The Godmother

43. here is no why

"We're sort of weaning off of that, Moons", Elizabeth said, quietly. She felt guilty as he looked at her with his head cocked sideways.

"You're a fighter, Liz. You used to run Order meetings", Remus said plainly.

Elizabeth drew in a deep breath. Because maybe Remus was right. Maybe it was time to move on from the past and go back to life again, whatever that was. After fighting for years for Sirius' freedom, isn't that what they wanted to do? Return to normal, whatever that may be?

She looked at Sirius. He shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't see why not", he said. "We've been couped up in this house for months. Maybe we should go", he said.

Elizabeth looked back at Remus.

"Yeah, why not", she offered.

Remus stood up. "I'm glad. You two... You two just don't go out that much anymore", he admitted.

"Well, considering Sirius was an escaped criminal in the eyes of the law-", Elizabeth began.

"Not like that", he said, pausing. "I mean, I was bad at it, I admit. But I always was... And... You guys used to lead the Order sometimes and you were battle co-ordinators and you'd do whatever it took to bring down Voldemort. And now it just feels like after such a long battle to come this far you've... given up", he said.

Elizabeth felt guilty. She could see where he was coming from. They used to be social and open, but ever since Lily and James died, and Sirius had been freed, they were quiet and secretive. But with reason. After Sirius' public trial and the child, all that they wanted was peace. Some form of quiet after a 15-year storm. But would six months be enough? Would six months be what mended all the holes and filled in all the patches?

Remus left a few minutes later, going to Sirius' shed and apparating. He often used the forest around the gap of the forest of Elizabeth and Sirius' home to turn on full moons. It gave him enough space to run around, and he often searched the area in the night to find any sort of sources of communication or creatures in ally to Voldemort. And when things turned bad, he would go back to the house.

Not long after Remus left, so did Sirius.

He'd go into the shed and spend dusk till dawn in the confines of its walls. She didn't know what he did. She felt that it was his space and that she should enter. She tried her best to stay away, but sometimes when he didn't come in for lunch and even dinner, she got worried.

She knew that their relationship had fractured into tiny little splinters ever since she had the child, she just didn't know how to pick up the pieces and mould them back together again.

She was at a loss.

She didn't have any friends to guide her, they were all dead. She would have turned to Lily, or Marlene or even Alice. But they were all gone. She felt awkward talking to Remus; he was her best friend, but she felt that some subjects were a bit too much to talk to him about.

Every morning when Sirius left for the shed, she was afraid that he wouldn't return. A gut feeling set inside of her stomach told her that she wasn't going to see him again.

She didn't know how to be social anymore. The thought of attending an Order meeting scared her. What would they say? How would they react? In their minds, she was a walking cloud of dark magic, and being around her for too long would infect them.

The doctors said it was a living miracle that the darkness had somehow gone away when she gave birth, confirming that the child had indeed absorbed most of it in the womb, and was why it died as soon as it tasted the hospital air. She didn't know what had happened to it. She heard the words 'burn' before she passed out from shock and pain. And after a few days in the hospital, they check her charts again, and the dark magic was mostly gone.