The thick clouds remained in the sky to veil the stars. Even though the chill wind abated, the clouds refused to leave and let any light through. No lights hung in the sky to guide anyone’s way tonight. Instead, the earth grew its own lights. Outside, small red lights began to dot the landscape like brilliant red stars springing from the ground. These little fires seemed to be the earth’s way of creating its own light and warmth that the sky denied it.
Darkness descended upon the sitting room that remained dark and frigid. Remus remained slouched in the armchair, falling out of consciousness from time to time. He finally awoke to some noise outside the window. A group of ambitious youths raced down the street, shouting to someone.
‘It got so late,’ Remus reflected as he shook himself into full consciousness for the first time in hours. Instead of long shadows creeping across the floor and walls, darkness held mastery over the entire room. Remus couldn’t see anything, even with the minimal amount of light that came from the window.
“Damn!” Remus cursed as he stood up and stubbed his toe. He groped around, trying to discover what he hit. ‘The boxes,’ Remus remembered instantly as a chill that had nothing to do with the weather came over him.
He subconsciously stuffed his hand into his pocket. ‘It’s still there,’ Remus realized as his finger felt the parchment. ‘I need to stow it away.’
With a flick, Remus’s wand conjured a glittering light that cast a glow over the entire room. It highlighted those spots where darkness lurked and chased it away into corners. The silvery light played across the boxes at Remus’s feet. It seemed to make the dust sparkle for an instant as the particles flickered in the silvery beam.
After hesitating for several moments, Remus knelt down on the filthy floor. With his free hand, he removed the lid from one of the boxes. Dust spilled off the lid and rose up like a mushroom cloud in Remus’s face. He choked and waved his hand in the air to disperse it. When the grimy, gray cloud cleared, the box revealed its contents.
Books of many sizes and shapes lined the inside of the opened box. Some appeared well used, but others look barely read. They bore names many wizards would never recognize, and they all looked untouched in years.
Except one, which sat at the top of the pile.
‘Bjorn must have placed it in here,’ Remus realized as he stared directly at the enormous tome. ‘I told him to keep it,’ Remus thought with a flicker of irritation. The page’s frayed edges and earmarked pages indicated frequent use. Remus hesitated before running his fingers over the gold lettering on the front.
He drew it out carefully as curiosity conquered his careful avoidance of his father’s possessions. ‘He got into that religious stuff,’ Remus reflected as he turned the book over in his hands. He spread it open on the floor, and another puff of dust rose from the pages.
He remembered his father reading little compared to him and his mother. ‘He never read anything by Muggles,’ Remus reflected as he pulled out some papers his father stuffed into the book.
He unfolded a couple of the sheets. They proved to be just some old sermon outlines that his father collected. His long, scrolling script covered the margins of the inserts. Light annotations and notes scribbled in the margins of the pages served as a testimony to Edouard Lupin’s venture into faith.
‘He gave it up for this,’ Remus mused as he scanned the papers. He placed them back in as he perused each one of them. They said roughly the same thing about faith and God. With astonishment, Remus realized that they meant nothing to him. ‘They weren’t mine. I couldn’t connect him to these papers,’ Remus thought as he tucked them, one by useless one, back into the page where he discovered them.
He pulled out a final piece of folded parchment. Remus opened the paper, which seemed to be less yellow and crisper than the other papers were. He scanned the first line, which, to his shock, bore his name.
The sparkling, white hallway rankled of a mix of cleaners and medication. It stretched onward, perfectly sterile, and dotted with doors; healers in flowing, white robes would silently bustle from door to door. Other than the trod of footsteps or the occasional voice when a door opened, the Sanguin-Levett Ward at St. Mungo’s remained calm.
Remus strode down the hallway, anxiety flickering in his usually serene, sable eyes. ‘The Sanguin-Levett Ward is for the seriously ill,’ Remus couldn’t help but thinking for the hundredth time. The sound of his footfalls echoed in the nearly vacant hallways.
Outside, a clock struck three in the morning, but the sound didn’t carry inside the building. Remus remained oblivious to anything as he scanned the doors for room 421. They took her there because she’d hurt herself while performing a simple spell. ‘If she would have been healthy, she would have been fine,’ Remus brooded as he thought of his mother. ‘He didn’t take care of her.’
Remus stopped, realizing he’d almost strode past the door. He grasped the handle under the black letters that were stenciled on the whitewashed door. Swallowing an unexpected lump, Remus turned the knob in his sweaty palm and entered.
It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. Compared to the hallway, lit like a stage, the hospital room only had two candles. The wax spilled silently over their sides onto their stands as they cast their wavering light on the face of Evelyn Lupin.
