lukon_idein (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lukon_idein) wrote2004-10-03 10:18 pm
lukon_idein) wrote2004-10-03 10:18 pm
It's finally happened....
Yes, stress and loneliness have done the inevitable - driven me to write fanfic (obviously). Such a strange combination of self-analysis and total fantasy. I feel so LAME! BUT, at least I can say I've finally finished something. And I haven't been able to say that for quite some time.
So, I will attempt to post it here, and if it works, I might even set about trying to recruit people to read it.
Title: Convoluted Revolutions
Author: lukon_idein
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Remus Lupin/Bill Weasley (mention of RL/SB)
Summary: The war is over and Remus unexpectedly finds himself still alive.
Warnings: No actual sex (sorry), angst, cussing up a storm, internal dialog galore, charmed playground equipment.
Disclaimer: The usual… All in fun, characters not mine, no infringement intended, please don’t sue!
Notes: All mistakes are my fault – I had no beta. Haven’t read the books in ages so my canon memory is a bit dim. Also, please excuse all the American phrasing. No offense intended. I’m ruddy out of practice at Britspeak. Anyway, it’s my first fic and it’s probably so chock full of clichés that you will be rolling your eyes at me in seconds, but thank you for reading!
Remus Lupin stood on the sidewalk of Grimmauld Place with his wand out, staring with unfocused eyes at the bank of houses. He had been about to utter the words that would reveal Number 12 but had realized that he had no desire to go inside. It had been habit more than anything else that had taken him there after leaving the hospital. Sighing, he dropped his wand hand to his side and began to think about where else he might go. His parents were dead. Dumbledore was dead. Lily and James were dead. No matter how long ago they had been taken from him their names still came to his mind first when listing his friends. Sirius was dead. Harry was…. fine. Remus had just come from St. Mungo’s where he’d ascertained that Harry would make a full recovery from the injuries he’d received during his victorious but hard-fought battle with Voldemort. The other order members, the ones that had survived, were colleagues, comrades in arms who band together in adversity, but in peace have little in common. His mind showed him a brief image of the Weasley family, chaotic and loving, but he brushed it away. They did not need a stray werewolf on their hands in their time of grief. Percy was dead, Ron blind and Charlie still unaccounted for. He could not intrude on that. Others might take him in, Mundungus certainly, if he even had a place himself, or probably Tonks, but they were not friends. Not close friends, at any rate. They would take him in out of respect for their time together in the war and pity for his situation now, but that would as unbearable as being here.
And he knew for sure that no force on this earth could bring him to enter Number 12 this night. He had lived there for three years now, through Sirius’s death, through Harry’s volatile adolescence, through the worst crises of the war. Now it was no longer necessary. His duty to the Marauders he had fulfilled by protecting Harry to the best of his ability and providing as much guidance to the troubled youth as he could. But it was over now. Harry had won, he was safe and Remus was free of obligations. And, of course, purpose. He had known in his mind that this day might come, but honestly he’d always assumed he’d be dead before it became an issue.
With a quiet sigh he turned away and started walking, his steps aided with an ebony cane thanks to Wormtail’s silver hand. Remus mouth twisted grimly. I repaid that debt too. Soon he found himself by a small park and he was enticed by the little roundabout in the middle. Smiling sadly to himself he went over to it and seated himself cross-legged in one quadrant. He took out his wand and muttered a brief spell and the small disc began slowly rotating. They had done this before. The four of them not here but in some park somewhere probably nears James’s house back in school on some holiday he couldn’t remember which and they had stayed up till dawn talking teasing bickering dreaming and watching the stars circle overhead. He wondered what they would have thought if his current self had appeared before them then and told them that in twenty years they’d all be dead but him. Probably hexed him to within an inch of his life and then laughed it off as bad butter beer. And now he was the only one left to remember that night. How odd.
He stretched out on his back now for a better view of the stars but they were in London and the city lights were too bright for many to be visible. Sirius, of course, he could see plain as day. It figures. Closing his eyes, he let himself drown in the sensations of spinning quietly in the open air. Like floating but with more torque and without having to worry about where he was going. Where was he going? His right foot hung over the edge, and his robe brushed the ground - he could feel it tugging gently against his shin. The air was cool and smelled of rhododendrons and damp soil mixed with asphalt and car exhaust. Refreshing and dismal at the same time. Rather like the end of the war. The survivors were free to get on with their lives now, but what was left? For most people there’s a great deal left. It’s just me with nothing. And a full moon in four days. He wondered what it would be like if there were no more full moons. If he could continue revolving in space like this for the rest of eternity he’d have no complaints.
