O Come, O Come (Wk 46)
Title: O Come, O Come
Author/Artist: blanketdinstars ( AO3)
Rating: G
Contents or warnings: 1996
Word count: 2791
Summary: December 25th, 1996. A visit and a photograph.
Notes: Title from the carol "O come, O come, Emmanuel"
The snow, melting in the heated building, drips wetly from Remus’s shoes as he walks up the stairs to the sixth floor. He can feel the hours pulling at him, reminding him that tonight he has to return to the shadows and the wolves that wait there. But first, he thinks, straightening his shoulders as if to intimidate the unwanted thoughts, he is going to pay a visit. He knocks and calls through the door, “Happy Christmas.”
Tonks opens the door and smiles slowly, almost unwillingly. “Happy Christmas. How’d you find me?” She doesn’t sound displeased.
“Molly gave me the address.” Remus chuckles when Tonks rolls her eyes. “You know your building hasn’t got intercom. That’s not very secure.”
Tonks stands aside to let him in. “If Death Eaters want to find me, intercom won’t stop them. How d’you know what intercom is, anyway? You’re, well,” she gestures vaguely at him.
“I’m not nearly as old as you think. And my mother was a Muggle, so I understand technology just as well as you do.” He looks around the flat. It’s untidy in the way that comes from seldom being home. “I’ve just come from the Burrow,” he tells her. “We missed you.”
“Sorry.” She only half sounds as if she means it. “I’ve been busy.”
“Molly said you were spending the holiday alone,” Remus says. He tries not to be too accusatory.
She crosses her arms anyways. “I visited my parents last night. It was nice. I wasn’t alone.”
“But you are now.”
Tonks rolls her eyes again, but this time it’s not funny. “I don’t think you get to tell me how to spend Christmas, Lupin. Besides, have you visited your family?”
“We’re not talking about me,” he says without thinking, and knows it’s as good as an admission.
With an air of triumph, Tonks pounces. “We are now. You ought to go see your dad.”
Remus wrinkles his nose.
“He probably wants to see you,” she adds. “Probably upset you haven’t already stopped by.”
Remus wants to tell her off for changing the subject and being such a hypocrite, but he’s stuck counting, and reaches the conclusion that it’s been five years since he spent Christmas with his father. “It’s not that simple.”
“As long as you’re setting rules for me,” she says, “it really is. Hang on a moment.” She hurries into the next room.
Remus surveys the flat again. He recognizes Dumbledore’s handwriting on some of the nearest papers, mostly hidden by a half-rolled poster of the Weird Sisters. Thrown over the back of the obviously secondhand love seat is a pair of stockings, and on the floor beside it, what looks like a dress dropped in a heap. Remus looks away. The mess is familiar, like the cottage and the dormitory before that, full of busy life.
“Got it.” Tonks comes back wearing a coat and holding a bottle of rather expensive-looking wine. She hands it to Remus in order to place a knit cap over her light brown hair.
Reading the label, Remus doesn’t recognize the brand, and all the words are in French. “What’s this for?”
“Your dad,” she says briskly, and before he knows it they’re making their way out of the flat and back down the stairs.
Ten minutes and a pointless argument later, they’re standing in front of the little green house. Remus feels irritatingly self-conscious and avoids looking at Tonks while they wait on the doorstep after ringing the bell. The paint is peeling and the columns on the porch, an old wraparound, list in opposite directions.
“I’ve offered to fix the place up,” Remus says suddenly, defensively, wanting to bite his tongue. He feels sure that if he turns, Tonks will be skewering him with her eyes. “More than once. He won’t let me.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Tonks replies mildly.
The door opens with a squeaking of hinges. Lyall is dressed in a sweater and slacks, nothing out of the ordinary, but Remus thinks he looks washed out, as if he’s halfway to disappearing. A moment passes. Then another.
“Hey, Dad.” It’s a croak. Remus clears his throat, but doesn’t try again. “Er. Happy Christmas.”
Lyall blinks at him. “I wasn’t sure you realized it was Christmas. Surprised you’ve come, considering.”
Tonks has to elbow him in the ribs before he can muster a response. “Sorry.” He’s aware it’s woefully inadequate. “Can-can we come in?”
“Naturally. It’s a holiday.” Lyall closes the door behind them. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he says to Tonks, waving his wand to turn on a few more lights.
