The World Ends With You

Disclaimer, the usual, the implied, the boring stuff. All poetry belongs to the brilliant and dead Rainer Maria Rilke, unless otherwise stated. Story artwork by Simon Goinard.

Author's Note: So this is leading up to Remus's canon death, starting somewhere after Tonks ran away to her parent's (the fight with Remus). I tried my best to incorporate canon timeline to make it a believable AU (does that even exist? matter?). But think of it as either parallel or alternate universe or really just a refusal to accept space-time laws.

Chapter 1

A Wave Rising in the Past

...A wave rolled toward you
out of the distant past...

He found that it was difficult to think, with all the voices clamoring inside his head constantly.

It didn't help that there were voices outside of his head as well, and not much friendlier. Tonks had convinced him—after much back and forth—to get a place together. Cheap and cozy: just a temporary flat in a neighborhood that was as untouched as possible by the reign of darkness falling over the entire country. That description was so quintessentially Peckham that Remus suspected Tonks of picking out the place before she consulted him, but he allowed her that autonomy.

She always knows what she wants; she is twice the man you are.

But the neighbors certainly were no less fearsome than Death Eaters. They disproved of his marriage before any of them had met him or Tonks, and while Remus himself shared their disproval (albeit for different reasons), they really ought to keep their voices down when talking about how disrespectable wives were signs of impudence and a soft mind. But the moment that she was gone, they talked about him with thinly veiled distain over his debauchery, their pity immediately flocking to the woman once they saw her fleeing from home with a hand on her belly.

They aren't wrong; we aren't wrong; she's not wrong—it's you, always has been you.

The mundane Sunday evening was drawing to a close, the falling darkness breathing heavily of typical London noise, and Remus really had to get to writing.

The damp heat from his breath mingles with the sweat along your neck—

So he sat before his window, looking quite scholarly, mussing up his dry, flaxen hair that was once soft and almost blond. His face was beyond youth and before old age, but it was marked by a fatigue premature to his years.

A gun shot fired somewhere nearby, and Remus did not even lift his head—he did not live in the best of neighborhoods, and he had long gotten used to the Peckham Boys running about causing mayhem. 'Mayhem' had a distinctly different meaning after he graduated from school. Besides, it was a fair evening, and the sliver of the horizon that he could see, peeking out from snugly packed buildings, was a nice shade of red.

—you draw red blood with your teeth and you can't touch enough bare skin—

The pen in his hand had seen more than its share of years, him taking to switching the gel refills instead of buying new pens; it saved him fifty-two pence per pen. Most of his furniture were cast-offs found on the streets—a good, solid cleaning charm and various insect repelling charms ensured of the safety of usage.

Magic had long been an exercise in frugality to him.

He caught his wandering thoughts and tried to herd them back to writing.

—the friction is delicious, so is the pounding from your bloodstream and his pulse—

It wouldn't do to miss another deadline—jobs were scarce and he was not good at keeping regular attendance at jobs where he had to show up. It was a rather rotten job at best, but all last resorts were rotten. Still, it paid the bills, and Remus didn't care about the lack of literary value in his smut.

Yes, Remus Lupin, ace student of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, member of the Order of Phoenix, and husband to one of the last survivors of the Black blood, wrote second-rated smut novels for a living, the kind that people picked off hastily at train stations for a long ride. He wrote under a subtle nom de plume, of course, a precaution beyond saving reputation, as werewolves did not have a good reputation in the literature world—or anywhere else, as a matter of fact. He kept his work space very secret from Tonks, although he felt she might have rather liked it. There must be a vein of madness in all those who shared the Black blood.

Speaking of madness, not far off from Remus, unknown to him, a bony little creature crept down the street, in swift, easy movements that met halfway between walking and crawling. People have called this creature all sorts of names, but there were times when even the power of naming did not constrict a thing, and this was such a time. He was just a simple mayhem-maker really, at heart, in his scrappy clothes, with his wry wild hair that was an impeccable white, watching with his large, liquid eyes of so intense a blue that it could not be called sky blue—the sky lost its color next to those eyes. He was very good at making mayhem too, because his every whim and impulse was always fulfilled.

So this creature, who had snubbed the crying of the new-born Time back in the day, crawled and crawled, with surprising fluidity in his movements.

He stopped suddenly, in front of a gloomy shabby slanting house next to a dark alley that was uncharacteristically clean.

A chorus of strident voices besieged him right there, and he listened to the strange tongues of the wind and the world.