It was then that the voice returned to him. The voice that had whispered to him as a child growing up and again after James and Lily’s deaths. The one he’d been resolutely holding at bay since that day in the bowels of the Ministry. The one that said there was no point to going on; that he’d spare himself a whole lot of pain and rid the world of a vicious dark creature at the same time; that no one would miss him and he would finally be free of his curse.
Thoughts of his parents had stopped him as a child; of his friends when he was older and facing life on his own for the first time; thoughts of Dumbledore had stopped him at the worst time in his life – the time when he had held a dram of poison in his hand and dreamed of ending all his pain forever; the time when every breath was more unbearable than the last and visions of his lover rotting in prison and laughing at his deception plagued him waking and sleeping. Dumbledore who had placed so much faith in Remus, taken so many risks for him. He could not let him down, he had finally, grudgingly decided. Harry had kept him going after Sirius died. Harry and the war. Now there was nothing to hold him here. To hold him to this earth. Except gravity he thought wryly as he felt the gravitational forces push him down against the spinning metal platform, pressing on his chest, pulling on his dangling foot, chaining him relentlessly to the ground, striving to drag him down into the very heart of the planet. For a moment there was just him and gravity and nothing else in the universe. But then a horn honked a few streets away and the world returned.
And with it the same question. Questions. Answers. Leading to more questions. Circling his mind in imitation of his body’s motion. Where am I going? Why go anywhere? I must. I can’t stay here. No, end it now. Harry will hate me. You won’t be here to care. Sirius would kick my ass. He’s not here to care either. How do you know? Grow up. He may meet me on the other side with an armful of asskicking. Grow up. There is no one nothing nevermore out there on the other side. It’s bliss. It’s too soon. Soon?! How many moons have you survived? How many more will you survive? For what? No one cares. You will suffer for no reason. It may get better. No, it won’t. They may find a cure. You may bite someone. Fuck you. Clever. FUCKYOU FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK. I’m too old to start again. I know.
I’m so tired. I know. Students I’ve taught are dead and I’m still here. Useless and old and aching and oh so tired. Yes. But what right have you to take your own life when all those who were killed didn’t have a choice? Fuck you. Do you think Sirius would have chosen to die? Sirius was mad. No he wasn’t. Yes he… no, you’re right, he wasn’t. Manic and unbalanced but not mad. Not yet. Who knows, if he’d stayed any longer in that house. I miss him. I know. I hardly had time to get used to having him back. To remember to look forward to seeing him at the end of the day. I’d like to see him again now. Even if only to get my ass kicked. He won’t be there, you know. If you do it to see him, you will be disappointed. I won’t be around to care. Ha. Ha. If I do it, it will be to SHUT YOU UP! Liar. Fuck you. Where can I go? Nowhere. Who will help me? No one. Harry. Harry has enough to worry about. I don’t want to add to his problems. Martyr. Fuck you. Four days. I have four days to find a place to hold the wolf. I’m so tired. You can always go back to Grimmauld Place. NO. I can’t go back there. Coward. It is perfectly safe. That way lies madness. Sirius is there. And bitterness and hatred and lost hopes and death. I can’t go back there. Have it your way...Martyr. Fuck you. Four days and another cage. End it! No, I can’t. Harry will hate me. I’m so tired.
“Mind if I join you?” Remus nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of another human voice so close to him. As it was, he sat up so quickly he smacked his head into the metal handle bar above him and abruptly found himself flat on his back once again. Except everything seemed to be spinning even faster than before.
When his vision finally cleared he saw Bill Weasley peering down at him, concern and amusement warring on his face. “Sorry, mate. I figured you’d heard me. With your superlupine senses and all.” It was a joke. They had spent a long, cold night once staking out the entrance to an ancient Mithraic temple suspected of being a death-eater gathering place, and Remus had gotten to complaining about how everyone assumed he had all the senses of a wolf in his human form, which was clearly stupid since he didn’t have the physiology of a wolf so how could he have its senses. Bill had been greatly amused at the time and said he just wished he had his fur coat so he could snuggle up to him and keep warm. Remus had laughed and told him he was cheeky.