Yellow like century old paper, her face made him forget that he got shaken awake at two in the morning. Her sunken cheeks and emaciated frame purged the lethargy from his bones. She appeared little more than a puff of a dandelion about to be blown away by the wind. Then, he remembered to shut the door behind him.
‘She’s so ill,’ Remus thought despairingly as he slowly trod over to the chair that sat beside the bed. ‘I knew they said she had gone ‘critical,’ but this . . .’
He went to sit, wondering if his own body would obey him. The chair held no warmth, but he focused solely on her. Nothing cheerful or young now remained in Evelyn’s face. Age and wrinkles made the young mother appear decades older than her time. Remus sighed as he closed his eyes, trying to remember her taking his hand as they walked together through the forest, field, or street. He heard her voice come to him from a far away memory that was now barely a dream.
‘Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter,’ she spoke, and her singsong voice enchanted his thoughts.
‘Therefore, ye soft pipes, play on.’ Her voice spoke in his memory only now. He’d called upon that gentle, warm voice he remembered as a young boy. He called forth her words that she recited while he sat in the Shrieking Shack many a lonely night.
‘Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,’ her voice whispered to him again from days in the sunlight. He heard her, still, echoing in his mind as she did when he lay in the hospital. When he had woke and felt like he’d just swam the English Channel, he heard her.
‘Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone,’ she whispered in his memory only. Yes, even now, days before he turned seventeen, he still felt a fierce love for her. He didn’t need her to protect him now; she needed him, but he could do nothing. ‘She’s beyond my cure,’ Remus realized as his gut sank. He opened his eyes and gazed down at her again.
“Mum?”
Evey didn’t stir, but remained in her corpse like slumber. Nothing changed or moved, and in his heart, Remus knew the truth.
‘She’s going to die.’
He pulled the brown coat, which he grabbed at the last moment before leaving Hogwarts, closer to his body. The coat couldn’t protect him for the chill that had nothing to do with the climate of the room. He swallowed the lump that formed in his throat, threatening his already bleary eyes with tears. She hardly appeared to breathe. Her life seemed so frail that Remus didn’t dare touch her.
He reached over and picked up one of the books that lay on her nightstand. ‘At least he brought these,’ Remus thought with bitterness and relief. He opened the bound version of The Three Musketeers and began to read silently. A marker remained after the fifth chapter, where he stopped reading to his mother last summer before he went back to school.
“Sir?”
Remus jerked his head up and dropped the book. It landed with a dull thud on the floor, and he groped for it before looking up at the person who woke him. “I dozed off,” Remus apologized as he sat upright again.
“That’s quite alright.” The young healer, her chestnut hair tied up in a bun, replied cordially as she walked over to the bed. “Did she wake for you?”
“No. Why isn’t she healing?” Remus blurted out the question, unable to contain himself. The healer pulled out her wand from the deep pocket of her robe and began to probe Evey.
“I can’t say, but she was very weak before her incident. We’ve had several cases like this, and I personally blame those damned dementors,” the healer hissed in a moment of frustration. Remus bit his lower lip, trying not to imagine the creatures that began to roam the streets at the beginning of his seventh year.
“That didn’t answer my question.” Remus gazed at the Healer’s backside as she bent over his mother. The young woman let out a deep sigh before responding to Remus again.
“I can’t say why. Well, not exactly,” she began hesitantly as she continued her work. “Well, she simply seems to not want to heal. I don’t know if you’d understand, but to be magically healed, you have to want to live. Magic can’t save anyone unless they find the strength of spirit to use it.”
“She doesn’t have to use it,” Remus countered. “You perform it on her.”
“Technically,” the healer said as she stopped her examination. She turned around and faced Remus. Her eyes now looked tired and weary as she placed her wand away. “A wizard can abandon magic. Why a wizard won’t accept magic any longer is a mysterious phenomenon that differs from person to person. As I read in her records, she was injured severely ten years ago along with her son. She almost died then, and has been in and out of the hospital ever since.”
“She . . . wants to live?” Remus asked, unable to make a statement. He wanted to believe that his mother didn’t want to die. He gazed back at her lifeless figure, feeling a pang of guilt strike at his heart.
“I can’t answer that,” the healer replied solemnly. She strode past Remus and went to exit the room. As she opened the door, she turned on her heals and told him, “I’m Dr. Cassie Bates, and if you need my help, holler.”
