I own nothing. I have thirty dollars and a half-full bottle of Tanquerays to my name, and you sure as hell aren't getting that. My little brother is rich though, I give you permission to find him and beat him with a crowbar to get his money. The poem is 'Sometime's The Sky's Too Bright' by Dylan Thomas, and it's a great poem.
I never got the whole wizarding thing, to be perfectly honest. I mean, it was sort of handy and all to be able to do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, for free and totally at your convenience, but at the same time there's a lot of ingenuity and intrigue in muggle technology and arts.
Take, for instance, the car. When in a hurry, I apparate. But if I have the time, I drive, having been taught by my father in one of his rare sober moments. There's something so calming about the feel of the road underneath a car not fancy enough for ABS brakes or power steering, or even a properly closing petrol cap or tunable radio. I like the scenery of the east coast of Britain, scenery which is sadly missed if you apparate.
One thing wizards didn't get either was music. It is a wizarding rule that every single band must feature an accordion, obscure Eastern-European flute, or a lute, and if the lyrics don't involve trying to rhyme 'spell' with 'girl' the song is to be discarded immediately. You will not, for instance, see a wizard band produce anything of the calibre of 'Golden Brown', 'Angie' or 'Across the Universe'. And because the radio in my '83 Gemini was stuck on the oldies station, I was at least guaranteed some decent music of the aforementioned variety.
Sirius and Tonks were some of the few people to understand my love of muggle music, Sirius not necessarily with my taste in bands. Tonks had herself hooked on eighties pop rock, and for the last few weeks I'd heard XTC and what sounded suspiciously like my 'Temple of Low Men' album being played down stairs. Sirius, on the other hand, had surprisingly bad taste. He used to put on this absolutely horrible stuff: Hootie and the Blowfish, Crash Test Dummies and Avril Lavigne.
(Actually, on that note, he convinced Dung, Tonks and I on one of our drunker nights to listen to the entire 'Let Go' album, in the effort of persuading me of its genius. It being a pirated copy Dung had (sniggeringly) acquired for him, the disc didn't come with an accompanying cover booklet, but I could only imagine that the girl was one of those overweight, desperate gothic ladies who would insult men in her songs, but would then sing about why she couldn't find a boyfriend in the interim. Needless to say, the disc unfortunately suffered a tragic accident in which I put it in the oven and melted it. But not before he had me regrettably promise, after seven whisky sours, a schooner of pilsner and half a cask of terrible white wine, that I play 'Sk8er Boi' at his funeral, should he die and I be left responsible for his ceremony. I can assure you that we did laugh heartily at him and shamed him into not coming out of his room for at least four days after. On second thoughts, that might be due to him being so hungover I had to change him.)
For the first time in an entire week, I was sober enough to drive a car without the fear of being pulled over for a DUI. Course, I had no fear of being pulled up for anything, my car being unable to go faster than 50mph. Harry was up front with me, head leaning against the window and looking blankly ahead. The skin that was pressed into the window was as bloodless as his scar, and the faint lightning bolt disappeared into his forehead.
Dung was behind me in the back, snoring loudly and head lolling occasionally onto Tonks, who would push it away disgustedly every time it came into contact with her shoulder. I caught her several times staring at me in the rear view, always averting her gaze when she knew I was watching her watch me. On the radio, what sounded like 'Comes A Time' was crooning tinnily.
We were about two miles from Dover, and to my right a small gravel road veered off into a forest of beech and she-oaks. On the windscreen, mist had started to gather, and I turned the wipers on, hoping that the salt wouldn't rust the rest of my car's body away.
The gravel turned a paler grey as I drove towards the sea, the others in the car winding down their windows. The temperature in the car plummeted a good twenty degrees, the air salty and cold and wonderful, and I pulled into a park that looked straight into the surf.
I picked up the box that was at Harry's feet, and turned to my passengers.
"Coming, or are you going to appreciate the scenery from here?"
Harry wasn't looking at me, and Dung was still asleep, but Tonks stared at me intently.
"Are you going to tell us what we're doing here?"
"Sure. Once we get down to the beach."
She shrugged, and opened her door, slamming it so loudly behind her that it startled Dung. Harry got out too, looking far less hostile than Tonks, and slightly colder. I lead the way down a path made of rotting pine planks lined up over the pebbles and grasses.
