CHAPTER TWO
same old mistakes

𖦹 ⋆｡˚⋆ฺ ⋆｡˚⋆ฺ˚⋆˚ 𖦹

THE SONG OF THE SEA HARPS through the silent twilight, a tidal symphony to breach the all consuming silence. It's a cold night, the kind that prickles the flesh with goosebumps and clears the sky of clouds, making way for the glare of the gibbous moon to reflect on the cloudy waves. Cove can hear the distant bellowing of her kindred seals who are hunting into the night, masked only by the howling wind and cawing of intrepid seabirds. It makes her human form feel all constricting and uncomfortable, her heartstrings flip flopping in her chest with the desire to dawn her sealskin and join them in their ventures.

Unfortunately, she doesn't have the energy to drag herself out of bed, nor the strength to transform for the second time in one day. Cove also knows how mopey Remus gets if she's not there in the morning, even if he'll never admit it out loud. For now, she's fine to just leave them to their fun, content to listen in as their conversation carries on the whispering North wind.

   Besides, a gale is brewing — she can feel it in her bones, taste it at the back of her throat. The smell of a storm is thickening in the glacial air and the squall's energy has been thrumming in her necklace for days, the seashell growing hot to the touch. Her colony will have to haul put on the nearby beach to shelter from the worst of it, and maybe then she'll be able to wrangle her family into coming over for tea one day.

But, no, she won't join them tonight. Cove settles for watching out the window, curled on her side with her face smushed against the soft cotton of her pillowcase. Sleep evades her as it so often does, skirting around the edges of her vision in bleary spots that make her teeth grit in frustration.

   As she grows restless, she rolls onto her back to look at the shadows that stretch across the blank slate of her bedroom ceiling — tendrils of gossamer darkness that spiral with mystery. The jagged teeth of a tree branch outside, the magnified twitching of a spider that has come in from the cold. She watches the shapes that are only destined to fade, tracing their movements with the sinking realisation that they'll be gone for good when she wakes up to greet the rising sun.

   It's gotten to that time of night where everything assaults her with a bittersweet aftertaste, squeezing her heart until all she feels is an all consuming sorrow. She really needs to go to sleep...

Cove nuzzles under the duvet as a chill sweeps through the room. Tonight's insomnia began when she had been woken up by a reoccurring nightmare that's been haunting her for almost two years — one where she's lost to a storm, taken between a familiar selkie's teeth and dragged down to her demise at the sea floor. The seal changes every night, fluctuating between Cordelia, Finlay and, more often than not, one of her grandparents. Her mother too. Sometimes it's even herself: a haunting mirror image that keeps her awake until the morning chorus jolts her from her fears.

Thinking about it makes her shiver. When she jostles to shrink in on herself, Cove winds up back on her side, this time facing Remus. He's lost in the contentment of sleep, his face perfectly still and relaxed in a way that she hardly ever sees when he's awake. She takes in the flutter of his lashes against his scarred cheekbone, stifling a smile at the way his nose twitches while he quietly snores.

   Remus begins to stir next to her and she feels a pang of guilt for disturbing him as his eyes flutter open, squinting against the moonlight. He reaches out to her instinctively, his fingertips sinking into her shoulder to pull her closer. She allows herself to be tucked under his chin and immediately hones in on his thrumming pulse, anchoring herself through the thunderous ballad of his heartbeat in the hopes that it'll soothe the turbulence within her mind.

"What time is it?" he rasps, his voice hoarse from sleep and his face still slumped into his pillow.

   "Quarter to four," Cove replies meekly.

   He hums in concern. "What's got you up?"

"Nothing," she murmurs. "Go back to sleep, sweetheart."

His eye crooks open, a silver of his tawny iris poking out to dance across the shadowed planes of her face. "Was it another nightmare?"

  She sighs, managing a half-smile. "You know me too well."

Remus makes a noise of protest. "Then talk to me about it," he insists. He peels both eyes fully open to peer down at her. "Maybe if you get it off your chest, you'll be able to fall asleep faster."

"Maybe," she mumbles, tracing nonsensical patterns on the inside of his forearm.

He yawns. "Go on, I'm all ears."

   She hesitates. The words form at the back of her throat but she chokes on them as if they're no more than bile, the sentences feeling raggedy and wrong along the underside of her canines. She only knows how to describe the jabbing sensation in her soul through Gaelic, the words becoming lost in translation as she thinks hard for another explanation. And yet, it won't come out right in English; her secondary language that's been tailored in a different cloth, all the anglicised terminology a stark contrast to her mother tongue.

Cove's head throbs, her nose twitching. "There's a storm coming."