Bill looked like he was expecting Remus to laugh now or at least respond with another put down. All he was capable of at the moment was an incoherent grunt. “Oh dear. I really got you, didn’t I? How on earth did you survive the war if it’s that easy to sneak up on you?”
“Fuck you,” Remus moaned. Bill grinned at that.
“That’s better. Now how do you stop this thing?”
Remus managed to focus enough to realize Bill was perched on the edge of the roundabout, leaning over him with a hand planted beside each of Remus’s shoulders. For an instant he wanted to reach up and pull him down on top of him. To feel strong arms embrace him and tell him everything would be all right and that there was someplace for him to go. But that was not appropriate. Bill was not his friend. Not like James. Or Sirius. They had not wrestled together in their dormitory and kicked and insulted and hexed and broke apart breathless and laughing. His mouth curled into a half smile, though from mirth or bitterness was unclear. “There is no stopping. It’s an express trip.”
Bill raised his eyebrows. “Indeed? Well then, I’d better make myself comfortable.” He managed to crawl past Remus and under the handle bars without falling off and sprawled on the other side, lying on his back like Remus, and staring up at the sky. His fingers drummed slowly against the metal. “Now, care to tell me what you are doing out here, enchanting muggle play equipment?”
“Just thinking.”
“Mmmmm. I see. About what?”
“Nothing important.”
“Really? Because when I saw you through the window of Grimmauld Place, it looked like you had something very important on your mind.”
Remus felt heat rise in his face and wondered just what had shown on his face as he had turned away from that hated place. “You were there?”
“Mm-hmmm.”
“What for?”
“Ron sent me after Hedwig. He figured Harry would want someone to look after her while he was laid up.”
Remus wondered if it was the blow to his head or the extended argument with his subconscious that made it so hard for him to switch over his thoughts to such everyday matters as the care and feeding of owls. Help me. What can he do? He’s just a boy. “That was kind of him. How is he…em…”
“Coping with his blindness? He has his good days and his bad days. Fortunately he can still play chess – mind like a steel trap, that one. Can see the board in his head and remembers where all the pieces are.”
“Remarkable.” Go away. I can’t do this now. I need to think.
“Yeah. He’s a good kid. Didn’t deserve…. Well, then who did? And *you* are trying to change the subject. Why did you leave Grimmauld Place looking pale as a ghost and emptier than Azkaban?”
Remus frowned. Bill was nothing if not persistent. Bastard. “I am naturally pale.”
“Hah! And…?”
“Azkaban will not be empty for much longer.” A weak feint but he wasn’t about to bring Bill into his hurricane broom ride of self-recrimination. Yes you are. You want someone to know. Shut up.
Bill turned his head to look straight at Remus. “And you?”
Remus felt his throat go dry. “Me?” Good one. Fuck you.
“How much longer will you be empty?”
Remus could only stare back in mute confusion. What should he answer? Confess that he was contemplating suicide? That it wasn’t for the first time but it may be the final time? Should he brazen it out with a joke? He wasn’t feeling up to making jokes right now. Not convincing ones at any rate. Definitely the blow to the head. Bill was good at seeing through lies, anyway. Maybe he should… Tell him! NO! You want him to know! FUCK YOU. I don’t want to talk about it. Liar. You want someone, *anyone* to listen to you. Nonononono. I want Sirius. He’s dead. No shit. I want do be done with it.
Before he could decide how to respond, Bill reached out his hand and brushed Remus’s cheek. “We’re all in pain, Remus. In shock and at loose ends with the war over like it is. You aren’t alone.”
Thank you. Remus took a shuddering breath, ready to utter empty words of camaraderie, but what came out instead was, “I can’t do it again.” Oh no.
Bill rolled over at once and propped himself up on his elbows, inching closer to Remus. “Don’t say that.” Something like anger flashed in his eyes. “My parents are doing it again and they lost their own children, damn it! Don’t you dare say you are going to give up now!”
Remus felt tears come to his eyes, contempt for himself battling self-pity for supremacy. He wanted to shout back. To list all the loved ones he’d lost; to scream that he couldn’t have lost any children because he was a werewolf and they could only reproduce by biting someone else and destroying their life and happiness; to kick and punch and scratch his young handsome face with his empty words of comfort and his perfect family and his bright future. IhateyouhateyouhateyouhateyouhateyouhateyouhateyouhateYOU. But he didn’t know if he meant Bill or himself. All he managed to say was “I’m so tired” before his face crumbled, and he rolled onto his side away from Bill, dissolving into sobs.