The beaches around here aren't too inviting for swimmers or sunbathers. Actually, they aren't too inviting for anything really, unless you're a Bronte sister and like this kind of thing. There is no actual sand to speak of - just tiny sharp pebbles that necessitate the wearing of shoes. And the water is always swollen, and grey-green, and utterly vicious, with the depth dropping off into a sharp channel about five meters from the water line and seaspray constantly flicking you in the face. In the distance, I could see the white cliffs of lime and sandstone. My watch said 5.39, and the sky was already a dark shade of grey, highlighted by flashes of lightning on the horizon.
I've heard that these waters are plagued by sharks. When I was little, and scared of beasts that I thought would never hurt me (like werewolves, ironically enough), sharks were the things that horrified me most. I remember that in my youth, James always commented that Sirius' animagus should've been a shark, because he always got that bloodthirsty, animalistic vigor into him whenever he saw something he could attack or consume mercilessly. Today, however, I don't think I was scared of what lurked in the green.
I paused by the waters edge, and they gathered around me: Dung curious, Harry freezing, and Tonks apathetic. I took off my own coat, passing it to Harry, who nodded in reply and wrapped it around himself. I indicated to the box I was holding, and opened it up.
"So. You're all, uh, well, wondering why I brought you here this afternoon."
"Are you going to tell us, or are you just going to waste our afternoon?" Tonks said, arms crossed.
"Fair call. I... well, I..."
I realised I was staring at the ground. The tide must've been coming in, because my feet were suddenly soaked by a streak of white foam.
"Look. I just wanted to apologise to you all for being an uptight idiot these last few weeks. It was just selfish, and thoughtless, and disrespectful - not just to Sirius, but to all you as well."
Dung nodded. I don't think he was actually listening, but I'd give him the benefit of the doubt.
"Tonks brought something up to me about a week ago, which I thought was a really fair point, and um... yeah. I suppose I should just show you what I want to do."
I pulled a long, thin stick from the box. His wand, coated in a lifetimes' worth of grime, chewing gum and his name scratched into it with a thumbtack. I regarded it, running my fingers down the length of it. Beech, ten inches.
"Nobody really spoke to me for my first year at Hogwarts. Well, except Sirius and James, and that was to call me a useless fairy. I didn't really think too much of it, apart from the fact that I probably would've killed the dirty rotten sods if they'd kept calling me that. The reason Sirius first spoke to me in non-hostile terms was when he caught me sewing my own knee up with fishing line, because I didn't want to trouble Madam Pomfrey with yet another bloody injury. He was even more impressed with me developing gangrene as a result and still being stupid enough not to seek medical attention."
Harry's lips were pursed, but I could tell there was a faint smile. Tonks had uncrossed her arms, jamming her hands into her jeans pockets.
"So he sat me down one afternoon, and handed me this bottle of what smelled like drain unclogging liquid, and cut the bottom of my trouser leg off. He then performed a spell which not only aggravated my gangrene, but caused my leg to fall off below my knee."
I heard a snort. So Dung WAS paying attention. I tossed the wand into the surf, watching as the wood floated against the surface, and disappeared under a breaking wave.
"Course, re-attaching limbs is simple enough on the condition that they've only recently fallen off the body. But it is odd explaining to a trained nurse that your leg fell off because it got cut off with a trip wire."
I pulled out the next item. It was his prized possession from ages fifteen through to his arrest: a vintage, beta tape of "Deepthroat" that held the record of being the most confiscated item in Filch's career. No matter that there was no possible way to actually play the damned thing at school, Filch obviously knew of the moral filth it concerned (though would get furious with you if you ever asked him how he knew of its contents). It joined the wand in the surf.
"Harry, you remember me taking you out last week?"
He nodded, avoiding my gaze.
"The first present I ever got from Sirius was when we were twelve and he nicked off from the Hog's Head with a gallon cask of cheap white wine. I think the label said it was a 'fruity lexia' - which he said described me very well. The condition of the gift was that I had to drink it all in one sitting. I remember lying in bed the next day, shaking violently in a cold sweat, having water administered with a sponge. I..."
He was looking up at me, and Tonks was looking decidedly less belligerent than before.