"I know. The forecasts have been mental."

"No, It's more than that," she says, pointing a finger to her abdomen. "I have a bad feeling here, entangled in my ribs." Her face scrunches as she grapples to find the right words. "Like... like I've taken a harpoon to the gut and I can't unstick the blade."

Remus' eyes peel open. "What?"

"Don't give me that look," Cove replies sheepishly. "I don't know how to describe the feeling in a way that'll make sense to you. It's almost— well, it's a premonition, I suppose. One that I don't completely understand."

   He jostles about to flick a lamp on, propping himself up on his elbows. He sits back against the headboard and she slumps into his side limply, her knotted hair spilling across his lap as her cheek presses up against his ribcage. Out of habit, Remus begins to untangle the knots, watching attentively as her curls traverse over his knuckles like the flailing marram grass outside.

"You got a P in Divination. How have you become a seer all of a sudden?"

She whacks his shoulder softly. "This isn't human magic I'm talking about," Cove replies. "It's something more ancient than that."

Remus frowns. "Selkie magic?" At her affirming nod, he draws back to look down at her. "Sorry, you've lost me there. I wonder... D'you think your Nan would know anything about this, er, feeling?"

Cove hums noncommittally. "I hope so. I'm sure I'll get the chance to ask her soon." She pauses, a thought popping into her head. "You know, I was thinkin' about having her and my Granda up for tea one night, when the colony hauls out to avoid the gale. Maybe Cordy and Finlay, as well."

"Oh, good Gwydion," he murmurs anxiously, the heel of his palm pressed to his brow. "Do I have to be here for that?"

Her eyebrows furrow. "Aye, well, I'd appreciate the support."

"It's always so awkward," he protests weakly. "They don't like me, Cove, and they don't try to hide it."

"They do like you!" she insists. "They've just got... unconventional ways of showing it."

He raises an eyebrow. "I hear the way you lot speak about me in Gaelic," Remus says. "Tone is a universally spoken language, you know."

"We don't talk about you in Gaelic," Cove reassures, stroking his hair away from his face. "Not when you're there, anyways," she mumbles as an afterthought.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

   Remus watches her for a minute. He takes in the pleading expression she wears and feels his heart begin to thaw, the fresh droplets of meltwater swallowing his doubts. He mulls it over in his head as he relieves every painstakingly awful dinner he's had to sit through with her grandparents, his head lolling back against the headboard in thought.

   "I'll be there," he murmurs at long last.

   Cove manages a tired smile, squeezing his wrist in gentle gratitude. "You're the best," she says genuinely.

   "I know, I know," he groans. "But we boot them out the door as soon as possible, yeah?"

   "Oh, Rem, that's not fair."

   "I'm sorry, love, but I prefer not to be judged in my own home."

   "Nobody's judging you here," she reassures. "They just worry for good reason."

    "Well—" he trails off suddenly. He squints, his focus zoning over her shoulder. "What is that?"

Cove frowns. "Hm?"

When she angles her head, a sudden shimmer of blue light surges from the darkness behind her, her ears ringing from the shrill whistling of wind as it rushes through the keyhole on the window lock. Cove jolts upright and untangles her limbs from Remus', her head whipping around at an ungodly speed.

   She's about to reach for her wand when she realises that none other than a translucent honey badger has bounded through their window, blue and spectral like a will o' the wisp. It rapidly circles the room a few times before settling at the foot of their bed, training a pair of beady little eyes on the two of them. She shares a puzzled side glance with Remus, holding the duvet to her chest as the wintry chill bites through her pyjama shirt.

"Urgent Order meeting," it says in a gruff voice, lilted by a low Dubliner drawl. It takes Cove a minute to recognise it as Alastor Moody's. "Meet at the Potter Manor as soon as possible. This is not a drill. Ensure you're not followed."

The patronus disappears into thin air, the only trace that it was ever there being the rapidly fading cerulean glow that retracts along their seafoam blue wallpaper.

Cove shares another worried glance with her boyfriend. He runs a hand over his face to sweeps the sleep from his eyes and she flops back against the headboard, looking to the crashing waves outside for answers. Remus eloquently voices what they're both thinking with a whispered:

"What the fuck?"

author's note!

verryyyy short one for tonight but i'm so eepy and writers block is battering me about, so i hope this was alright  (˶ˆᗜˆ˵) have some more domestic moonywaves for your troubles

side note - alastor moody having a honey badger as his patronus just makes sense to me ( i ❤️ brendan gleeson )

please remember to vote and comment if you enjoyed this chapter, all of your feedback is so appreciated ily ! ! !