Remus nodded deftly as the door slammed shut. The forlorn son gazed down at the parched lips of his mother. They appeared gray like ashes in a fireplace, but Remus wanted to hear them speak to him. ‘She simply seems to not want to heal.’ The words now flooded into his mind in a gush of bitter reality.
Outside, the clocks struck ten o’clock in the morning. The sun rose up over the chilly March landscape, but none of that mattered in the dismal hospital room. Remus placed the book back on the nightstand as he reached down and took her frail hand. It weighed less than the book in his palm. He tried to desperately massage some warmth back into it, but it remained clammy like a damp towel. As he clasped her hand, Remus blinked some tears from his eyes.
‘Crying isn’t going to make her well,’ Remus reprimanded himself as he wiped the tears away.
“Hmmm,” Evey moaned. The hoarse sound caused Remus to subconsciously tighten his grip on her hands, hoping that, some how, he could wake her. Part of him wanted to plead with her to wake and yank her alive by the force of his own will. ‘It would be useless,’ Remus thought as he gazed at the pitiable form on the bed before him.
“Please . . .” Evey mumbled in a barely audible, rattling voice. Remus leaned across the bed, straining to hear if she would say anything else. “Read. Read . . . to me.”
Remus bent down over his mother’s ear. “Mum, it’s okay, I’m here.” Evey moaned, but her eyes remained shut. Remus shook her shoulder gently, afraid he might break what life remained in her fragile frame.
“They promised . . .” Evey muttered as Remus unclasped her hands. He lunged towards the nightstand the fumbled through the books. He picked up the worn, hardbound book of poetry that sat towards the bottom of the pile.
“But when a melancholy fit shall fall sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,” Remus recited in a clear voice. It echoed through the gloomy room and suddenly seemed to make the shadows quail. Evey stirred, and her lips drew up in a wane smile.
‘She has to wake,’ Remus pleaded silently as he steadied himself to read the next line. “That fosters the droop-headed flowers all.”
Evey’s eyes fluttered for a moment; he drew a quick breath. “Mum,” Remus called gently. ‘Please, please, be okay,’ he silently pleaded as he held his breath. He heard his heart pound in his chest. Bum da bum. It thudded against his rid cage.
Bum da bum.
‘I need her to be okay.’
Bum da bum.
“I want . . . to see him again,” Evey whispered. She sucked in a raspy breath, and Remus felt the tears tinge his eyes again. He exhaled, trying to ignore what she said. ‘She’s delirious,’ he realized. He dragged the coarse jacket across his eyes as to stop the water works that threatened to overcome him.
“She dwells with Beauty”Beauty that must die.” His words faltered, and he searched for his voice, but couldn’t find it. He’d skipped a head to the next stanza; his own words pronounced her doom.
He dropped the book. It clattered onto the linoleum floor with a clunk. It lay, absolutely forgotten and worthless, as Remus reached out and took his mother’s hand again. It seemed chill and icy now like raw fish from a river sucking their last breath. He clamped her frail hand tightly in his own.
Evey’s eyes remained sealed, locking her mind safely away from the world. Her breathing became shallow, and she returned to that corpse like state. She didn’t utter a word or open her eyes to fully recognize her now grown son. She seemed now a shell crusted over and devoid of any real life. Her body seemed ready to be thrust off so that what remained of her spirit could be free.
“We need more help! Clear more space!”
“She’s going into convulsions!”
‘What?’ Remus pondered, aware of sounds outside of the room for the first time. He gazed down at his mother’s limp hand and her lurid face. He leaned over and gave her pasty forehead a quick kiss.
He stood and ambled toward the door. The noise, once he stepped into the hallway, struck his ears like a jackhammer. He blinked, blinded by the bright lights. Healers ran past him with a stretcher, and Remus looked down to see a young witch bleeding badly. He gazed up and saw several other stretchers being carried down the hallway and into rooms.
He saw the victims, lying on the stretchers, while being rushed to rooms for treatment. Gashes and blood characterized many of the wounded. Horrid burns scarred the one man being carried down the hallway.
“Half the stadium will probably need treatment! Clear more space!”
“Excuse me,” Remus asked in an almost bored, monotone voice. “What’s happening?”
“Quidditch game between the English and French National teams got attacked by that dark wizard,” one of the healers replied as he hauled a stretcher to another room. The burned figure on the stiff board moaned in agony as Remus kept pace with the healer.
Remus gazed blankly at the healer. “What?”
“They blew up part of the stadium!” The healer shouted to Remus as he rushed down the hallway. ‘What?’ Remus asked himself again as the information refused to penetrate his brain. He gazed at another couple of people being toted down the hallway towards more rooms. He froze, unable to move, trying to comprehend another idea that smacked his mind like a ton of bricks.
