Dare not speak his name
A story by Medusamum
And
alien tears will fill for him
Pity's
long broken urn,
For
his mourners will be outcast men,
And
outcasts always mourn.
FromThe Ballad of Reading Gaol
Oscar Wilde
1
The simple truth is I don't believe it. I can't believe it. In my mind they are all dead…even him. How much easier to believe oneself bereaved rather than betrayed…and I would almost rather believe myself something of his widower than his victim. All of us lost…James, Lily, Peter dead…Harry…Harry…little Harry orphaned and in danger even now, no matter how the rest of the world may celebrate and proclaim it's new found safety and freedom. I, myself, am something worse than dead…breathing, heart still stubbornly beating…locked alone in this suffering…this guilt and shame. Shame. Burning with the unbearable shame of having loved with every fiber of my being, the one who has seen us all undone. Loved … my throat contracts around it self strangling out the howl I can not, will not release…I fold myself up inside, like little bits of ugly origami.
"Remus…" he had said it slowly, danger scraping across my name like sandpaper.
We had been fighting, again…that frustrated circling, snipping and growling that we seemed to manage even when our respective fur was shed. Our distrust and fear was rippling just under the surface. A spy in our midst…and though the words were never spoken we could not deny that it could be either of us. Our words were always stunted, as we were never able to tell the whole truth either by duty, magic or some hope of protecting the other…and from that grew the unspeakable, unimaginable fear that it could be one of us. Never spoken, yet always growing, that fear had wrapped it's self around us that night.
"Moony…" he said softer, steadying himself, deflating…even defeated.
"You need to know…" He laughed in that harsh frantic way that means he is scared, and then I steeled myself…waiting for some confession or accusation of my worst fears.
"You need to know..." he said again almost choking, each word torn painfully from his chest. "No matter what happens that I love…always love you." The shock of those words comes like a slap in the face…he can't even bear to look at me for the shame of the unspoken messages behind those words…and the truth of them. I'm breaking…shattering…pieces of me falling to the floor around our feet. And truly that was a confession beyond my worst fears…that even if was me you found yourself unable let go of that love…and even if it was you. I wept. Perhaps wept is even to graceful of a word for the great heaving waves of bitter tears and gasps that shuttered through me like earthquakes. And he held me. We clung together, broken in the shame of it. We couldn't not love one another, even if we shouldn't. I felt more of a monster that night than I ever had under the light of the moon, knowing that I loved you, and would continuing loving you even if it were you that was the traitor; knowing that I would have loved you still if it were I doing the betraying. We held each other through the night locked in the moment of that horrible confession. Then waking awkwardly the next morning, skin still burning with the shame of it and unable to meet each others eyes. The worst of it is that I think we trusted the other less for it rather than more, knowing that neither of us could trust ourselves. We never spoke of it again.
Even now, knowing what has come to pass and even living with the burning shame of that confession, I still can not believe it was you. This shames me even more. The unbearable guilt of loving the guilty wears at me, leaving me brittle and weak. Surely this is the most monstrous thing about me. That even now…I love you.