So here is my fifth one-shot for the six remaining rounds of the 34 stories, 106 reviews challenge on the HPFC forum: RemusLily.
My 200th fic, ohmygoodness. Named after the Florence and the Machine song.
He should dismiss it, ignore it – refuse it. That would be what is right. He is a honest man, a loyal one. He doesn't betray his friends.
But he can't quite help himself.
They are fighting a war, and he's in love – as cruel, ugly, stupid as it sounds, no, as it really is. He, Remus John Lupin, is in love – and oh, he did pick one of the few kind-hearted women who might both be strong enough and willing to face his... furry little problem – and still stick around.
Then again, he also picked his best friend's wife.
He always stood in the shadows, now that he comes to think about it. Everything's always been about James Potter and Sirius Black and how amazing they were – and he was the quiet, bookish one, surveying their antics with a lenient smile, trying to talk them out of too much trouble. He's loved them as his brothers – he still does – and he's been so grateful, for their friendship, their loyalty, their insane, unbelievable support once they discovered who (what) he really is. They are one of a kind, Padfoot and Prongs, he never once doubted it, and he never will.
They are the Marauders, brothers in all but blood, and they always stuck together, no matter what.
It was easy, at first, to view Lily as "Prongs' girl", even as she refused him adamantly. It was just a matter of loyalty, and Remus was loyal, if he wasn't truly brave. So she stopped being the lovely girl with the flaming hair who liked books as much as he did, and started being James'. All along – when she said no, when she said yes, and, eventually, when she said "I do" – she was Prongs', and he was Moony.
It was as simple as that.
It stopped being simple, so quickly that the sudden twist dazzled him. Everything happened and everything changed, for they were thrown from Hogwarts, right into the waiting arms of war. He, Remus, fought, he even took lives. Maybe that was what turned his world upside down, or maybe it was the simple fact that instead of just the Marauders, they had become the Marauders and Lily. That she fought with them, hoped with them, bled with them, when she had mostly spent time with James before. And Remus was forced to discover the softness of her voice, her fire and her fears, the peculiar look that crossed her emerald eyes when she would seize James' hand and pull him away to a room, and Sirius would crack a dirty joke in good days, or just stare wordlessly into the flames, in less good ones – and he would just sit there numbly. He got to know her like one knows the people they could have to die with without the slightest warning – on a level of intimacy that plagues his nights with delirious dreams.
He knows the whiteness of her silky skin and the vivid red of her blood from the injuries she received in battle, and a thousand times he wanted to lick away the scarlet drops and claim that they were purer than any ancestry, so this didn't make sense. He knows the words one should tell her when she's sobbing, screaming in a panic, James isn't here and there's only him. He can hold her, hug her, brush away her tears, he can speak her name, "Lily" like something unbearably sweet on his tongue that might make him cry if he gives it too much thought, and he can make her say "Thanks, Remus" and even smile affectionately, in the end – if he's lucky. He's watched her say goodbye to the world a thousand times, just with those green eyes that seem to draw everyone in, he's seen the tears she kept from James, wanting to protect him. And perhaps this should be enough, but it never is and every woman has her face and her freckles and a shadow of her smile on their lips, and yet every woman looks somehow the same, they're never perfect for they're never Lily. It is twisted, unhealthy, a betrayal, but he is a monster after all – so he takes some distance, and he just knows they're exchanging glances, whispering behind his back, his neck prickles and the moon calls, until, for the first time, he finds himself thirsting for blood. (Fire, redness, passion screaming to be sated.)
That is when he crumbles and hopes to die.
His friends come and pick him up, tell him that he is no freak, that they love him and that the world is still a hopeful place, because Lily is having a baby. He smiles and nods his head, andthat takes quite some strength, so maybe everything is not lost after all – though she still glows, more than ever, and some things, some curses just never end –
Time comes for him to mourn, and he doesn't quite know if he's crying for Lily, for James or for Harry, for Peter, for Sirius or for Moony. He bawls "Why?" and nobody answers since most of the world is so busy celebrating. People weep as well, of course, they throw speeches and build a statue for the dead heroes, the lovers struck in the glory of their youth – and they do feel sorry for him, but let's face it, if you take away the Marauders there's really not much point to Remus Lupin anymore, this is quite unfortunate indeed and yet nobody seems to care. Dumbledore does, and Kingsley does – but in the end, it's not either of them who drags him to his feet and keeps him going. In the end the full moon comes around, and this is how he finds out that some parts of him are still roaring for life – the irony – so he tears himself down and pushes himself up, the cycle goes on and so does he.
He still dreams of fire, of green forests – of things immense and forever beyond his reach.