‘They . . . from the papers . . .” Remus tried to connect the pieces he’d read about these Death Eaters in the Daily Prophet with what happened. The paper made light of the little band, which had only managed to pull off minor stunts so far. Now, the situation turned into an altogether extremely grave circumstance that no one would dare mock.
“Mr. Lupin. Mr. Lupin!”
Remus turned slowly as if in a fog. He could see stretcher upon stretcher being hauled down the hall. The shrieks of agony and moans of terrible pain flooded his ears as he tried to focus on Dr. Bates.
“Mr. Lupin, she died. We’re going to need that room.”
“Okay,” Remus replied deftly as Dr. Bates rushed past him. No tears stained his eyes now. In the midst of such chaos, tears couldn’t even express the immense suffering. ‘They would do no good,’ Remus mused.
He gazed down the hall, looking at all the panic swarming around him. He seemed like an island stranded amid a swirling ocean. The teeming masses of healers and patients blurred together in his eyes. He gazed past them, and even the floor he stood on suddenly didn’t feel very solid. The air he breathed lost its substance as the noise faded into a background din in his mind. He gazed down at his hands, realizing they seemed numb and not attached to his body.
It crept upon him as he sought for something to cling to, but found only chaos. His hands found nothing to grip as an anchor. ‘I’m alone,’ Remus realized as the thought took full shape in his head. The clock struck eleven outside, but in the brilliantly lit hallways of the hospital, the world morphed into a bland, gray mass. Something beautiful passed away from the sphere of the world, and as he stood transfixed in the center of the bustling hallway, the loss stained Remus’s heart.
The soft, cotton ball clouds drifted serenely over a sapphire blue sky. They let themselves be carried along by the gentle air currents above the surface of the earth. Nothing bothered them, so far removed from the realms of humanity. If these lovely images of peace were real instead of images on a domed ceiling, it would have pacified Remus Lupin’s dreary heart.
The single box he shoved through the ashes of the fireplace now seemed to weigh more than a ton in his arms. He only took one of the dilapidated boxes and put the books that he truly wanted in it. Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems got shifted out of the mess of books and placed in the single box that got chosen The Muggle Bible remained safely at the bottom with both letters inside. His name on that piece of paper remained all that he read of his father’s letter. He shoved it with Sirius’s letter and placed both in the bottom of the box. It plagued his mind, though, and even now, he could almost feel the letter’s presence.
In his sweaty palm, he gripped his tattered suitcase. ‘I just need to get this box through,’ Remus reminded himself. Outwardly, he appeared slightly disheveled and exhausted, but inwardly, his nerves began to plague him like a disease eating his intestines. The priceless value of the box’s contents constantly reminded him that this was still a mission. ‘Sirius’s letter must go through.’
Remus walked back the hallway to the office of Greger Asketorp. His solitary footfalls echoed with each click in the foreboding hallway. It seemed to suggest that he would go to his doom now, and he clutched his suitcase even tighter. ‘The government always puts me on edge,’ Remus thought to calm himself down as he set the box on the floor. He reached for the bronze doorknocker on the door of Greger Asketorp’s office. Remus banged it several times before the knob turned; the polished, oaken door swung slowly open.
The foreboding form of Asketorp stood on the other side, and he indicated Remus to enter. He picked up his precious box again and placed it behind the chair where Greger indicated him to sit. He gently sat his suitcase down beside him as Greger went over to his desk and fished for several papers. Remus sat stiffly in the same solitary chair in front of that vast, imposing desk. The grandfather clock continued to faithfully tick off the minutes as it did before and would do for time out of mind.
“You need to sign these,” Greger ordered Remus in the same raspy, dry voice as before. He thrust several papers into Remus’s hands. The crisp, new parchment born the heavy title of “Werewolf Traveling Verification.” Remus inwardly flinched at the title, but scanned down to the bottom of the first section, where he signed his name. He knew what these papers would say. Greger told him when he first entered the country.
‘If anything what so ever happens while you stay here, it will be traced to you,’ the old man told him stiffly. Remus scribbled his name under the line indicating that any attacks or harm to wizarding folk or Muggles were unrelated to his presence. He indicated that he traveled because of a death and only stayed the amount of days in a foreign country allowed by law for werewolves. He then scribbled his name under the heading that declared that there had been no full moon during his stay.
Greger wordlessly took the papers back. His stare scrutinized Remus as he studied each line Remus signed. ‘Bjorn is so different,’ Remus reflected as Greger’s piercing eyes stabbed Remus again. “Your wand.”