"Well, you know... I felt that it would only be fair that I do for you what he did for me, and introduce you to a life of cheap liquor and painful tomorrows."
With that, I tossed the entire box into the ocean, watching it float off, and as the water soaked through the cardboard it sank into the waves. I felt strange as it sank into the water, and I knelt down, a lump rising in my throat. I sat into the damp stones, wrapping my arms around my knees and looking out at the surf.
And Harry sat beside me.
"Hey, Lupin."
I looked at him, breathing in deeply and exhaling heavily.
"He was a good man, wasn't he?"
I laughed fakely. "No. He was an absolute bugger of a man who--"
I choked, and covered it badly with a cough. I leant my head back and opened my eyes, hoping that the tears would dry before anyone else saw them. I think Harry did though, because I could hear a long sniff, followed by sobbing, and him leaning on my left shoulder. I cleared my throat, hoping my voice would be steady enough.
"I brought you to this beach because this is the spot where he landed when he swam away from Azkaban. He took me here the night I resigned from teaching. He didn't say much that night. We just sat there all night right here at the water level, him looking out, not saying anything. We had barely spoken to each other in twelve years, and we just weren't talking.
"We were walking back up to the car, see, because he wanted the drive, and I figured it'd be safe if we disillusioned him, and it was late at night and all. And there was this aluminium rubbish bin near the railing at the carpark. He took this bit of broken railing that was lying on the ground, and he just mauled right into the bin, beating it, kicking it. He eventually broke it off the post it was on, and he just kept attacking it, screaming, just screaming nonsense. I couldn't stop him, and I didn't even try. I'd never seen him like that. I've never even been that vicious during the moon. And he... he turned and he said..."
Another body was sitting down to my right - Tonks. She nudged me softly.
"Go on."
"He said... he said he didn't know why he'd lost twelve years of his life. He said that he'd never felt so disgusting, and cheated, and insulted, and he kept going on about being so sad and angry that he'd just walk back out onto the beach and make a hole in the ocean that was his size."
My nose was running, and I wiped it on my sleeve. I pressed my eyes into my arms, and I felt a hand running through the back of my hair.
"It's not there anymore. The bin, that is."
I pressed my eyes closed, and covered my mouth with my hands, breathing in jerks through my nose whenever I wasn't racking with crying. Beside me, Tonks was staring at the water with a steely gaze, her lips twitching, and Harry was crying loudly. Behind me, Mundungus was pacing, kicking up the gravel and clinging his hands against his shirt.
"He, he... he, he was, he was... he--"
"Shh. Don't talk, ok?" Tonks had grabbed me by the shoulder, gripping me tightly.
"Sir... Padfoot. He wanted me to play 'Sk8er Boi' for his funeral. Much as I don't want to spite the dead... I really hate that song."
Harry nodded beside me. I had the impression that he, too, was unfortunately familiar with Ms Lavigne thanks to Hermione.
"This is one he sent me when my dad died after we left school. He didn't write it. Another drunk man did. This would be near the top of great things he introduced me to."
I cleared my throat and looked around. They were all watching me, even Dung, who'd stopped pacing and looked very pale in the face.
"Sometimes the sky's too bright,
Or has too many clouds or birds,
And far away's too sharp a sun
To nourish thinking of him.
Why is my hand too blunt
To cut in front of me
My horrid images for me,
Of over-fruitful smiles,
The weightless touching of the lip
I wish to know
I cannot lift, but can,
The creature with the angel's face
Who tells me hurt,
And sees my body go
Down into misery?
No stopping. Put the smile
Where tears have come to dry.
The angel's hurt is left;
His telling burns."
Nobody moved. My face was drier, and my hands had started to shake from the cold. Harry'd closed his eyes, and was clenching his hands together.
Mundungus had started walking up to the car, looking to the sky and blinking heavily, for once moving in a straight line. I only realised then that he hadn't said a word all day, and suddenly I felt very sick, and small, and lonely.
Tonks stood, and followed him off, brushing my arm with her hand as she got up. Harry remained down with me, and for what seemed like hours we watched the edge of the world as the blinking light grew more intense and the sky changed from grey to green to black, and we only got up when our toes and fingers started to turn bright red from windburn.
the end.