"Hello."

He had a pleasant voice, light and soft. Tall, too, but lean. His frame took up less than half of the doorway, and she could tell that even beneath his small, patched robes, there was he still was not quite filling them out. This couldn't be any of them.

"I'm sorry." She ducked her head, as if trying to apologize, and began to back away. Everyone simply stared.

"Wait—"

The man took a few halting steps forward, then took a quick step backward, unsure of whether or not this was the correct. She waited, frozen in her retreating position.

"I just… I… Lily. You're Lily. Right?"

"Yes," she said, but nearly as strong and sure as she would have liked.

He paused, looking almost tired from this effort as he leaned against the doorframe, his thin arm gently propped above his head.

"Lily…" A slight smile appeared on his face, but the overall impression was not joy. It was ironic, weary defeat. She wondered what it was that inspired this portrait, this man slumped against a foreign room, who had watched the world fell apart and was seeing it tremble and attempt to fall back together again. It was a picture of failure and of misery and of reminiscence.

The ironic, small pull of the lips came again. "Lily."

"Yes."

He detached himself from his aid, righting himself once more.

"Well. Won't you step in?"

He gestured finely with the manners of a gentleman. The irony and the downright bitterness did not suit him well, she decided.

"I most certainly will."

And she did.

"Nice place." She nodded at the guest room, and he gave an appreciating laugh.

"As you can see, I've done my best to make it my own."

The room was completely empty, bare of any furnishings apart from a bed and a mirror. On second look, Lily noticed small cupboard and kitchenette tucked neatly into a corner. The walls were bland beige, and even the headboard was a nondescript design. Really, couldn't Dumbledore make something a little better than this?

"So." He sat down on the bed, hardly making an indent on the covers.

"Just wanted to see what was going on. See what all the fuss was about." Lily immediately felt defensive in front of this man who had nothing but a soft smile on his haggard face. God, she was a horrible person.

"I completely understand."

"So…" She sat down on the other side of the bed, at first attempting to stray away from his gaze but eventually giving in. "Is it true?"

"What?"

"The rumors."

"Well, if it's the one about the Giant Squid having a wife and two children, then it most certainly is." He grinned, and although the creases around his eyes were accentuated, he suddenly grew years younger.

"You know what I mean!" And then, suddenly, there he was.

Remus Lupin, sitting in front of her, finally grown into his gawky height, completely grey-haired and still smiling and laughing like that sweet teenage boy. That Remus Lupin.

"No," she whispered.

"What?" He smiled again, unaware of what on earth she was talking about.

"Remus?"

His smile faded, and he was once again the old man who had answered the door. Everything in his entire body collapsed, from his shoulders to his spine, and his briefly animated eyes now turned a dull grey.

"How quickly you guess…" He gave a mirthless chuckle.

Lily paused for a moment, confused. She usually read people in the blink of an eye, found their motives and their insecurities in this cryptic language. But Remus—if she could even call him Remus— was different.

"I'm not sure I understand," she said slowly, trying to glean anything from his face. But all signs of bitterness were washed away with an erudite aura, leaving his statement lost in the past.

"Just an old man's recollections. Now I suppose you'd like something to drink then… would tea suffice?"

"Tea is fine."

She watched as he made himself busy, collecting cups and spoons for them. Such niceties suddenly threw her back to her own home, back to her mother's gentle stirring and the quiet clink of cup against plate. And for a brief moment, she remembered how much she missed it.

"Here."

Remus handed her a steaming cup with a steady hand, and she accepted it gratefully.

"So. Were you looking for James?"

When her head shot up, his gaze had not wavered from her face.

"I'm sorry. Did I…?"

"No. It's fine." She even stumbled through a polite laugh. "I wasn't, though. You know. Searching for him. I just wanted to see if… if the rumors were true." And she couldn't continue looking him in the eyes. Of course he knew. Out of anyone, anyone in the world, it would be Remus who would know she had wanted James.

"Ahh, yes. I see." Even the tone of his voice indicated his knowledge, that clipped, disappointed sound of someone who knew they'd been lied to.

His spoon swayed through the brown liquid, and he took a quiet sip.

"So have the rumors been disappointing?" He shook his head, immediately regretting the choice of words. "No… no, not disappointing…"

He looked up at her, fear in his eyes.

"No. So far, all the students have been talking about how all of you are old. So accurate is a more correct description, I suppose." She smiled, attempting to get a laugh from him.

The resulting laugh seemed more strained than anything else. "Old, eh?" He laughed again, quietly this time, and looked down at his tea. He was focused intently, staring into the dark liquid as if trying to make out his reflection. He finally gave up and set the saucer down on the cold countertop.

"So."

Well. After all this, she didn't know what to say. What had she been expecting? Something, obviously. An answer? Hmm. An answer to what would be the next appropriate question, and she didn't have an answer to that one, either. So she just sat on the bed, waiting for something that wasn't planning on coming.

Remus apparently thought the same, because he quickly got up to clean up his things. It was a futile attempt to make things less awkward, but Lily didn't mind. She'd rather he take up the burden than she.

He stood, wiping off his thin hands with a towel, and when Lily finally had the courage to look him in the face, there was a concerned, almost fatherly expression on his tired visage.

"Lily, are you all right?"

"Yeah, I…"

Then out of her erupted a stampede of words, flailing and falling as she desperately scrambled to put them into understandable order, nonetheless stop them.

"Look, I don't know what to do, my entire life I've absolutely hated James, and now I suddenly want to start searching for him on my own free will, and I hate the way he smirks at me and calls me Evans and I just want to smack him and I say I hate it, but then sometimes I think I don't, that it's more habit because I've kept saying these things over and over but I don't know if that's really the way I feel anymore, but he's awful, and he's mean and I don't want to like him but I'm so afraid I do."

She knew what she had said was not eloquent in the least. Normally, she would have felt slightly ashamed of having been so straightforward, but when Remus's bright grey eyes bored into hers, almost speaking his understanding, she suddenly didn't. As a matter of fact, she was glad she'd done what she did.

And Remus almost gave a little smile.

"Would you like to take a walk?" he asked.

"Yes, I think I'd like that."