Remus fished in his pocket and produced his striped wand. Greger wordlessly removed both stripes. He dropped Remus’s wand back on his lap, not wanting to make contact with the man. ‘Some people,’ Remus reflected wryly as Greger’s eyes fell upon the box.
“I need to inspect that.” Without another word or pretense, Greger went over and threw away the lid. He shifted through the contents carelessly. He tossed many of the books upon the floor of his office, but he didn’t probe through page by page. Remus took slow, even breaths, trying not to betray himself.
“There will be a port key available shortly for your travel,” Greger informed Remus as he finished with his box. He left many of the items strewn across the floor. Remus got up and placed each book back into the box before picking it up. He opened the door and went back to grab his suitcase.
“Your grandson was a very commendable host,” Remus commented amiably. ‘I’ll keep my promise,’ he told himself; he felt some pride in that fact. Greger snorted, and something like a sneer flickered across his features.
“The boy is unfit. He’s too flighty,” Greger’s voice seeped with disdain. Remus nodded curtly as he turned on his heel and promptly left the uninviting office. The air seemed easier to breathe now that he moved away from Greger. Even the silent hallway held less terror now that he knew the letters stayed hidden.
‘The Ministry never did much for me,’ Remus reflected as he reached the lobby again. He gazed up and watched the false clouds glide across their equally fake sky.
His hands remained clenched together, even though his knuckles turned white. However, his face remained impassive, completely and utterly controlled. His gut swirled in sickening circles, but the apparent calm in his soft, sable eyes would never betray that sickness which churned inside him. Despite the courteous nod Remus gave to the person who entered the elevator with him, he remained a man apart.
He wore a slightly wrinkled gray suit. It fit his thin, lanky frame well and made him look stately. The small purple bags under his eyes hinted at a lack of sleep, but no one would have bothered to wonder about him. March 10, 1978 dawned today, and despite his mother’s funeral yesterday, he woke early to go to the Ministry. He slept in his suit, but the single person that took the elevator to the fourth floor with him remained oblivious to this fact.
Remus Lupin remained a man apart. Today, he would register as an of age werewolf. His parents claimed sole responsibility for him since his bite, but today, that changed. He would mark himself. Anyone who was of age could ask for a list of the names of all of age werewolves. Now, they could read his name and mark him, too.
As the door clinked open, he silently begged it would shut again. The other person with him disembarked from the elevator. The hallway remained deserted, and his shoes clicked on the marble floor as he ambled slowly past each door. He read each title, searching for the one where he would enter to mark himself.
He heard a third set of footsteps behind him. They followed him long after the sound of the second person in the elevator faded. When he found his door and paused in front of it, the other person stopped walking, too.
“Remus,” Edouard Lupin murmured in a dry, raspy voice. ‘Go away,’ Remus silently pleaded as he reached for the doorknob. “I . . . you need these.”
Remus turned around as if each movement towards his father caused an exceptional effort. Finally, he faced the aged man with thin, gray hair. Edouard’s hairline receded in the past several years, and a bald patch glistened in the center of his head. Remus snatched the papers from his father’s hands. He turned away and went to wrench open the door, almost relieved to enter.
“You’ll need money,” Edouard stated flatly. Remus faltered for a moment. ‘Leave,’ Remus once again begged silently as he tightened his grip on the knob. The sweat from his own hands made it difficult to hold, but he refused to let go. “Come home.”
“Do you realize,” Remus whispered even though no one else could hear them, “that I don’t need you any more.”
“You’ll never -- ”
“Get a job?” Remus finished his father’s statement. If he had looked at the diminished and pathetic form of his father, he would have seen his jaw fall open. A look of pain flashed through the weary, faded eyes of the old accountant. The many groves of age in his father’s face seemed to deepen as he gazed at his grown son.
“I’ll manage,” Remus assured his father. His tone dictated the end to the conversation. He turned the knob, yet remained in the hallway, not quite able to enter into the dimly lit room beyond.
‘Go,’ Remus commanded himself. He kept his eyes on the ground, refusing to look at his father’s face. He knew it so well, but he pushed the images out of his mind.
‘Go.’ Remus took several steps into the foreboding room that he couldn’t see yet. He focused only on the marble below his feet. All the images of his father he shoved from his mind. ‘He never wanted you before. Home wouldn’t be any better,’ Remus told himself as he took several more tentative steps into the unknown.
He passed the threshold and gathered the strength to pull the door shut.
The door clicked shut, but if he had looked, he would have seen his father standing in the empty hallway. If he had looked before the door shut, he would have seen the immense sorrow that consumed the crumpled form of Edouard.