Horrible racking sobs punctuated occasionally with a bitter wail. Bill cast a silencing charm around them, then moved around so he was sitting next Remus, his thigh snugged up against Remus’s back. Bill pulled up his other leg and rested his head on his knee as he watched one of the people he respected most in the world come apart. He only hoped there’d be enough pieces when it was over to put him back together.
It went on a long time. Years of suppressed despair is not easily staunched once brought to the surface. Bill, thinking of his own losses and pain, soon had silent tears trailing down his cheeks, but he did not interrupt or try to console the grieving man beside him.
Remus knew nothing. Nothing but waves of grief that blocked out everything from his mind – language, images, ideas were all washed away in an unstoppable stream of raw emotion. Every pain he’d ever felt – loss of his innocence, his body, his future, his friends, his hopes, his faith, his love, all subtly different flavors of grief, like wine, infinite in variety yet all the same at the base level. They flooded through him and he could not rein them in even if he’d wanted to, but the only want he was aware of was the need to recover all he’d ever lost and the knowledge that that was impossible.
It seemed endless, the torrent of emotions he had tapped, but gradually they slowed. He calmed, still breathing unsteadily, and realized he was grateful for the warmth of Bill’s leg against his back. His undemanding presence was something he’d not experienced for a long time. Thought he’d never experience again. He knew he should be embarrassed but somehow he wasn’t.
“Feel better?” Bill asked.
Remus let out a bark of a laugh that reminded them both of Sirius and sniffled. “Yes, thank you.” He turned over to face his companion and before he could stop himself he wrapped his arms around Bill’s waist, longing overcoming sense, and buried his face in the enticing comfort of Bill’s abdomen. Bill didn’t seem to mind, however. He continued to prop his head up on his knee, but now began threading his fingers through Remus’s soft grey hair. They stayed like that for quite some time, both unwilling to break this tentative connection. Eventually birds started singing and the sky to the east seemed a little less black than the rest.
Bill tugged reluctantly on a few locks of hair. “Come on. Let’s go.” Remus groaned into Bill’s jumper and released his hold. “If you would be so kind as to stop this crazy thing.”
Sitting up Remus put a hand to his suddenly throbbing head, and suppressed a wave of dizziness, suddenly recalling his recent head injury. “We’re not going so fast that you couldn’t have hopped off any time you felt like it,” he felt compelled to point out, taking out his wand.
“I’m too heroic to hop.”
“Cheeky,” Remus laughed. A quick finite ended their revolutions and they clambered a bit unsteadily to their feet. As he looked about the lightening park, Remus realized that he still didn’t have a place to go. But somehow it didn’t matter so much now. Perhaps he could start over again after all. Sentimental fool. Too right.
He felt an arm around his shoulders and looked up in surprise. Bill was smiling down at him and proffering his cane. “Come on, old man. Let’s get you home to bed.” Remus eyes widened at the unexpected double entendre and wondered if it meant what he thought it meant. I rather hope so. Don’t get your hopes up. Shut up.
“Watch who you’re calling old,” he murmured, taking his cane and shaking it threateningly at his companion. They started across the grass amid shared laughter.
Remus had just convinced himself he would be able to stomach going back to Grimmauld Place, at least until he could make arrangements to stay elsewhere, when they reached the sidewalk and Bill guided them in the other direction.
“Where are we going?”
“Back to my place?”
“The Burrow?” Remus asked in a slightly strangled voice. He could not face a grieving Molly Weasley first thing in the morning, especially if he showed up groping her son.
“No. I have a place of my own. Well, Fleur and I got it. I haven’t really been there much since we…”
“Ahhh.” Fleur!! He’s not gay, you idiot. How could you forget that?! Then why is he brushing his hip against mine whenever he gets the chance? You’ve got me there. “Why did you split up anyway?”
“She said I didn’t love her enough.”
“Didn’t you?”
“She needed a lot of love. I think veelas feed on it or something. Maybe I should do a research paper.” Bill was not more forthcoming and Remus didn’t pry.
“So now you’re looking for someone to fill the void?”
“No. Now I want to fill someone else’s void.” Bill pulled him closer and squeezed his shoulder. “Any objections?”
“Not a one.” Thank you. “You know, that sounded rather lewd.”
“Mm-hmmm.”
“Your mother should wash your mouth out with soap.”
“Mm-hmmm.”
“What about your mission?”
“Hmmm?”
“Hedwig?”
