CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND FIVE;

THE WEREWOLF AND HIS DAUGHTER.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

On their third morning in Shell Cottage, Cassie sat at the breakfast table, her head low whilst the others seated around the meal quietly updated each other on recent events; deaths, captures, et cetera. It was a glum conversation, and one that Cassie did not feel as though she had to participate in.

Bill and Harry were the main conversationalists, while Ron, Fleur, and Luna would occasionally chip in their two Sickles — Luna's, usually, were a bit less down-to-earth than the others. Atticus, Cassie, and Hermione sat in silence, none touching the croissants Fleur had made.

After almost a quarter of an hour of this, Atticus stood without a word, interrupting Bill's tangent on Gringotts' heightened security, and stalked up the stairs to his bedroom. A moment later, a door swung shut.

   The others took a brief pause of surprise, sharing befuddled glances between the lot of them, but Cassie merely kept her head down, now picking apart small pieces of her bread.

   The conversation did not pick up afterwards, and the group sat in silence for a while longer. Cassie had just made the decision to stand and head back to her bedroom when a loud knock came from the front door. Bill, Harry, Ron, Fleur, and Hermione all stood, Cassie having already drawn her wand.

"Who is it?" Bill called, his pale fingers reaching across the table for his wand; Fleur handed it to him without a word, pulling from her flowery gown a wand of her own.

The voice from the door spoke: "It is I, Remus John Lupin!"

Cassie's wand arm was suddenly slack against her chest. She could feel Harry's eyes dart to her, but she herself felt as if she could do nothing beyond just stand there, paralyzed.

"I am a werewolf, godfather to Cassiopeia Black, married to Nymphadora Tonks, and you, the Secret-Keeper of Shell Cottage, told me the address and bade me come in an emergency!"

"It's him," Bill confirmed quietly, nodding to Cassie as if for either permission or forgiveness as he made toward the door; he wrenched it open and Remus spilled over the threshold.

The werewolf was white-faced and wrapped in a traveling cloak, his peppered hair windswept. His eyes landed swiftly on Harry, then moved to Bill.

"It's a boy!" Remus announced. "We've named him Ted, after Dora's father."

   "Congratulations!" rang out through the small kitchen; Fleur and Hermione gasped; Ron clapped, a grin shadowing his lips; Cassie watched as even Harry's face morphed into a sort of shocked smile.

   "Brilliant!" he said, though the smile melted from his face as he turned back to Cassie to see her stoney expression.

"You've had the baby?" she asked Remus quietly, and his eyes moved to her for the first time since he had arrived.

The silence in the kitchen of Shell Cottage was only describable as deafening as Remus and Cassie stared at each other, both wordlessly taking in the other; everybody else watched, none daring to make a move.

"Cassie," Remus said finally, and stared at her with such grief-stricken shock that Cassie nearly burst into tears on the spot.

She didn't, though, and forced herself to remain emotionless as she said, "Hi, Remus."

"We'll just—" said Bill, and he and Fleur shuffled the rest of the inhabitants out of the kitchen, all sparing one last glance over their shoulders as they left. Harry, however, lingered behind for a moment, staying where he was even when Remus waved him off; Harry's eyes were on Cassie for permission.

"Go," she told him, though her voice came out almost inaudible.

Harry nodded, ducking out of the kitchen, leaving the werewolf and his goddaughter alone for the first time in Merlin knew how long.

"Cassie," Remus said again, quieter this time.

"Remus," Cassie said; even still, her face stayed impassive. "Tonks had the baby?"

He gave a faint jerk of his head in confirmation. "Teddy," he said. "It's what he'll go by."

   Cassie nodded her head, her gaze trailing away as the conversation moved to a pause. She had not expected to reunite with Remus so soon, and, in turn, did not have any time to prepare a speech of emotions or such. She didn't even know how she truly felt towards him — she had been the one that left, so should she be the one to apologize?

   "You look different," Remus said, fiddling with his traveling cloak in front of himself. "Older."

   "I grew up a bit," she replied dryly. "Been through a lot in the past year or so, you know?"

   He fell silent, clearly unable to articulate a reply that fully encapsulated what he was truly thinking. Cassie shut her eyes, drew in a short breath, and licked her lips to relieve them of the dryness that had come when she first saw Remus.