Now, though, Remus Lupin remained a man apart.
The gentle, pastel blue sky allowed thick, potential rain clouds to drift across it. However, the clouds held no threat today and allowed the sun to tint them gold along the edges. The light streamed through in patches, and one of those special patches of light struck a little path in the forest.
The trees began to overcome their shyness as they allowed tender, green buds to blink out from their fragile fingertips. They stretched their new shoots towards the gentle light that thawed them from a winter of hibernation. The braver birds that returned in the early spring alighted on the bare branches and recited their odes to the new growth and the sun. The songs became enchanted and echoed through the woods, which sucked away the rain into the newly thawed soil. The earth perfumed the waking forest with that smell of fresh earth that is distinct to spring. The moss, ferns, and tiny wildflowers began to blossom and added their distinct scents to that aroma of nature.
The sunlight warmed Remus’s skin, but he welcomed it after the cold days in Sweden. ‘This is my spring,’ Remus realized as he ambled along the little path in the forest. One hand remained in his pocket, fingering the two letters he carried with him. One had a purpose, and the other one refused to let him rest.
‘Bjorn should have come here,’ Remus thought of the chipper youth. In some way, he missed the company. ‘His youthfulness did me some good,’ Remus realized as he gingerly touched the older of the two letters. He sighed as he turned a bend in the road where he glanced the first image of the house nestled in the forest.
The chimney rose gallantly up towards the canopy of the forest. The sun illuminated the red bricks a brilliant scarlet, but they remained just a small, insignificant part of the entire house. The large, charcoal and sienna stones that constructed the rest of the house seemed to transport the sprawling, one story dwelling to another time. ‘It could be from the Middle Ages,’ Remus mused as he studied the now shingled roof which easily might have once been thatched. The building seemed to beckon from an era long effaced by the modern world.
He approached another bend in the path that would lead into the clearing in front of the small, yet elegant building. Sunlight flushed into the gleam ahead of him. A swath of green grass and little, purple wildflowers sprouted from the earth and danced in the sunlight. They seemed to tempt Remus to turn the bend and walk on them.
“Share yourself, let it go,” a woman’s voice sang from some where close. Remus jumped slightly as the sound startled him. He gripped the letters and peeked through the thin foliage trying to find who sang.
“It’s better to breathe for you,” the woman sang a tune that seemed to lack only accompaniment. Yet, the forest seemed to turn her clear voice into something more. She didn’t try to make it melodic or particularly in tune. ‘She doesn’t know I’m here,’ Remus realized as he spied a bright patch of neon pink in the forest.
“Work with me, we never knew enough, too true,” she continued her private concert. He spied her. ‘That’s not Andromeda,’ Remus realized as he watched the petit witch wandering through the forest. ‘She’s too young.’
“We didn’t know what do to. Fall too fast, fly too far, it’s true,” she continued in her little song. ‘I bet that’s her daughter, the auror,’ Remus thought as he watched the young woman stroll around in the edge of the spring forest. “I never knew enough about you. Double-faced, it’s true.”
‘I’m glad Sirius didn’t come,’ Remus realized as he watched the young woman. ‘Hard to believe she’s an auror.’ Remus fingered both letters as he eyed the apparently carefree woman as she picked up a stick and used it for a microphone.
“Can lies save truth? Was it enough to save you?” she shouted at the stick. Remus couldn’t suppress the grin that stretched across his lips. “When it’s wrong, what can I do? You nearly broke this, you tore it apart. Double-faced, it’s true.”
‘Time I got this done,’ Remus thought as he stepped off the path and walked towards the woman who just gave him a private concert.
“Hello!” Remus shouted, trying to make his presence known. ‘She’s still an auror,’ he reminded himself. ‘I wouldn’t enjoy a hexing today.’
In an instant, she dropped the stick and drew her wand. Her sparkling, ebony eyes that looked like black jewels searched the woods. “Who’s there?”
“Just delivering a letter,” Remus announced as he put both hands in the air. She studied him for a moment before lowering her wand. She placed one hand on her hip as he came closer.
“For me?” she quizzically studied him. She extended a hand after he’d finally made his way close enough to see her own clothing in disarray. Some odd color stains decorated her yellow T-shirt, and the frays on the bottom of her jean legs appeared to have been drug through something that dried a vomit yellow color. “Tonks.”
“Remus Lupin,” he replied cordially. He inwardly smirked at the slightly off-kilter woman who appeared to just be running around her property today. “I’ve never heard that song.”