“She can wait till morning. You can’t.”
Remus snorted. “You mean *you* can’t.”
Bill leaned over and kissed Remus on the side of the head. “Damn right,” he agreed.
*** The End ***
So, I will attempt to post it here, and if it works, I might even set about trying to recruit people to read it.
Title: Convoluted Revolutions
Author: lukon_idein
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Remus Lupin/Bill Weasley (mention of RL/SB)
Summary: The war is over and Remus unexpectedly finds himself still alive.
Warnings: No actual sex (sorry), angst, cussing up a storm, internal dialog galore, charmed playground equipment.
Disclaimer: The usual… All in fun, characters not mine, no infringement intended, please don’t sue!
Notes: All mistakes are my fault – I had no beta. Haven’t read the books in ages so my canon memory is a bit dim. Also, please excuse all the American phrasing. No offense intended. I’m ruddy out of practice at Britspeak. Anyway, it’s my first fic and it’s probably so chock full of clichés that you will be rolling your eyes at me in seconds, but thank you for reading!
Remus Lupin stood on the sidewalk of Grimmauld Place with his wand out, staring with unfocused eyes at the bank of houses. He had been about to utter the words that would reveal Number 12 but had realized that he had no desire to go inside. It had been habit more than anything else that had taken him there after leaving the hospital. Sighing, he dropped his wand hand to his side and began to think about where else he might go. His parents were dead. Dumbledore was dead. Lily and James were dead. No matter how long ago they had been taken from him their names still came to his mind first when listing his friends. Sirius was dead. Harry was…. fine. Remus had just come from St. Mungo’s where he’d ascertained that Harry would make a full recovery from the injuries he’d received during his victorious but hard-fought battle with Voldemort. The other order members, the ones that had survived, were colleagues, comrades in arms who band together in adversity, but in peace have little in common. His mind showed him a brief image of the Weasley family, chaotic and loving, but he brushed it away. They did not need a stray werewolf on their hands in their time of grief. Percy was dead, Ron blind and Charlie still unaccounted for. He could not intrude on that. Others might take him in, Mundungus certainly, if he even had a place himself, or probably Tonks, but they were not friends. Not close friends, at any rate. They would take him in out of respect for their time together in the war and pity for his situation now, but that would as unbearable as being here.
And he knew for sure that no force on this earth could bring him to enter Number 12 this night. He had lived there for three years now, through Sirius’s death, through Harry’s volatile adolescence, through the worst crises of the war. Now it was no longer necessary. His duty to the Marauders he had fulfilled by protecting Harry to the best of his ability and providing as much guidance to the troubled youth as he could. But it was over now. Harry had won, he was safe and Remus was free of obligations. And, of course, purpose. He had known in his mind that this day might come, but honestly he’d always assumed he’d be dead before it became an issue.
With a quiet sigh he turned away and started walking, his steps aided with an ebony cane thanks to Wormtail’s silver hand. Remus mouth twisted grimly. I repaid that debt too. Soon he found himself by a small park and he was enticed by the little roundabout in the middle. Smiling sadly to himself he went over to it and seated himself cross-legged in one quadrant. He took out his wand and muttered a brief spell and the small disc began slowly rotating. They had done this before. The four of them not here but in some park somewhere probably nears James’s house back in school on some holiday he couldn’t remember which and they had stayed up till dawn talking teasing bickering dreaming and watching the stars circle overhead. He wondered what they would have thought if his current self had appeared before them then and told them that in twenty years they’d all be dead but him. Probably hexed him to within an inch of his life and then laughed it off as bad butter beer. And now he was the only one left to remember that night. How odd.
He stretched out on his back now for a better view of the stars but they were in London and the city lights were too bright for many to be visible. Sirius, of course, he could see plain as day. It figures. Closing his eyes, he let himself drown in the sensations of spinning quietly in the open air. Like floating but with more torque and without having to worry about where he was going. Where was he going? His right foot hung over the edge, and his robe brushed the ground - he could feel it tugging gently against his shin. The air was cool and smelled of rhododendrons and damp soil mixed with asphalt and car exhaust. Refreshing and dismal at the same time. Rather like the end of the war. The survivors were free to get on with their lives now, but what was left? For most people there’s a great deal left. It’s just me with nothing. And a full moon in four days. He wondered what it would be like if there were no more full moons. If he could continue revolving in space like this for the rest of eternity he’d have no complaints.