"I'm not going to pretend like it didn't happen," she said, swallowing her pride. "Our argument, I mean. It happened, and I regretted every word I said to you, but I never got the chance to apologize. So, here it is: I'm bloody sorry. So, so sorry. Irrevocably. A 'piss-on-my-own-trousers, kick-myself-in-the-shins' kind of sorry."

And when she finished, there it was, on his face; the look Cassie had seen an infinite amount of times whilst being raised by Remus Lupin — The Dad Look, she had so appropriately dubbed it when she was young. It was the same every time: His lips pressed in a thin line — of either disappointment or something else that was unreadable — his eyebrows creased at the center, his eyes soft. The expression felt nostalgic; like a scab on her knee being healed by a trickle of pink light from Remus's wand, or a walk to the Muggle ice cream shop and asking her father for a big cone with two scoops of strawberry.

And Remus had made her teary-eyed without even saying a single word.

It started with the area behind her nose and cheeks stinging, like it always did, and then it moved to her eyes, and they grew glossy, and then the corners of her lips were drawn down into a frown.

She sniffed.

His eyebrows softened, and he opened his arms. Without a word, Cassie spilled into them, the tears pouring so quickly and so plentifully that she was afraid she would drown Remus just with her crying.

The tears came all at once and much too fast — she could not even discern, through the somatic blur of her otherwise mental grief, what she was crying over. Perhaps, she thought, she could have been crying over Atticus, who had been through too much for such a young, sanguine boy. Maybe Cassie could weep for Luna, or Harry; Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Cedric—

   No. She was crying for herself.

   The force of everything that had happened to her over the last six years hit her like colliding with the sealed brick wall of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters; all at once and much too painful of an impact. She heaved into Remus's chest, gasping for air, unable to register the hands combing through her hair or the consoling whispers from her father. She hiccuped, wiping at her eyes.

   "I'm s-so sorry," she whimpered, her voice escaping through the cracks of her weeps, her fists balling up the back of Remus's cardigan with the tenacity of a guilt-ridden young witch. "I missed you, s-so much."

   Between the nostalgic solace of his comforting whispers, he stroked her hair murmured "It's alright," repeating the words softly into her ear slowly. "It's okay, love. Deep breaths."

   "I don't w— I can't d-do it anymore," she cried, her raspy voice breaking multiple times within. "I w-want it to be over."

   "It will be, soon," he promised her softly, pressing a kiss to her temple. "And when it is over, you and I are going to go out to that ice cream shop near our old home, and I'll buy you another cone with two scoops of strawberry on it. Yeah?"

   She wept into his chest harder, unaware of everything around her aside from her father's gentle words, his kiss on her forehead, and the shakiness of her own breaths.

After a while, she felt the beginnings of the post-crying fit headache creeping into the back of her mind. She had not uttered another word, yet her throat still scratched when she cleared it and slowly moved away from Remus's chest. Her cheeks, she could feel, were stained with tear tracks. She could only imagine how blotchy her face had grown.

   "Thank you," she said, her voice nearly inaudible to even herself.

   She caught the corners of his lips attempting to turn up in a faint smile, but he suppressed it. "I'll always be here, yeah?" He wiped the last tear from her cheek, a look of thoughtfulness in his eyes. "You'll be okay."

   Cassie nodded, lowering her head and digging her her palms into her eyes. "I will."

   Remus gave her another quick forehead kiss. "I've actually.. well, I've been meaning to ask.." He rubbed his forehead, letting out a light chuckle. "What I mean to say is — and you can say no, of course — will you be Teddy's... Teddy's godmother? I know, it's probably a bit strange, seeing as you're my goddaughter, so I get it, if you want to say n—"

   "Are you mental?" she asked, exhaling a short, airy laugh. "Bloody hell, of course I'll be the godmother!"

   He nodded, now beaming. "Good, good. Thank you, Cass, really."

   She smiled, unable to keep it at bay any longer. "I love you," she murmured, "by the way. And I will never, ever, leave you like that again."

   "Nor I to you," he hummed in agreement, swiping her nose with his index finger.

    The pair hugged, and for the first time in a very, very long time, Cassie finally felt safe.

:')