“I’m Tonks,” she says, and shakes his hand. “Happy Christmas.”
“Metamorphmagus, eh?”
Tonks gapes a little.
Lyall smiles. It transforms his face, brings some of the color back. “My job was with Spirituous Apparitions, but a well-rounded background was necessary. And there are some tells.”
“Well.” Tonks takes off her hat and tucks her hair more securely behind her ear.
“Would you like tea?” Lyall asks, speaking mostly to Tonks, as he leads them into the sitting room. “There’s some scones, too, or a bit of cake if you’d prefer…”
“Scones would be lovely,” Tonks says when Remus stays quiet, and gives him a questioning glance. When Lyall leaves them sitting on the yellow sofa and goes into the kitchen, she hisses, “Don’t clam up on me! He’s your family!”
“And this was your idea,” Remus whispers back. “I didn’t ask-”
“Earl Grey or chamomile?” comes the call from the kitchen.
“Chamomile,” says Remus, as Tonks says, “Earl Grey.”
“Got it,” Lyall chuckles.
Tonks wrinkles her nose at Remus. “You’re disgusting.”
“Don’t insult me in my own house,” Remus replies as Lyall returns carrying a tray with three steaming mugs and a plate of scones.
“But this isn’t your house,” Lyall reminds him. “You’ve got to visit if you want to call it that.”
The guilt that’s been gnawing on Remus’s gut since they Apparated to the end of the lane sinks its teeth in deeper. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out.
“So,” Lyall says into the silence, looking somewhat disappointed, “how go the war efforts?”
“Er,” Tonks says, “how honest do you want us to be?” She takes a scone.
“As honest as you can be.” Lyall smooths the pleat of his slacks. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”
Rather than answer, Tonks takes an enormous bite of the scone.
Lyall looks expectantly at Remus.
“Well,” he says, “it’s-going rather awfully, actually.”
“What does Dumbledore have you doing?” Lyall says the name with a tone that approaches reverence; ever since the Willow was planted and Remus was allowed to attend Hogwarts, he’s had the utmost respect for the headmaster.
Tonks swallows her mouthful. “Mostly anticipating Voldemort-sorry,” she says quickly when Lyall nearly loses his grip on his mug, “You-Know-Who’s moves. Casing the joints and the like.”
Lyall recovers, though he looks even paler than before. “And what does his next move seem to be?”
“Possibly something in Kent, possibly closer to Finland.” She shrugs. “Everything’s been very quiet lately. Although Remus can tell you he’s been recruiting were-” She breaks off when Remus kicks her, but the damage is done.
“Recruiting werewolves?” Lyall looks sharply at Remus. His eyes glint with understanding. “Of course you’d make the perfect spy. And Dumbledore wants you to reason with them? Don’t think I haven’t heard,” he says more loudly when Remus opens his mouth. “Greyback’s rallying them. Who does Dumbledore think he is, sending you to your death-throwing you to the wolves, literally!”
“Dad,” Remus says, trying for a calm tone. He isn’t sure he succeeds. “Dumbledore didn’t send me, he tried to talk me out of it.” Eventually, he amends, but there’s no need for his father to know that. “It was my decision.”
Lyall looks stunned. “Why?” he demands.
“It’s important work.”
“She just said it’s not making a lick of difference.” Lyall takes an angry sip of tea. “There’s a lot of important work to be done. I don’t see why you’d choose to put yourself in that much danger.”
“Everything’s dangerous right now, Dad.”
“But what use are you if you’re dead?” The words ring in the sudden silence. “I don’t see why,” Lyall repeats more quietly.
Remus looks at his hands. “Have you been reading the Prophet?” he asks. “Did you hear what happened back in June?”
Tonks leaps to her feet. “Where’s the loo?”
“Up the stairs and ‘round the corner,” Remus and Lyall say at the same time, pointing.
“She’s nice,” Lyall says quickly when she’s gone. “Are you two-?”
“What?” Remus has to look at his father to make sure he’s serious. “No! We’re not-Merlin’s beard, no, we’re just-colleagues. And friends.”
“Oh.” Lyall has the grace to look embarrassed. “You found anyone yet?” he asks after a moment. “It’s just-well, in a war like this, you realize we haven’t all got the luxury of time. Sometimes people get together.”