It was then that the voice returned to him. The voice that had whispered to him as a child growing up and again after James and Lily’s deaths. The one he’d been resolutely holding at bay since that day in the bowels of the Ministry. The one that said there was no point to going on; that he’d spare himself a whole lot of pain and rid the world of a vicious dark creature at the same time; that no one would miss him and he would finally be free of his curse.
Thoughts of his parents had stopped him as a child; of his friends when he was older and facing life on his own for the first time; thoughts of Dumbledore had stopped him at the worst time in his life – the time when he had held a dram of poison in his hand and dreamed of ending all his pain forever; the time when every breath was more unbearable than the last and visions of his lover rotting in prison and laughing at his deception plagued him waking and sleeping. Dumbledore who had placed so much faith in Remus, taken so many risks for him. He could not let him down, he had finally, grudgingly decided. Harry had kept him going after Sirius died. Harry and the war. Now there was nothing to hold him here. To hold him to this earth. Except gravity he thought wryly as he felt the gravitational forces push him down against the spinning metal platform, pressing on his chest, pulling on his dangling foot, chaining him relentlessly to the ground, striving to drag him down into the very heart of the planet. For a moment there was just him and gravity and nothing else in the universe. But then a horn honked a few streets away and the world returned.
And with it the same question. Questions. Answers. Leading to more questions. Circling his mind in imitation of his body’s motion. Where am I going? Why go anywhere? I must. I can’t stay here. No, end it now. Harry will hate me. You won’t be here to care. Sirius would kick my ass. He’s not here to care either. How do you know? Grow up. He may meet me on the other side with an armful of asskicking. Grow up. There is no one nothing nevermore out there on the other side. It’s bliss. It’s too soon. Soon?! How many moons have you survived? How many more will you survive? For what? No one cares. You will suffer for no reason. It may get better. No, it won’t. They may find a cure. You may bite someone. Fuck you. Clever. FUCKYOU FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK. I’m too old to start again. I know.
I’m so tired. I know. Students I’ve taught are dead and I’m still here. Useless and old and aching and oh so tired. Yes. But what right have you to take your own life when all those who were killed didn’t have a choice? Fuck you. Do you think Sirius would have chosen to die? Sirius was mad. No he wasn’t. Yes he… no, you’re right, he wasn’t. Manic and unbalanced but not mad. Not yet. Who knows, if he’d stayed any longer in that house. I miss him. I know. I hardly had time to get used to having him back. To remember to look forward to seeing him at the end of the day. I’d like to see him again now. Even if only to get my ass kicked. He won’t be there, you know. If you do it to see him, you will be disappointed. I won’t be around to care. Ha. Ha. If I do it, it will be to SHUT YOU UP! Liar. Fuck you. Where can I go? Nowhere. Who will help me? No one. Harry. Harry has enough to worry about. I don’t want to add to his problems. Martyr. Fuck you. Four days. I have four days to find a place to hold the wolf. I’m so tired. You can always go back to Grimmauld Place. NO. I can’t go back there. Coward. It is perfectly safe. That way lies madness. Sirius is there. And bitterness and hatred and lost hopes and death. I can’t go back there. Have it your way...Martyr. Fuck you. Four days and another cage. End it! No, I can’t. Harry will hate me. I’m so tired.
“Mind if I join you?” Remus nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of another human voice so close to him. As it was, he sat up so quickly he smacked his head into the metal handle bar above him and abruptly found himself flat on his back once again. Except everything seemed to be spinning even faster than before.
When his vision finally cleared he saw Bill Weasley peering down at him, concern and amusement warring on his face. “Sorry, mate. I figured you’d heard me. With your superlupine senses and all.” It was a joke. They had spent a long, cold night once staking out the entrance to an ancient Mithraic temple suspected of being a death-eater gathering place, and Remus had gotten to complaining about how everyone assumed he had all the senses of a wolf in his human form, which was clearly stupid since he didn’t have the physiology of a wolf so how could he have its senses. Bill had been greatly amused at the time and said he just wished he had his fur coat so he could snuggle up to him and keep warm. Remus had laughed and told him he was cheeky.
Bill looked like he was expecting Remus to laugh now or at least respond with another put down. All he was capable of at the moment was an incoherent grunt. “Oh dear. I really got you, didn’t I? How on earth did you survive the war if it’s that easy to sneak up on you?”
“Fuck you,” Remus moaned. Bill grinned at that.