“It’s ‘Double Faced’ by The Blood Traitors,” Tonks replied with pride in her voice. “That was probably really off key. I don’t sing for people.”
“I’m out of touch with the new bands,” Remus chuckled. Tonks grinned as she continued to examine the man who just tramped onto her property.
“So, what’s this letter?” she asked.
“For your mum,” Remus replied as he put his hand into his pocket. He drew out both letters without a thought.
“My mum hasn’t lived with my dad and me since I was nine,” she retorted. “I can’t give it to her. I don’t know where that foolish woman went.”
“Well,” Remus muttered as he stuffed his father’s letter back into his pocket. “I can’t give this to you, then.”
“Why not? It’s better in my hands, anyway.” She extended the hand that wasn’t planted on her hip to take the letter. Remus studied her thin, white hand before glancing at Sirius’s letter. ‘I can’t,’ he thought as he went to put that letter into his pocket, too.
“What’s so special about it?” she asked, still not removing her beckoning hand. “I’m an auror, you know. I could take it from you.”
Remus met her sparkling, obsidian eyes that demanded an answer. ‘Will she do it?’ he wondered as he studied the twiggy woman. Her frame lacked stature, and physically, he might be stronger. ‘I don’t want to fight her over a letter,’ Remus thought wearily.
“The contents aren’t specifically for you,” Remus explained to her to make his point clear. A frown crossed her features as she wrinkled her nose.
“What if . . . I don’t say a word about it. I’ll make an Unbreakable Vow with you,” she offered. He grimaced and shook his head.
“Just . . . I prefer to take people’s word,” he added as he reached for the letter again. Then, as he withdrew it from his pocket, an idea sparkled to life in his head. “If you want to read this letter, do it in the presence of Albus Dumbledore.”
“My old headmaster?” Tonks asked as she cocked her head. “What are you getting at?”
“He’ll explain it better than I,” Remus suggested as he gently placed the letter in her outstretched hand. She now seemed slightly miffed and studied the plain parchment for several minutes. Then, with a more subdued expression, she looked up once again at Remus.
“Well, I’ll do that,” she replied softly as she stuffed the letter into the back pocket of her jeans. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.” With that, Remus turned on his heels, glad to be done with that mission. As he strode back through the forest, he realized that the weight of the other letter now hung heavy in his pocket. ‘Why can’t I be that eager to read it?’ he wondered as he wound his way to the meager, dirt path.
He turned his back on the house and the woman in the woods. If he had looked behind him, he would have seen her there, staring after him. Once he disappeared from her sight, she drew the letter again and fingered it gently. Remus never saw her, but further down the path, he fingered his own letter again.
However, instead of just gingerly touching it, he drew it out of his pocket. He studied the yellowing parchment in the sunbeams of the rejuvenated forest. With some effort, he opened the letter again.
Dear Remus,
Here, he paused and forced himself not to shove the note back into the folds of his robe. ‘It would be so easy to forget it,’ he told himself, but his eyes strayed to the next line.
I thought about sending this to you, but I don’t have the strength left to do it. It’s your birthday, you know, and some damned part of me misses you. I, the master at avoidance, can’t break my habits in my old age. My parents ran me from place to place during that Muggle war and, after Grindelwald’s defeat, ran me to England. The only time I never ran was when I saw her. I almost avoided Evey because she seemed so untouchable, but something about her was entirely tangible. She had her hair down and wore one of those dresses she liked. I couldn’t tell you the color. As she read that book on that bench, I felt an attraction that I never experienced again.
God, she was beautiful. Did you know how much like her you were? You smiled, and it was something in her face that shown out in you. When you laughed and played with her, nothing was more beautiful. Even now, I curse myself for ruining it.
I had the report in my hands. I could have turned it in, implicating several people for stealing money. The one that I had the clearest evidence for was Abraxas Malfoy. It was quite a fraud, and they probably pilfered more money for years. They robbed the auror department, and every time I read about the failings of the aurors or a dark wizard in the paper, I cursed myself. I caused that. Because of me, dark wizards roamed free.
I had the papers that day, ready to send, and I walked back into my office. I can still see that note on the desk. It said to check on my family. I rushed home, but it was too late. I burned those papers that evening, standing with you. I saw my broken wife and burned them. I ran again because they would kill next time. They went after you the first time, but she saved you both.
I couldn’t look at you without seeing my mistake. I looked at you, wondering what would have happened if I acted faster. What would have happened if I did the right thing? Would she be alive? Would we be a normal family, sitting in our house and laughing together? I don’t know, but your faults became my faults. I wanted you safe and protected, but she knew what was best. She sent you away from me because she knew me. She knew I would shelter you, only to feel my own pain and relive my faults every time I saw you.