This is, Remus thinks, the most painful way to broach the subject. But he takes it. “I did find someone,” he says, and then his throat starts to close up. He takes a bite of scone and forces it down, his mouth dry. “Er-” He wonders how to begin, which revelation to make first. He has, of course, put this off for far too long. Now there will never be a happy ending. It’s already over.
“Did?”
Remus sighs. Swallows. “Have you been reading the Prophet?” he asks again.
“I read about what happened at the Ministry,” Lyall says softly. “I wrote to you.”
Remus nods.
“You used to be the best of friends,” Lyall muses. “Then-what, two years ago?-there he was again. And you two as close as ever.”
“It was-it was Sirius,” Remus gets out.
“What was Sirius?”
“I said I found someone. It was him.” Remus takes a long drink of tea and wills his eyes to dry out.
Lyall says nothing for more than three minutes. Remus counts. Then he sets his mug back on the tray and leans forward in the huge armchair. “He was a good one, never mind his family. Solid. A bit on the wild side, but-well, he’d have to be, to go with a werewolf.”
The lycanthropy has always been a sore point between them for many reasons. Now Remus just laughs, and it comes out half a sob. He presses his palms to his face-he will not cry, not in front of his father, not on Christmas. He hasn’t cried in two years, since the last time he saw his father. It’s been horrible and painful and he thought he might die a few times, but he hasn’t cried, and he won’t-he won’t-not today.
So he takes a deep breath and another sip of tea. “Is that it?” he asks, because he thinks he should. It’s what one does when making this sort of announcement. “You’re-all right?”
“Well, I won’t say I’m not a bit surprised,” Lyall admits, but when Remus meets his eyes, his gaze is warm. “It doesn’t seem to matter in the end. And you’re the one who needs to be all right, I think, much more than I do.”
Remus swallows past the knife that’s still stuck in his throat. “I am all right,” he insists, a miserable lie that neither of them believes. “I’m-I came here, didn’t I? I haven’t collapsed in a heap yet.”
Lyall gives him a calculating look, but lets it go. He seems to feel, as Remus does, that they’ve hit their limit for the day. Or perhaps he is just afraid to say more, since it’s a holiday and they are family and he doesn’t want to drive Remus out the door when they so rarely are in the same room.
The guilt bites down, hard. “Dad,” Remus says, “I’m sorry.” It’s sudden and sounds forced, he knows, but he has to say it. “I should visit more. I’m sorry I don’t. There’s no excuse, I just-look. Sorry.”
With a shake of his head, Lyall waves the apology away-to be brought out at a later time when everything doesn’t hurt quite so much, perhaps. “I think your friend Tonks might be lost,” he says.
“Right,” Remus says. He knows it’s intended partly to get a few minutes of privacy, so he goes up the stairs and finds the bathroom empty. Continuing down the hall to the third door on the right, he enters the sunny little room.
Tonks is sitting in the chair with the wobbly leg. “Oh,” she says when he comes in, and wipes hurriedly at her eyes. “I didn’t mean to be so long-”
“It’s fine,” Remus tells her. He sits on the edge of the bed, spreading his fingers over the light blue duvet. “Do you want to leave?”
“No!” She shakes her head, and Remus can’t tell if she means it or if she’s lying to give him more time. “I don’t know what I expected but I just wasn’t prepared for-you know. Sirius.” She pulls her cuffs down over her knuckles so that the fabric stretches thin. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He always comes up. In conversation, in my head, it doesn’t matter.”
Remus decides she meant it. “He’s like a bad penny,” he agrees. Although it’s not as if he’s not wanted.
Tonks looks like she might say the same, but apparently decides against it. “This was your room, wasn’t it?” she asks.
Remus nods.
“It shows.” She taps her nails on the desk with its deep gouges. “What was it like, growing up all the way out here? Was it lonely?”
The question seems disconnected from everything they’ve been talking about, but Remus answers, grateful for the distraction. “Yes and no. I was often alone, and I suppose it would have been nice to have friends my own age… but I was happy enough. My mum made it seem all right. Good, even.” The past is curiously distant now, he notices. As if too much has happened and his life has split in two: then and now. He doesn’t know where the line was drawn.
“It seems very quiet,” Tonks remarks.
