Holding My Tongue

The Full Truth

Goblet of Fire

Remus Lupin apparated onto the doorstep of number seven Private drive and looked around the street.

Down the road at number four Harry's uncle was backing his car out of the drive. Harry would be arriving there in no less than a week.

Remus knocked on the door an odd mixture of apprehension and excitement filling him. It had been years since he had seen Elizabeth yet he was afraid of why his friend had never let him know she was alive.

"Remus!" Elizabeth said as she opened the door and Remus' first thought was that she looked older. Her hair had no grey hairs but Remus suspected that was due to the ample amount of purple streaks amongst the black. Her face was however virtually unlined, except for lines caused by weariness.

Remus felt a little tug of sadness. None of them had the smile and laugh lines they had expected to have when they were older. The only lines they had were from sorrow and anxiety.

"Little Mother." Remus replied after a long moment of taking in her appearance. "How are you?"

"Better than I have been in a while actually." Elizabeth said with a smile ushering him into the house.

The house was what Remus would have expected from her. Many of the walls were white and photos hung everywhere. Remus noticed with a smile how many photos of their school days Elizabeth had saved. It was nice to have moments of the happier days frozen and saved to be treasured.

Elizabeth showed Remus into the living room which had dark purple walls, highlighted with white furnishings.

In this room most of the photos were of Andee. She smiled from every wall, alone, with Elizabeth, with others in Hogwarts uniform.

"How have you been?" Remus asked not sure how to talk to her anymore; once upon a time she had been the little sister he had never had, now she was an unknown.

"Oh I've been, I've been alright I guess." Elizabeth said evasively.

"Translation?" Remus asked grinning in the memory of the long forgotten joke. Elizabeth would often try to explain to the Marauders what girls thought about and James and Sirius had afterward made a joke of anytime a girl spoke turning to Elizabeth and saying 'translation?'

"I have been absolutely shit." Elizabeth said returning the grin. "Raising a daughter without her father who you know is suffering in prison, while mentally and emotionally recovering from your brother and sister's deaths, while trying to pretend you don't exist and fighting death eaters away from your nephew is harder than it was put out to be."

Remus snorted. Elizabeth hadn't changed.

"Oh come on, you're exaggerating the difficulty surely." He teased with a grin. Elizabeth laughed loudly and Remus noticed with a little relief that the sound was practiced. He had worried that Elizabeth might have become depressed and sad after her brother's death and all the other horrible things that had happened in sequence to her.

Apparently it hadn't ruined her sense of humour.

"I guess I am exaggerating, thank you Remus for telling me that. I'm sure you can think of many, many people who were worse off from the downfall of Voldemort."

Remus flinched and passed it off as a dislike of hearing the name 'Voldemort' spoken aloud. However Remus had no problem with using Voldemort's name, it was the bitter, matter of fact tone Elizabeth used that made him flinch.

Remus continued to listen to Elizabeth in worried silence. She wasn't happy. She loved Andee and when her daughter was home for the summer it seemed Elizabeth's depression would regress but when her daughter went away…