“That’s better. Now how do you stop this thing?”
Remus managed to focus enough to realize Bill was perched on the edge of the roundabout, leaning over him with a hand planted beside each of Remus’s shoulders. For an instant he wanted to reach up and pull him down on top of him. To feel strong arms embrace him and tell him everything would be all right and that there was someplace for him to go. But that was not appropriate. Bill was not his friend. Not like James. Or Sirius. They had not wrestled together in their dormitory and kicked and insulted and hexed and broke apart breathless and laughing. His mouth curled into a half smile, though from mirth or bitterness was unclear. “There is no stopping. It’s an express trip.”
Bill raised his eyebrows. “Indeed? Well then, I’d better make myself comfortable.” He managed to crawl past Remus and under the handle bars without falling off and sprawled on the other side, lying on his back like Remus, and staring up at the sky. His fingers drummed slowly against the metal. “Now, care to tell me what you are doing out here, enchanting muggle play equipment?”
“Just thinking.”
“Mmmmm. I see. About what?”
“Nothing important.”
“Really? Because when I saw you through the window of Grimmauld Place, it looked like you had something very important on your mind.”
Remus felt heat rise in his face and wondered just what had shown on his face as he had turned away from that hated place. “You were there?”
“Mm-hmmm.”
“What for?”
“Ron sent me after Hedwig. He figured Harry would want someone to look after her while he was laid up.”
Remus wondered if it was the blow to his head or the extended argument with his subconscious that made it so hard for him to switch over his thoughts to such everyday matters as the care and feeding of owls. Help me. What can he do? He’s just a boy. “That was kind of him. How is he…em…”
“Coping with his blindness? He has his good days and his bad days. Fortunately he can still play chess – mind like a steel trap, that one. Can see the board in his head and remembers where all the pieces are.”
“Remarkable.” Go away. I can’t do this now. I need to think.
“Yeah. He’s a good kid. Didn’t deserve…. Well, then who did? And *you* are trying to change the subject. Why did you leave Grimmauld Place looking pale as a ghost and emptier than Azkaban?”
Remus frowned. Bill was nothing if not persistent. Bastard. “I am naturally pale.”
“Hah! And…?”
“Azkaban will not be empty for much longer.” A weak feint but he wasn’t about to bring Bill into his hurricane broom ride of self-recrimination. Yes you are. You want someone to know. Shut up.
Bill turned his head to look straight at Remus. “And you?”
Remus felt his throat go dry. “Me?” Good one. Fuck you.
“How much longer will you be empty?”
Remus could only stare back in mute confusion. What should he answer? Confess that he was contemplating suicide? That it wasn’t for the first time but it may be the final time? Should he brazen it out with a joke? He wasn’t feeling up to making jokes right now. Not convincing ones at any rate. Definitely the blow to the head. Bill was good at seeing through lies, anyway. Maybe he should… Tell him! NO! You want him to know! FUCK YOU. I don’t want to talk about it. Liar. You want someone, *anyone* to listen to you. Nonononono. I want Sirius. He’s dead. No shit. I want do be done with it.
Before he could decide how to respond, Bill reached out his hand and brushed Remus’s cheek. “We’re all in pain, Remus. In shock and at loose ends with the war over like it is. You aren’t alone.”
Thank you. Remus took a shuddering breath, ready to utter empty words of camaraderie, but what came out instead was, “I can’t do it again.” Oh no.
Bill rolled over at once and propped himself up on his elbows, inching closer to Remus. “Don’t say that.” Something like anger flashed in his eyes. “My parents are doing it again and they lost their own children, damn it! Don’t you dare say you are going to give up now!”
Remus felt tears come to his eyes, contempt for himself battling self-pity for supremacy. He wanted to shout back. To list all the loved ones he’d lost; to scream that he couldn’t have lost any children because he was a werewolf and they could only reproduce by biting someone else and destroying their life and happiness; to kick and punch and scratch his young handsome face with his empty words of comfort and his perfect family and his bright future. IhateyouhateyouhateyouhateyouhateyouhateyouhateyouhateYOU. But he didn’t know if he meant Bill or himself. All he managed to say was “I’m so tired” before his face crumbled, and he rolled onto his side away from Bill, dissolving into sobs.
Horrible racking sobs punctuated occasionally with a bitter wail. Bill cast a silencing charm around them, then moved around so he was sitting next Remus, his thigh snugged up against Remus’s back. Bill pulled up his other leg and rested his head on his knee as he watched one of the people he respected most in the world come apart. He only hoped there’d be enough pieces when it was over to put him back together.