“Not at all.” Remus inclines his head towards the bookshelf. “I my share of adventures. By the time I went to school I was half convinced I would do something grand and change the world.”
Tonks laughs with him. Then she smiles sadly and says, “You changed his world.”
A bad penny, indeed. “I don’t know about that.”
“He told me.” She widens her eyes earnestly at his disbelief. “Not in those exact words, maybe, but last spring he said you were half the reason he left home. ‘Without Moony,’ he said, ‘I’d still be watering my mother’s garden. Because of him I get to piss on all her Snargaluff pods.’”
The words are undoubtedly Sirius’s, and Tonks imitates his voice so well that Remus has a hard time breathing in order to chuckle.
“Besides that,” Tonks adds, “anyone could see it just by the way he looked at you.”
Remus offers a smile in response, unable to come up with adequate words. They stand up at the same time, reaching an unspoken agreement to go back downstairs, but on her way to the door Tonks pauses to pick up a photograph from the bookshelf.
“Look,” she says, her voice suddenly constricted, “it’s right here. See?” She holds out the picture in a lightly trembling hand.
Warily, Remus takes it. He recognizes the background first, because it’s the very room they’re standing in. Next is himself, sixteen years old and much too close, laughing and watching something outside the frame. And in the middle ground there is Sirius, facing the same direction but not paying the slightest attention to whatever is so funny. Instead he’s gazing at the side of Remus’s face, what little of it is visible, and smiling.
The smile is a secret one, too bright to look at but softened, somehow, a tempered edge to the riot of everything that was Sirius. He laughs a little, too, but it seems to be in wonder.
Remus, the real Remus with his feet growing roots and his heart wrung to desert dryness, wonders too-at the light in Sirius’s eyes, the absence of lines, the lift of his shoulders and the fullness of his cheeks. The life of him. And it was for me, he thinks, the truth a burst of warmth in this the longest winter of his life. It washes over all his bruised and aching places and fits his broken pieces back together.
---
But there is a kind of hunger that feeds
on flesh. Only, let it be yearning, heaving,
rising flesh. Only, let it be flesh living
and loving. Alive. Let it be life.
-We were Two Rooms of One Timber, But I Left that Place Alone by Camille T. Dungy
Author/Artist: blanketdinstars ( AO3)
Rating: G
Contents or warnings: 1996
Word count: 2791
Summary: December 25th, 1996. A visit and a photograph.
Notes: Title from the carol "O come, O come, Emmanuel"
The snow, melting in the heated building, drips wetly from Remus’s shoes as he walks up the stairs to the sixth floor. He can feel the hours pulling at him, reminding him that tonight he has to return to the shadows and the wolves that wait there. But first, he thinks, straightening his shoulders as if to intimidate the unwanted thoughts, he is going to pay a visit. He knocks and calls through the door, “Happy Christmas.”
Tonks opens the door and smiles slowly, almost unwillingly. “Happy Christmas. How’d you find me?” She doesn’t sound displeased.
“Molly gave me the address.” Remus chuckles when Tonks rolls her eyes. “You know your building hasn’t got intercom. That’s not very secure.”
Tonks stands aside to let him in. “If Death Eaters want to find me, intercom won’t stop them. How d’you know what intercom is, anyway? You’re, well,” she gestures vaguely at him.
“I’m not nearly as old as you think. And my mother was a Muggle, so I understand technology just as well as you do.” He looks around the flat. It’s untidy in the way that comes from seldom being home. “I’ve just come from the Burrow,” he tells her. “We missed you.”
“Sorry.” She only half sounds as if she means it. “I’ve been busy.”
“Molly said you were spending the holiday alone,” Remus says. He tries not to be too accusatory.
She crosses her arms anyways. “I visited my parents last night. It was nice. I wasn’t alone.”
“But you are now.”
Tonks rolls her eyes again, but this time it’s not funny. “I don’t think you get to tell me how to spend Christmas, Lupin. Besides, have you visited your family?”
“We’re not talking about me,” he says without thinking, and knows it’s as good as an admission.
With an air of triumph, Tonks pounces. “We are now. You ought to go see your dad.”
Remus wrinkles his nose.
“He probably wants to see you,” she adds. “Probably upset you haven’t already stopped by.”