So I ran again. This new country, this new place, has given me little hope, though. I can hardly find peace. Now, I know what she felt. She died faster, but I’m dying the same way except slowly. The past eats me, Remus. I can’t escape it. Evey lost her will to live quickly, but I’ve lost it slowly. I’ve been running and hiding, waiting for my time to die. You won’t come to me like you came to her.
Edouard Lupin
Remus calmly folded the letter with shaking hands. He drew out his wand and slowly touched it to the edge of the paper.
‘If you can, so can I,’ Remus thought as he lit the letter on fire. The edges rolled and curled into gray ashes. When the flame reached his fingertips, Remus let it flutter to the ground. When it touched the earth, only ashes remained of Edouard’s letter.
Into the miserable gray sky a single crack of sickly, yellow sun broke. It struggled for life, but it found the ability to overcome the darkness that lay around Hogwarts. Then, another beam of light followed the first. They struggled together to fight away the gray, pseudo dawn and usher in the sunrise.
The first, frail beams of light struck the young, yet careworn, face of Tonks. Her head rested against the cold glass in one of the many windows in one of the many insignificant rooms in Hogwarts. Her bloodshot eyes scanned the horizon, but her head still ached from the events of the night. Her mind drew a miserable blank as the news of Dumbledore’s death numbed her already tired form to almost everything.
Her brown hair cascaded around her heart shaped face. Her listless, ebony eyes now scanned the horizon as she crouched on the windowsill. She drew herself up protectively on the ledge and pulled her bony knees to her chest. She hugged them as more pale light fought against the gray dawn.
‘God, she looks bad,’ Remus thought as he watched the young woman from the other side of the room. They left the hospital wing together, but hadn’t said a word to each other since. He still couldn’t find the words that needed to be said, and part of him held back.
The young woman sighed as she patiently waited. ‘Tell me, Remus, how you feel,’ she pleaded with him when they were alone.
‘I can’t answer that,’ he realized again. The words remained stuck deep in his chest. When he reached for them, he could hardly find them. Only then did he realize how deeply he’d hidden these feelings, but the events of the night helped uncover them for him.
‘I need her to be okay,’ Remus thought as he watched the figure of Tonks at the windowsill. Unbidden, he saw the image of his mother dying flash into his mind. For a moment, the weary form of Tonks seemed to decay. In his mind’s eye, he saw her wither away like Evey Lupin not so long ago.
“Tonks.”
“The sun is rising,” she muttered. He walked over to her; she moved so he could sit beside her on the window ledge. Both pairs of exhausted eyes peered out as a burst of yellow streaked across the horizon. A gush of orange followed it and illuminated their faces.
“Despite my feelings, I don’t think this would work,” Remus mumbled. Even to his own ears, his explanation lacked substance. Tonks snorted and then turned to face Remus. The dawn caused her ivory skin to glow a soft, mango color.
“Even if I did take that as an answer, it doesn’t matter. I need you, Remus. If I didn’t want you in anyway, I would still need you.” She stopped and reached for his hands. He let her take them. “Sometimes, you just need another person. People you need will never leave you, even if you cross the earth to get away from them. I need you.”
“You don’t understand, you . . .” Remus muttered, but paused in the middle of his explanation. A band of rose split into the sunrise and cast its faint, warm glow over the pair. “I haven’t been close to anyone since I was a child.”
A weary, yet relieved smile split over Tonks’s face. Life glimmered back into her blood shot eyes. The tip of the sun peaked up over the tip of the earth and chased the shadows away from the earth. The dew glimmered in the new light that streaked through the little window.
“Worse things have worked out,” Tonks spoke, but then leaned over to Remus. “Please, let whatever it is go and say you need me.”
As the sun slowly rose from its slumber and flooded the world with light, a soft yet weary smile crept across Remus’s face. ‘She wanted me to be happy,’ Remus thought as shafts of light struck the window. The pair became bathed in the ivory light of a new day, which, although destined to be sad, dawned with a moment’s happiness.
As Remus leaned over and whispered in Tonks’s ear, her hair changed into a burning flame of pink.
Note: The experience of being seventeen and at a hospital with a loved one that is dying is also very personal to me, and I wrote this story while going through the experience of watching my grandfather die day by day. So, for a moment, Remus's experiences are mine, and if this means anything more for that, so be it. For me, it made a world of difference and makes this story have so much more significance. I've reread this chapter now that it's posted, and I realized how much of my own emotions I've actually put into the hospital part.