It went on a long time. Years of suppressed despair is not easily staunched once brought to the surface. Bill, thinking of his own losses and pain, soon had silent tears trailing down his cheeks, but he did not interrupt or try to console the grieving man beside him.
Remus knew nothing. Nothing but waves of grief that blocked out everything from his mind – language, images, ideas were all washed away in an unstoppable stream of raw emotion. Every pain he’d ever felt – loss of his innocence, his body, his future, his friends, his hopes, his faith, his love, all subtly different flavors of grief, like wine, infinite in variety yet all the same at the base level. They flooded through him and he could not rein them in even if he’d wanted to, but the only want he was aware of was the need to recover all he’d ever lost and the knowledge that that was impossible.
It seemed endless, the torrent of emotions he had tapped, but gradually they slowed. He calmed, still breathing unsteadily, and realized he was grateful for the warmth of Bill’s leg against his back. His undemanding presence was something he’d not experienced for a long time. Thought he’d never experience again. He knew he should be embarrassed but somehow he wasn’t.
“Feel better?” Bill asked.
Remus let out a bark of a laugh that reminded them both of Sirius and sniffled. “Yes, thank you.” He turned over to face his companion and before he could stop himself he wrapped his arms around Bill’s waist, longing overcoming sense, and buried his face in the enticing comfort of Bill’s abdomen. Bill didn’t seem to mind, however. He continued to prop his head up on his knee, but now began threading his fingers through Remus’s soft grey hair. They stayed like that for quite some time, both unwilling to break this tentative connection. Eventually birds started singing and the sky to the east seemed a little less black than the rest.
Bill tugged reluctantly on a few locks of hair. “Come on. Let’s go.” Remus groaned into Bill’s jumper and released his hold. “If you would be so kind as to stop this crazy thing.”
Sitting up Remus put a hand to his suddenly throbbing head, and suppressed a wave of dizziness, suddenly recalling his recent head injury. “We’re not going so fast that you couldn’t have hopped off any time you felt like it,” he felt compelled to point out, taking out his wand.
“I’m too heroic to hop.”
“Cheeky,” Remus laughed. A quick finite ended their revolutions and they clambered a bit unsteadily to their feet. As he looked about the lightening park, Remus realized that he still didn’t have a place to go. But somehow it didn’t matter so much now. Perhaps he could start over again after all. Sentimental fool. Too right.
He felt an arm around his shoulders and looked up in surprise. Bill was smiling down at him and proffering his cane. “Come on, old man. Let’s get you home to bed.” Remus eyes widened at the unexpected double entendre and wondered if it meant what he thought it meant. I rather hope so. Don’t get your hopes up. Shut up.
“Watch who you’re calling old,” he murmured, taking his cane and shaking it threateningly at his companion. They started across the grass amid shared laughter.
Remus had just convinced himself he would be able to stomach going back to Grimmauld Place, at least until he could make arrangements to stay elsewhere, when they reached the sidewalk and Bill guided them in the other direction.
“Where are we going?”
“Back to my place?”
“The Burrow?” Remus asked in a slightly strangled voice. He could not face a grieving Molly Weasley first thing in the morning, especially if he showed up groping her son.
“No. I have a place of my own. Well, Fleur and I got it. I haven’t really been there much since we…”
“Ahhh.” Fleur!! He’s not gay, you idiot. How could you forget that?! Then why is he brushing his hip against mine whenever he gets the chance? You’ve got me there. “Why did you split up anyway?”
“She said I didn’t love her enough.”
“Didn’t you?”
“She needed a lot of love. I think veelas feed on it or something. Maybe I should do a research paper.” Bill was not more forthcoming and Remus didn’t pry.
“So now you’re looking for someone to fill the void?”
“No. Now I want to fill someone else’s void.” Bill pulled him closer and squeezed his shoulder. “Any objections?”
“Not a one.” Thank you. “You know, that sounded rather lewd.”
“Mm-hmmm.”
“Your mother should wash your mouth out with soap.”
“Mm-hmmm.”
“What about your mission?”
“Hmmm?”
“Hedwig?”
“She can wait till morning. You can’t.”
Remus snorted. “You mean *you* can’t.”
Bill leaned over and kissed Remus on the side of the head. “Damn right,” he agreed.
*** The End ***