Remus wants to tell her off for changing the subject and being such a hypocrite, but he’s stuck counting, and reaches the conclusion that it’s been five years since he spent Christmas with his father. “It’s not that simple.”
“As long as you’re setting rules for me,” she says, “it really is. Hang on a moment.” She hurries into the next room.
Remus surveys the flat again. He recognizes Dumbledore’s handwriting on some of the nearest papers, mostly hidden by a half-rolled poster of the Weird Sisters. Thrown over the back of the obviously secondhand love seat is a pair of stockings, and on the floor beside it, what looks like a dress dropped in a heap. Remus looks away. The mess is familiar, like the cottage and the dormitory before that, full of busy life.
“Got it.” Tonks comes back wearing a coat and holding a bottle of rather expensive-looking wine. She hands it to Remus in order to place a knit cap over her light brown hair.
Reading the label, Remus doesn’t recognize the brand, and all the words are in French. “What’s this for?”
“Your dad,” she says briskly, and before he knows it they’re making their way out of the flat and back down the stairs.
Ten minutes and a pointless argument later, they’re standing in front of the little green house. Remus feels irritatingly self-conscious and avoids looking at Tonks while they wait on the doorstep after ringing the bell. The paint is peeling and the columns on the porch, an old wraparound, list in opposite directions.
“I’ve offered to fix the place up,” Remus says suddenly, defensively, wanting to bite his tongue. He feels sure that if he turns, Tonks will be skewering him with her eyes. “More than once. He won’t let me.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Tonks replies mildly.
The door opens with a squeaking of hinges. Lyall is dressed in a sweater and slacks, nothing out of the ordinary, but Remus thinks he looks washed out, as if he’s halfway to disappearing. A moment passes. Then another.
“Hey, Dad.” It’s a croak. Remus clears his throat, but doesn’t try again. “Er. Happy Christmas.”
Lyall blinks at him. “I wasn’t sure you realized it was Christmas. Surprised you’ve come, considering.”
Tonks has to elbow him in the ribs before he can muster a response. “Sorry.” He’s aware it’s woefully inadequate. “Can-can we come in?”
“Naturally. It’s a holiday.” Lyall closes the door behind them. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he says to Tonks, waving his wand to turn on a few more lights.
“I’m Tonks,” she says, and shakes his hand. “Happy Christmas.”
“Metamorphmagus, eh?”
Tonks gapes a little.
Lyall smiles. It transforms his face, brings some of the color back. “My job was with Spirituous Apparitions, but a well-rounded background was necessary. And there are some tells.”
“Well.” Tonks takes off her hat and tucks her hair more securely behind her ear.
“Would you like tea?” Lyall asks, speaking mostly to Tonks, as he leads them into the sitting room. “There’s some scones, too, or a bit of cake if you’d prefer…”
“Scones would be lovely,” Tonks says when Remus stays quiet, and gives him a questioning glance. When Lyall leaves them sitting on the yellow sofa and goes into the kitchen, she hisses, “Don’t clam up on me! He’s your family!”
“And this was your idea,” Remus whispers back. “I didn’t ask-”
“Earl Grey or chamomile?” comes the call from the kitchen.
“Chamomile,” says Remus, as Tonks says, “Earl Grey.”
“Got it,” Lyall chuckles.
Tonks wrinkles her nose at Remus. “You’re disgusting.”
“Don’t insult me in my own house,” Remus replies as Lyall returns carrying a tray with three steaming mugs and a plate of scones.
“But this isn’t your house,” Lyall reminds him. “You’ve got to visit if you want to call it that.”
The guilt that’s been gnawing on Remus’s gut since they Apparated to the end of the lane sinks its teeth in deeper. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out.
“So,” Lyall says into the silence, looking somewhat disappointed, “how go the war efforts?”
“Er,” Tonks says, “how honest do you want us to be?” She takes a scone.
“As honest as you can be.” Lyall smooths the pleat of his slacks. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”
Rather than answer, Tonks takes an enormous bite of the scone.
Lyall looks expectantly at Remus.
“Well,” he says, “it’s-going rather awfully, actually.”
“What does Dumbledore have you doing?” Lyall says the name with a tone that approaches reverence; ever since the Willow was planted and Remus was allowed to attend Hogwarts, he’s had the utmost respect for the headmaster.
