The Summer Before

As Remus was trying to explain the past to Harry, on another continent a young looking woman stood watching the sun rise from an open window in a well kept white house on a very quiet street. The sun’s light glowed in her icy green eyes and bounced off her fiery hair. She shivered slightly in the predawn air, her simple white night gown offering little protection from the chill. She stood still, not moving to find her robe, but watching intently as the sun rose.

“Larentia le Fae Dorrington, get away from that window this instant!” Her grandmother’s voice broke the silence of the morning and sighing, she turned to face the strongest person she knew.

“Grams, a little chill will not kill me. I’ve been through far worse, after all,” the young woman, Tia, offered. She moved toward her grandmother anyway, and didn’t resist as she was rustled into a warm terry cloth robe.

“I’m not worried, I just, well you don’t need a cold now is all,” Grams stumbled, still not sure of how to address her granddaughter’s “condition”. She reached under the neck of Tia’s robe and pulled her loose braid out. “You’ve been gone so long already.”

Tia knew that her sleep was difficult for the people who loved her. She had missed so much, and had awaken into a world very different than the one she’d left behind and very similar as well. She moved to the small table set up away from the window and noticed that Grams had had one of the house-elves bring up tea and toast. Setting down, she found herself wondering yet again, what the man she’d loved was doing at this moment. As she added strawberry preserves to her toast, and sweetened her tea, Grams settled in on the other side of the table.

Clearing her throat, Grams feigned casualness as she said, “I heard from Remus last night.”

The piece of toast dropped silently to her plate and was forgotten. Her breath caught and she waited, hoping her grandmother had news, more to tell her about Remus and his life as it was today.

“He received your letter. It came as quite a shock, and he wondered why I didn’t let him know you’d woken, or that we’d found someone who could help you.” She sipped her tea, letting Tia, think about Remus and his worry.

Tia sat for a few moments upset that she’d worried Remus more than necessary. She sighed and her eyes burned with tears. Remus, out of all of her friends, he was the person she most worried about. He needed the stress of her “condition” even less than everyone else. He had his own condition to worry with after all. Her hands fell to her lap and she studied her grandmother waiting for her to continue.

"It's not been easy on him, these years that you've been," Grams stopped, searching for an appropriate word for Tia's condition. "Indisposed. The world hasn't been any more agreeable toward people with his problem and add to that the loss of his dearest friends. Tia, I'm not certain if Remus is really ready for you to be awake. I'm not sure he'll ever be ready."

Taking a deep breath, Tia nodded at Grams, understanding how her awakened state, especially now, could be an added burden on a man who needed no further hardships. She wondered how he looked. Had he aged well or had his scars only deepened with the lines of age? It was hard enough imagining Sirius, had he still been alive, growing older, but Remus? Dear, sweet Remus.

"Should I have not written him, Grams? Should I have let him found out about me only when or if Harry agreed to meet me? Would that have been better?" Tia implored, hoping that she hadn't been horribly wrong in writing to her old friend.

Grams smiled sadly. "I don't think it was wrong of you to reach out to the one thread left of the life you left. I just think that perhaps I should have given him some sort of sign that we had this new hope." She reached out and took her granddaughter's pale, cool hand. "I know you miss them, all of them. I know that Remus is the last link to the life you left. You just have to prepare yourself for the fact that he wasn't frozen in time as you were."

Tia squeezed Gram's hand. She smiled back, with tears glistening in her eyes. And for the first time, she wondered if waking up was really in everyone's best interest.