The stones told him that there was starvation and need inside. The walls spoke to him of a man who wished and yet never hoped. The curtains declared proudly that the man inside always smiled when he wanted to cry, always whispered softly when he wanted nothing more than to scream; always promised things that he did not believe in. The glass said in a whispering voice that he would not need to seek anymore for his next mischief. (Yet, do not be mad at the window—it was never spoken to in the last half a century! Would one not want some amusement after that long of being pushed open to bear the sun, and pulled roughly back only to be hit by raindrops, which always were on unfriendly ground with its kind?)

The Skriker—he was fond of that name, it had a fancy note to it—grinned. He might have pitied the man, if only the Skriker knew pity.

The Skriker curved a long gaunt finger and slight breeze blew, turning stronger and stronger, till it blew the piece of paper the man had been writing on out the window that swayed a little further back, as if to make way for the wind.

He grinned again, to see the man frantically try to grab the paper, which so conveniently escaped him by such a slight twirl in the wind. The man watched with dismay as his work went out to the streets to be carried off to wherever the wind pleased, which made the Skriker grin wider—a merciless smile, yet not in any way cruel—as a child sometimes smiled at the sight of a limp, dead sparrow. (Oh Men, before you ask why the gods created you, hear the gods ask why you created him, and do not grow angry when the gods did nothing but dance in mayhem.)

What did the man want? He asked the glass window again, knowing that it had the loosest tongue of the entire house.

A miracle, the glass answered, giggling slightly in its own language. A miracle that could take away all these years of sorrow from his shoulders. Another giggle. Oh, do grant his wish: he breathes on me when the day is cold to tickle me with fog!

See, the glass was not such a turncoat after all!

I'll give him that, the Skriker promised with a nod and a smirk as he thought of his way of fulfilling the man's wish, all that and more!

The more the Skriker dwelt on his plan, the more gleeful he became, and more amazed at his own brilliance. Oh yes, the man would have the years off not only his shoulders, but his world as well! He'll watch his life spin around him all over again, and suffer once more! Such ingenuity! The Skriker clapped for himself, the loud smacking of dry bones against each other echoing inside the walls, and whirled with rapture, the idea that the man might do something to prevent his life turning so miserable again not even occurring to him. So he continued to dance with ecstasy.

Snap, he clicked his fingers, and the world seemed to rock a little, move a bit out of its frame, as a low-quality film sometimes does on telly, creating for a split second a double layer of the world, both exactly the same, both a little less solid and vivid than put together.

And then some things changed.

Of course, nobody could say exactly what had changed, and the unwilling protagonist did not even know that changed occurred at all.

In fact he went to bed, quite resigned to the fate of losing even smut authorship.

Remus had always been a morning person, having yet to learn that misfortune was just as likely to hit him in the morning. He set out very early that morning, at the sort of hour when rush hour traffic had yet begun and only birds and very senile folks were about.

It was Monday though, so that should have been his first clue about the coming tragedy.

It all began before he was even out of bed.

He had one of those dreams again. A good one. He was back on the roof of the Gryffindor tower, a small ledge that was flat enough for lounging so they spent the warm nights up there, doing nothing. There was sweet-smelling tea, a full moon in the inky darkness above that he saw with human eyes, and there was Sirius beside him, impossibly elegant and happy, and James was one over, and even Peter was a good, pudgy boy with no marks on his soul. They crossed their arms over their heads with their elbows grazing, their youthful voices stretching into eternity…

The good dreams were the worst.

Yeah, well at least you get them; the dead gets no comfort in dreaming.

Tonks was, of course, yet to rise. Remus was her default alarm clock, but he had never been quite sure what exactly spiked wakefulness in her mind. It had been easier with James and Sirius and even Peter.

Oh bugger, and he promised himself that today was going to be a good day too. And then he woke up to thoughts of Peter and Sirius—

—who is not here anymore; instead, in his place, you have a wedding.

The huge wedding photo hung over their bed, a large canvas encased in dark mahogany wood, reminding him of something he couldn't quite put a finger to, as if he was Damocles. Tonk insisted the photo there—she adored it, called it the everlasting proof of the best day of her life. She had looked positively radiant with her naturally pale skin, which couldn't be helped, her being half aristocratic and all. Remus tried to avoid looking at the photo most of the time, but when he did, his photographic self gave him a weak, watery smile. He had looked mostly just pale that day, and it had nothing to do with aristocracy.

Remus thought that perhaps he had time to go for a walk around the park before coming back to wake her up, him needing a bit of time to himself before putting on a believable smile for his woman.

Smile for the camera, boys! said Missus Potter before she bent over in a stroke.

He swung to his feet, careful to avoid that one creaky wood board under the mattress, and put on an old jumper—it was angora wool, unbelievably soft and warm and expensive; had been a gift from a dead man.

All you got left of him, you sure you want to wear it down so much?

