mouth to speak, but that was wrong too, as Claire did not give him the chance to get a word in. Just as he remembered it, when she was pissed off -- and boy, was she pissed off, he could tell -- there was no chance to state your case until she had given you an earful and a half at the very least. That was when she smiled at him, in the almost sadistic and cold way that she had when she was angry like this. "And I get to find out that you're back because of that. Twenty years and you're back home, but were you even intending to go see anyone? Maybe apologize for leaving everybody with barely a word?" There was another pause, but this one for a much shorter lived time. "Even if you were, you can't fix the fact that you left. Life went on without you, and you missed so many things, Ted. What were you planning to say to me, or Sirius, or Harry and Ginny, if you even went to see them at all? You were bound to run into one of us eventually, and were you just going to say, 'Oh, hey. I'm back after twenty years!'"

He thought about her words as she said them and honestly, she was right. He had no idea what he had intended to do or say when he saw any one of them. He knew everyone's lives had changed, they had all changed. But he had changed a lot too in some ways. And in many others, he was the same guy he had always been with a few more years on him. This pause was much longer, but as he was thinking over what she said he missed his opportunity to speak before she did once more. "You just disappeared back then. Did you even think about what you were doing to everybody? What about Victoire? Any people in your family, because Harry and everyone was your family, Ted. Why did you chose to leave all that behind?"

Sighing, he sat up the rest of the way and swung his legs off the side of the bed and rubbed his face. His usually still shiny brown hair now showing the stressed out tinges of grey that a man his age would normally have, and if she could see his eyes, the green with the sparkle that had been there when he had fallen asleep were now a dull greyish blue. The metamorphagus thing was something he had learned to control a long time ago but when it came to a sudden mood change like this, it was still highly unavoidable.

"You're right. You know that, I know that. You're Claire, you're always right." he stated simply with a long sigh and he looked up at her. "Twenty years ago, I was a dumb kid that even though I had a great family, still felt like I didn't quite belong in it. I just wanted to get away for a bit. So I left. I didn't tell you, or Sirius, or Albus or Lily because I didn't want to feel the pain of saying good bye. It was hard enough to tell Harry, Ginny and especially Torie that I was leaving for a bit. I never planned to be gone for so long..." With that he laid back again, legs still dangling off the bed, he ran a hand in his hair now staring at the ceiling because it was too hard to look her in the eyes when she looked so damn furious with him.

"I didn't really think about any of that when I decided to come back. It just felt right. It hasn't until now. I stopped writing to Torie when she said she was pregnant. I couldn't stand that idea. I had not even considered being with someone else while I was gone until after that happened. It hurt too much to think about coming back and seeing her with someone else..." as he admitted this, he realized that in the past twenty years, Claire was the only person he had shared any of this with. Not even the mother of his children, Maria, actually knew much about Teddy's life before his travels. "And I stopped writing to everyone else when the letters stopped coming to me. I figured why bother to write if no one was going to write back... And then I had my boys, and no one noticed until today that they were going to school here. I'm surprised it took you of all people this long to find out."

Now he closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "I didn't consider any one else when I left. I did what I thought I needed to do for myself... And it cost me a whole lot and I can't change that... But I also gained a lot of experiences and things that I had dreamed about growing up, that I wouldn't have gotten if I had stayed here... I still don't know if it was the right choice to make, but it's the one I made regardless. I can't change that. I'm sorry."

Teddy did not say another word after that, waiting for her reaction, whether it be good or bad or somewhere between the two. He honestly did not know what to expect. He hadn't even expected himself to be so open and honest about all this with Claire. After all, he hadn't seen her in over twenty years and a lot had changed. He laid there with his eyes closed and looking his age for probably the first time in his entire life.

words, 1,226
tags, jana/claire
notes, rambly. >.< sorry.

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[Claire Pierce]

words: seven hundred ninety words tag: ted notes: c:

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Ted let her yell at him without replying - although that was possibly because she didn't give him much of an opportunity to respond and she had been told many times that she was a bit scary in these situations. He watched her with an attempted expression on his face of 'I'm sorry.' She just glared at him more when she noticed this, continuing to shout at him.

Finally, she quieted, crossing her arms and refusing to let her appearance or mood soften as he sat up, sighing as she noticed grey hairs seeping into his hair and the look on his face. He replied at last as he said, "You're right. You know that, I know that. You're Claire, you're always right. Twenty years ago, I was a dumb kid that even though I had a great family, still felt like I didn't quite belong in it. I just wanted to get away for a bit. So I left. I didn't tell you, or Sirius, or Albus or Lily because I didn't want to feel the pain of saying good bye. It was hard enough to tell Harry, Ginny and especially Torie that I was leaving for a bit. I never planned to be gone for so long..." She sighed, looking away from him for a moment. "But yet you never came back until now," she said, much quieter than she had been as she yelled at him, but it hadn't lost the angry tone. She carefully controlled it so that the sadness she felt wouldn't creep in, and so that he couldn't hear her other reaction to what he said.

"I didn't really think about any of that when I decided to come back. It just felt right. It hasn't until now. I stopped writing to Torie when she said she was pregnant. I couldn't stand that idea. I had not even considered being with someone else while I was gone until after that happened. It hurt too much to think about coming back and seeing her with someone else..." She was silent for a moment, thinking that they had both had to deal with people they cared about being with someone else. That wasn't something she was going to say to him. She simply nodded in understanding, because she did understand that, but she couldn't resist saying, "But what about the rest of us?" Then he said, "And I stopped writing to everyone else when the letters stopped coming to me. I figured why bother to write if no one was going to write back... And then I had my boys, and no one noticed until today that they were going to school here. I'm surprised it took you of all people this long to find out."

She looked at him a little sadly, a little angrily. "Ted... I stopped getting letters back from you. I kept sending you things for ages, you know. And Sirius and everyone had to hold me back from tracking you down for months and months," she told him. Then she thought about his sons, which was somehow strange to think about. Then again, it was weird to have him back and to talk to him at all. "Honestly, I'm horrified with myself for never finding out. I only found out about them because I was working on an assignment on school safety and I had a school roster... Anyways, I'm not too happy to just find out you have two sons I've never met or even heard of."

She sighed, looking across at him again. It was strange, seeing Teddy and talking to him for the first time in years. So much had changed, and neither of them knew what had happened with each other in all that time. "I didn't consider any one else when I left. I did what I thought I needed to do for myself... And it cost me a whole lot and I can't change that... But I also gained a lot of experiences and things that I had dreamed about growing up, that I wouldn't have gotten if I had stayed here... I still don't know if it was the right choice to make, but it's the one I made regardless. I can't change that. I'm sorry." She pursed her lips as he continued to speak, before finally saying in a bitter tone, "Well, that's many years too late, don't you think?" She stared across to where he had laid down, looking so tired and actually his age, which was also weird after so long. Claire watched him for a moment before a lapse in control caused her to say, at least very softly but with some anger and bitterness, "I missed you so much, Teddy."

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