Tonks swallows her mouthful. “Mostly anticipating Voldemort-sorry,” she says quickly when Lyall nearly loses his grip on his mug, “You-Know-Who’s moves. Casing the joints and the like.”
Lyall recovers, though he looks even paler than before. “And what does his next move seem to be?”
“Possibly something in Kent, possibly closer to Finland.” She shrugs. “Everything’s been very quiet lately. Although Remus can tell you he’s been recruiting were-” She breaks off when Remus kicks her, but the damage is done.
“Recruiting werewolves?” Lyall looks sharply at Remus. His eyes glint with understanding. “Of course you’d make the perfect spy. And Dumbledore wants you to reason with them? Don’t think I haven’t heard,” he says more loudly when Remus opens his mouth. “Greyback’s rallying them. Who does Dumbledore think he is, sending you to your death-throwing you to the wolves, literally!”
“Dad,” Remus says, trying for a calm tone. He isn’t sure he succeeds. “Dumbledore didn’t send me, he tried to talk me out of it.” Eventually, he amends, but there’s no need for his father to know that. “It was my decision.”
Lyall looks stunned. “Why?” he demands.
“It’s important work.”
“She just said it’s not making a lick of difference.” Lyall takes an angry sip of tea. “There’s a lot of important work to be done. I don’t see why you’d choose to put yourself in that much danger.”
“Everything’s dangerous right now, Dad.”
“But what use are you if you’re dead?” The words ring in the sudden silence. “I don’t see why,” Lyall repeats more quietly.
Remus looks at his hands. “Have you been reading the Prophet?” he asks. “Did you hear what happened back in June?”
Tonks leaps to her feet. “Where’s the loo?”
“Up the stairs and ‘round the corner,” Remus and Lyall say at the same time, pointing.
“She’s nice,” Lyall says quickly when she’s gone. “Are you two-?”
“What?” Remus has to look at his father to make sure he’s serious. “No! We’re not-Merlin’s beard, no, we’re just-colleagues. And friends.”
“Oh.” Lyall has the grace to look embarrassed. “You found anyone yet?” he asks after a moment. “It’s just-well, in a war like this, you realize we haven’t all got the luxury of time. Sometimes people get together.”
This is, Remus thinks, the most painful way to broach the subject. But he takes it. “I did find someone,” he says, and then his throat starts to close up. He takes a bite of scone and forces it down, his mouth dry. “Er-” He wonders how to begin, which revelation to make first. He has, of course, put this off for far too long. Now there will never be a happy ending. It’s already over.
“Did?”
Remus sighs. Swallows. “Have you been reading the Prophet?” he asks again.
“I read about what happened at the Ministry,” Lyall says softly. “I wrote to you.”
Remus nods.
“You used to be the best of friends,” Lyall muses. “Then-what, two years ago?-there he was again. And you two as close as ever.”
“It was-it was Sirius,” Remus gets out.
“What was Sirius?”
“I said I found someone. It was him.” Remus takes a long drink of tea and wills his eyes to dry out.
Lyall says nothing for more than three minutes. Remus counts. Then he sets his mug back on the tray and leans forward in the huge armchair. “He was a good one, never mind his family. Solid. A bit on the wild side, but-well, he’d have to be, to go with a werewolf.”
The lycanthropy has always been a sore point between them for many reasons. Now Remus just laughs, and it comes out half a sob. He presses his palms to his face-he will not cry, not in front of his father, not on Christmas. He hasn’t cried in two years, since the last time he saw his father. It’s been horrible and painful and he thought he might die a few times, but he hasn’t cried, and he won’t-he won’t-not today.
So he takes a deep breath and another sip of tea. “Is that it?” he asks, because he thinks he should. It’s what one does when making this sort of announcement. “You’re-all right?”
“Well, I won’t say I’m not a bit surprised,” Lyall admits, but when Remus meets his eyes, his gaze is warm. “It doesn’t seem to matter in the end. And you’re the one who needs to be all right, I think, much more than I do.”
Remus swallows past the knife that’s still stuck in his throat. “I am all right,” he insists, a miserable lie that neither of them believes. “I’m-I came here, didn’t I? I haven’t collapsed in a heap yet.”
Lyall gives him a calculating look, but lets it go. He seems to feel, as Remus does, that they’ve hit their limit for the day. Or perhaps he is just afraid to say more, since it’s a holiday and they are family and he doesn’t want to drive Remus out the door when they so rarely are in the same room.
