Settling In

[onewizardwolfpack]

The house had clearly been lived in, and lived in well. Remus wondered by whom.

It had a porch, a proper one, that wrapped around its face to one side. It was elevated on posts that lattice work, some kind of woven plant fiber, that must have taken ages to make but hadn't been much maintained, going between them. It didn't look like the other huts on the island, or the houses he'd seen that people referred to as the estates. He supposed someone had built it themselves, over some time. It looked as though it had once been the one room, and the others had been added after. He didn't really need more than the one, but he wouldn't complain.

There were scratches in the wood floor, from the claws of some kind of canine. Multiple canines, it looked like. One or more extremely large ones, at that, and he wondered if that boded well or not. He would lean toward not.

Still, it was a place, away from all the people that filled up the compound, no neighbors particularly close by. It was nice than the flat he'd left behind, that was for damn sure.

Even if it didn't have any furniture.

He'd taken a few hours to sweep it out, even taking the broom to the corners and ceiling, which was all open space and thick beams. It was a bit miserable without any magic to take care of short cuts, but there was something nice about doing something so simple that nonetheless took up all of his thoughts. He used a wet towel to go over the floors and the windows and in the end, it was clean. He dropped the filthy towel into the emptied bucket the'd been using for the water, and leaned against the rail of the porch, to look out on what was, now, his view. It basically looked like the rest of the island, a lot of dark earth and heavy green jungle foliage. It was quiet, though, and he could appreciate that. He didn't straighten when he noticed the wolf mostly hidden in the thick ferns, though he was surprised it was there. Maybe it had been the one that had left the scars in the wood. Perhaps it was about to express its displeasure at Remus moving in, and he considered that this would be problematic, as all he had was a broom and a bucket to dissuade it from doing so, but after a moment it turn and ran, and only then did Remus realize the sheer size of it.

Bloody hell.

He turned back into the hut- the house, he supposed, really- and took mental stock. He needed a bed, some kind of dresser. Some clothing to put in said dresser. It was a strange feeling, moving in. He wasn't sure how he felt about it.

He wasn't sure how he felt about the island in general. All he really knew was, he had a week until he saw with his own eyes whether or not the curse had followed him there.

Comments

[cleverness]

Life on the island wasn't something that Hermione would have wished on all of the people that she knew. It made some people feel trapped. It made other people feel powerless. And whether it was sympathy or empathy which colored Hermione's own emotions, she felt that she could understand every one of the many complaints that people made about Tabula Rasa. There was no question of where she wanted to be in the long run, or even of which place she would choose if given that chance— she wanted to return home. But it was one thing to look forward to shaping a new future, and another entirely to know that circumventing it was for the best.

Sirius' presence on the island had long since been, by Hermione's estimation, the latter. Granted, she didn't know what came after death. But at least for these formative years, Sirius could largely relax more than he'd ever had the chance to back home.

Remus Lupin seemed to be even less of a question. Perhaps it was because she knew that he'd had the capacity for starting a family. Somehow, he'd managed to work past the trauma, past all the adversity, found a loving wife, had a son. And it was all ripped away by, what? The inevitability of war? The unfairness of chance? Hermione didn't want to speak for Remus, of course, or be overbearing when she was certain that others would already fill that role. But she did deeply hope to somehow make his time on the island better. With a deep breath, she passed by a few direwolves on the way to Remus' hut, armed with a large basket of pastries from the bakery, even pain au chocolat baked with milk chocolate that Walter Bishop had helped her make. Glancing over her shoulder and wishing one more time that she'd brought any of the others with her, Hermione took a deep breath and knocked on the front door.

"Hello? Erm... excuse me, is this the residence of one Remus Lupin?"