The world had not ended, but it had been scoured raw. Remus felt it in the ache of his bones, a deeper pain than the one the moon left behind. It was a late-spring afternoon at Grimmauld Place, the dust motes dancing in the slants of light that dared to pierce the grimy windows. The house, for so long a tomb, was trying to remember how to breathe. He could hear the soft, domestic sounds of you in the kitchen below, the chime of a cup, the gentle rush of water. Each sound was a small defiance against the silence that had threatened to swallow them all.

He found you standing at the sink, your back to him, shoulders set with a familiar Black stubbornness that was so like Sirius’s it could steal his breath. But where Sirius’s had been a challenge, yours was a quiet endurance. You were scrubbing a stubborn spot of what looked like ancient owl droppings from a porcelain teapot shaped like a grumpy gnome. The sleeves of your jumper were pushed up to your elbows, revealing the faint, silvery lines of a curse scar that tracked from your wrist to your inner elbow. He knew its twin was on his own ribs, a souvenir from Dolohov. War wounds. They were all covered in them.

“Kreacher would have a fit if he saw you doing that,” Remus said, his voice a little rough from disuse. He leaned against the doorframe, the wood cool against his shoulder.

You glanced over your shoulder, a wry smile touching your lips. “Kreacher is too busy polishing Regulus’s old locket and muttering about blood traitors to care about the state of the tea service. Besides, I think it’s therapeutic. Getting the grime out.”

He moved further into the room, the floorboards creaking their familiar complaints. The air smelled of lemon-scented cleaning charms and the damp, earthy scent of the garden coming in through the open window. He watched the way your hands worked, capable and sure, the way a strand of dark hair had escaped its tie and curled against your neck. He had a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to reach out and tuck it back.

“Here,” he said instead, his voice soft. “Let me.”

You stepped aside without a word, drying your hands on a rag. He took your place at the sink, his own, larger hands enveloping the gnome teapot. The water was hot, almost scalding. Good. It felt real. He focused on the task, on the way the soap suds slid over the porcelain, on the gradual surrender of the stain. It was easier than focusing on the proximity of you, on the way your presence filled the cavernous kitchen, making it feel less like a museum of sorrows.

He was intensely aware of you leaning against the counter beside him, watching. He could feel your gaze on his profile, on the new scar that bisected his temple, a gift from Greyback. He felt old. Thirty-one felt like a hundred.

“You’re quiet today, Moony,” you said. The old nickname, from the Map, from the times tucked away in the Shrieking Shack, from the whispered conversations when the world was simpler. It sounded different on your tongue now. Softer. A secret just for the two of them.

“Just thinking,” he murmured, rinsing the teapot until it shone. He set it on the draining board with a soft clink.

“About him?”

“Always.” The word hung in the air between them, a shared, bittersweet weight. Sirius was the ghost in every room, the third presence in every silence. His absence was a physical thing, a hollowed-out space in Remus’s chest. But in this house, with you, the grief was different. It was no longer a solitary, howling thing. It was something they carried together.

He turned, bracing his hands on the counter behind him, and finally looked at you properly. The late afternoon light caught the grey in your eyes, the same stormy grey as your brother’s, but where Sirius’s had been all fire and fury, yours were calm, deep pools.

“He’d hate this, you know,” Remus said, a faint, sad smile touching his lips. “The two of us, moping around his mother’s house, cleaning. He’d call us a pair of old maids. Or something far less polite.”