A quick toasting charm made the awful white bread more bearable, although the loaf had the souring smell that forewarned of coming mold. He took two slices for the road, biting into the soft middle as he shrugged on an even older trench, and then was attacked by a swarm of city sparrows as he walked out of the door.

His house was a favorite gathering spot for the sparrows, all of them fat and neck-less. Remus swore that they held morning conferences right outside his door; there was no other explanation for the utter lack of respect for a door by the host of sparrows. No, he never fed the aggressive bunch—they did not need encouragement, nor any more meat on their flimsy, hollow bones, and most of all he had barely enough food for himself.

You always were a very good liar.

Well alright, he tore off the crusts and scattered the pieces among them, but that was only because he hated the crust anyway.

One of the birds flew a bit too close to his eye and he jerked back instinctively, banged his head on the open study window, and caught his sleeve on the hook as he lifted his hand to rub the back of his head.

It was like the cosmos was trying to clue him in, but Remus was very, very determined to have a good day.

The nearby park was more or less an abandoned lot overrun with weeds. It had originally been a park a very long time ago, judging from the broken swing at the entrance, but the demolition of the neighborhood and the subsequent city attempts to clean the area up had wasted it. Now it ran wild from lack of attention, and Remus thought it was an attempt at a joke that he lived right next to it. Or poetically just. Maybe both.

All this 'writing' really has worn down what little thought you have left.

A few resilient heads of harebells found its nesting ground, squeezing aside weeds and daisies, in the place that ought to have been carnations and cabbage roses, Remus presumed. The Peckham lot loved their roses. The ivy here was almost feral in its domination over the place, tightening its hold on the poplars and oaks, mighty as they were. Deep inside that particular cluster of thickly branched trees, Remus knew, was a patch that was always shaded and retained rainwater spectacularly well, giving birth to a combination of edible and poisonous mushrooms. They grew in abundance, clinging to the bottom of the trunks, and often found their way into the Lupin household's soups and stews. It was convenient that the spot was very much out of sight, for poverty might have reduced his means, but never his dignity.

Dignity started and ended when you survived them all.

The abandoned park was no strange land to Remus—he had walked along the moss-covered paths many times before, and in fact felt as if he was invited here long before the moss came.

He found a grassy spot underneath this tree that he arbitrarily chose as His, and sat down, gathering mushrooms into his lap. Little light made through the boughs, and soon Remus found himself nodding off, the heavy silence weighing against his ears and the voices coiling like snakes inside his auditory canal.

That was when he got the call to arms.

Neville Longbottom's voice reached him, gave a speech of sorts about the time to battle and saving the world. No doubt he meant it to be inspiring and urgent at the same time. The voices inside his head overlapped with Neville, but it was the usual bit so Remus still knew that the proper response was: "Of course, I will be there."

As he Apparated home his tree did nothing but nod its leafy head when a slight wind picked up.

When he was hit by the green light streaming from the tip Dolohov's wand, his body slackened and his mind finally shut up for once.

In that split second he felt like he missed the voices, like they have been Sirius's all along.

"Oh Padfoot," he murmured, as if he had an audience.

Caught in the hazy in-between he knew to be the difference between breathing and death, he thought he felt Sirius again by his side, taking his hand.

"I wish…"

The Skriker's remaining snap of fingers was recalled in the air, and the sharp sound echoed between the pillars of debris, too high a note for any earthly ear. The creature's laugh could almost be heard, though he himself was far, far away, perhaps in another dimension by this time.

"—bloody wish I could go back," Remus sighed and slipped into another dimension himself.

If anyone paid attention, they would have seen a light shimmer of sparks that showered the burning Hogwarts grounds, making the stones sway to some imaginary wind, and drop as if weighted by some imaginary force.

Nobody did.

They never found his body, and in the aftermath of the victory, a small search party was organized to recover Remus Lupin—a small sort of search party, that ended almost as soon as it begun. The naiads in the lake was lamenting the ruined Hogwarts, and their elegy was as dangerous in sadness, and many a member of the Order had to be dragged away and treated to snap them out of their trance. In light of that, and the sheer number of deaths, nobody exactly doubted the nature of the disappearance of Remus's body. Tonks would have to be buried alone, but so did many others. What was one man's tragedy against the tragedy of hundred, against the triumph of the world?

When Harry spoke at the funeral service, he delivered a speech about how great a man Remus was, as if any of these people had any idea about him.

Did it matter? The world went on—sort of.

Author's Note: So, if the format was confusing at all, the centered italics were the voices in his head, the steamy bit was his thoughts as he was trying to write his smut novel. The voices are a bit macabre, yes.

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