The guilt bites down, hard. “Dad,” Remus says, “I’m sorry.” It’s sudden and sounds forced, he knows, but he has to say it. “I should visit more. I’m sorry I don’t. There’s no excuse, I just-look. Sorry.”
With a shake of his head, Lyall waves the apology away-to be brought out at a later time when everything doesn’t hurt quite so much, perhaps. “I think your friend Tonks might be lost,” he says.
“Right,” Remus says. He knows it’s intended partly to get a few minutes of privacy, so he goes up the stairs and finds the bathroom empty. Continuing down the hall to the third door on the right, he enters the sunny little room.
Tonks is sitting in the chair with the wobbly leg. “Oh,” she says when he comes in, and wipes hurriedly at her eyes. “I didn’t mean to be so long-”
“It’s fine,” Remus tells her. He sits on the edge of the bed, spreading his fingers over the light blue duvet. “Do you want to leave?”
“No!” She shakes her head, and Remus can’t tell if she means it or if she’s lying to give him more time. “I don’t know what I expected but I just wasn’t prepared for-you know. Sirius.” She pulls her cuffs down over her knuckles so that the fabric stretches thin. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He always comes up. In conversation, in my head, it doesn’t matter.”
Remus decides she meant it. “He’s like a bad penny,” he agrees. Although it’s not as if he’s not wanted.
Tonks looks like she might say the same, but apparently decides against it. “This was your room, wasn’t it?” she asks.
Remus nods.
“It shows.” She taps her nails on the desk with its deep gouges. “What was it like, growing up all the way out here? Was it lonely?”
The question seems disconnected from everything they’ve been talking about, but Remus answers, grateful for the distraction. “Yes and no. I was often alone, and I suppose it would have been nice to have friends my own age… but I was happy enough. My mum made it seem all right. Good, even.” The past is curiously distant now, he notices. As if too much has happened and his life has split in two: then and now. He doesn’t know where the line was drawn.
“It seems very quiet,” Tonks remarks.
“Not at all.” Remus inclines his head towards the bookshelf. “I my share of adventures. By the time I went to school I was half convinced I would do something grand and change the world.”
Tonks laughs with him. Then she smiles sadly and says, “You changed his world.”
A bad penny, indeed. “I don’t know about that.”
“He told me.” She widens her eyes earnestly at his disbelief. “Not in those exact words, maybe, but last spring he said you were half the reason he left home. ‘Without Moony,’ he said, ‘I’d still be watering my mother’s garden. Because of him I get to piss on all her Snargaluff pods.’”
The words are undoubtedly Sirius’s, and Tonks imitates his voice so well that Remus has a hard time breathing in order to chuckle.
“Besides that,” Tonks adds, “anyone could see it just by the way he looked at you.”
Remus offers a smile in response, unable to come up with adequate words. They stand up at the same time, reaching an unspoken agreement to go back downstairs, but on her way to the door Tonks pauses to pick up a photograph from the bookshelf.
“Look,” she says, her voice suddenly constricted, “it’s right here. See?” She holds out the picture in a lightly trembling hand.
Warily, Remus takes it. He recognizes the background first, because it’s the very room they’re standing in. Next is himself, sixteen years old and much too close, laughing and watching something outside the frame. And in the middle ground there is Sirius, facing the same direction but not paying the slightest attention to whatever is so funny. Instead he’s gazing at the side of Remus’s face, what little of it is visible, and smiling.
The smile is a secret one, too bright to look at but softened, somehow, a tempered edge to the riot of everything that was Sirius. He laughs a little, too, but it seems to be in wonder.
Remus, the real Remus with his feet growing roots and his heart wrung to desert dryness, wonders too-at the light in Sirius’s eyes, the absence of lines, the lift of his shoulders and the fullness of his cheeks. The life of him. And it was for me, he thinks, the truth a burst of warmth in this the longest winter of his life. It washes over all his bruised and aching places and fits his broken pieces back together.
---
But there is a kind of hunger that feeds
on flesh. Only, let it be yearning, heaving,
rising flesh. Only, let it be flesh living
and loving. Alive. Let it be life.
-We were Two Rooms of One Timber, But I Left that Place Alone by Camille T. Dungy