TITLE: Stopping Time
AUTHOR: FuschiaBoots
EMAIL: fuschiabootshotmail.com
RATING: PG
PAIRING: Remus/Lily
SUMMARY: Sometimes relationships play out in a way no one planned, or
intended. This is the ending of such a one. Vignette.
DISCLAIMER: I am character poor. I own none of them. They bedevil my
psyche.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I know this is kinda out of character for the whole
Marauder Era but I don't think it's at all impossible. I've left a lot of
stuff to your imagination...I actually wrote this before Lupin's line in the
PoA movie...so maybe I'm onto something? I would love to hear what you guys
think so please let me know!
'We have to stop this, you know.'
He sighed and drew his long fingers absentmindedly through the ends of her hair. She listened to the measured exhalation of breath, felt it warm against her neck. She loved how he considered each word that came out of his mouth. She loved to imagine the way his mind whirled through different responses, synapses firing, before he came to the exact answer he wanted. It was usually the most economical one.
'I know.'
She lent her body against his, head against his shoulder and let her gaze fall out the window to where the sun was setting in a haze of pale lemony clouds. The tips of the forest were already piercing the horizon, darkness already fallen among the trees. Above the lemon light sat the deepening shades of blue, sinking down, ready to settle into a clear and cold night. She felt his gaze over her shoulder. Steady.
The two figures sat ensconced in a high-backed, moth-bitten armchair, hidden among piles of old boxes and other miscellaneous items that had at some point been forgotten in a far left wing of Hogwarts. The setting sun picked out the items around them through the large window set to the west. Dust particles made the air murky, as if deep under the ocean. Cobwebs laced the corners. A huge globe had tumbled out of one box, the world literally at their feet. A pile of decaying Quidditch uniforms. Cupboards that overflowed with aging scrolls. A crumbling piano. Things that existed in no ones reality but their own; they had discovered the place in their 2nd year, and returned many times since. It was a place that seemed to exist outside time and that other reality.
'I always thought I knew where the line went, between right and wrong. I always thought I knew exactly where it was.' She said, voice soft, eyes fixed ahead. She knew the wind was whipping past the window, she could feel it trickling in, icy cold, through the tiny gaps around the attic.
'There are no lines, Lils. We just draw them when it suits us.' His voice was slow and measured as always, but she heard in it a slight tremor of sadness.
His big grey eyes marvelled at the white curve of her neck. Just like a lily, he thought. He wished he had painted her. To have at least some part of her captured, to have her under his brush.
She peeled her eyes of the dying yellow of the sunset and turned her head to him. He kept his eyes on the horizon. Studying his profile, she took in the long patrician nose and sharp cheekbones mirroring a sharp jaw. Those tired eyes. A more delicate face than James', more...noble.
'Do you remember when this started?' Her voice hung like pipe smoke in the dusk air. 'I can't remember the exact moment when I crossed my line. The moment things went from right to wrong.'
'Is this wrong?' He asked.
'Yes.' She said without hesitation. 'No.' Came the answer just as quickly.
His arms snaked around her waist, into a position that by now seemed so natural to both of them. But only in that time, that reality; those moments that they were completely alone. It would never have happened anywhere else.
'How do I stop this...us? I don't think I know how, Remus.' Her voice wavered a little. She felt as though she was teetering on the edge of a world about to break.
He dragged his eyes off the horizon and forced himself to look at her, to punish himself, to see the reality. He lifted a hand and carefully traced a set of lines across her face. Marking her, it felt to Lily, with some alien language she would never understand. The line followed the arches of her eyebrows, and the upturned tip of her nose, the circles of her cheeks and the shadowy streaks her lashes spiked over her face. His hand shook just a little.
'Well, when the sun sinks behind the trees, we'll get up, climb back down the ladder and walk to the common room...where you'll kiss James...and I'll sit in the corner next to the fire.' His voice was slow, clinical. It tore at her heart.
He took a slow shuddery breath and trailed his finger in a line, over her lips, chin and down her lily neck to where it rested in the dip of her collarbone, a fleshy inkwell.
'...And tomorrow we'll graduate from Hogwarts and follow whatever path life has planned for us.' He paused and her eyes sought his desperately. 'And that will be it, Lily. This will be over.' His voice was low and husky and his eyes wouldn't meet hers.
Lily shuddered as she realised the last shafts of sun were weakening between the dark-tipped forest and the blue heaviness of the universe. Her insides contracted, she was so cold, the breath squeezed out of her. One tear escaped and spoke it's own silvery language down her face.
'Why did we do this Remus?' She whispered.
'We never had a choice.' He whispered back, eyes now on hers as the beat fell before nightfall.
They pressed together, lips meeting, bodies crushed tight in the final passion of farewell. The darkness came swimming over them. The light was gone. They plunged into shadow. They parted on the edge of the just-bloomed evening.
'We have to stop this, you know.'
He sighed and drew his long fingers absentmindedly through the ends of her hair. She listened to the measured exhalation of breath, felt it warm against her neck. She loved how he considered each word that came out of his mouth. She loved to imagine the way his mind whirled through different responses, synapses firing, before he came to the exact answer he wanted. It was usually the most economical one.
'I know.'
She lent her body against his, head against his shoulder and let her gaze fall out the window to where the sun was setting in a haze of pale lemony clouds. The tips of the forest were already piercing the horizon, darkness already fallen among the trees. Above the lemon light sat the deepening shades of blue, sinking down, ready to settle into a clear and cold night. She felt his gaze over her shoulder. Steady.
The two figures sat ensconced in a high-backed, moth-bitten armchair, hidden among piles of old boxes and other miscellaneous items that had at some point been forgotten in a far left wing of Hogwarts. The setting sun picked out the items around them through the large window set to the west. Dust particles made the air murky, as if deep under the ocean. Cobwebs laced the corners. A huge globe had tumbled out of one box, the world literally at their feet. A pile of decaying Quidditch uniforms. Cupboards that overflowed with aging scrolls. A crumbling piano. Things that existed in no ones reality but their own; they had discovered the place in their 2nd year, and returned many times since. It was a place that seemed to exist outside time and that other reality.
'I always thought I knew where the line went, between right and wrong. I always thought I knew exactly where it was.' She said, voice soft, eyes fixed ahead. She knew the wind was whipping past the window, she could feel it trickling in, icy cold, through the tiny gaps around the attic.
'There are no lines, Lils. We just draw them when it suits us.' His voice was slow and measured as always, but she heard in it a slight tremor of sadness.
His big grey eyes marvelled at the white curve of her neck. Just like a lily, he thought. He wished he had painted her. To have at least some part of her captured, to have her under his brush.
She peeled her eyes of the dying yellow of the sunset and turned her head to him. He kept his eyes on the horizon. Studying his profile, she took in the long patrician nose and sharp cheekbones mirroring a sharp jaw. Those tired eyes. A more delicate face than James', more...noble.
'Do you remember when this started?' Her voice hung like pipe smoke in the dusk air. 'I can't remember the exact moment when I crossed my line. The moment things went from right to wrong.'
'Is this wrong?' He asked.
'Yes.' She said without hesitation. 'No.' Came the answer just as quickly.
His arms snaked around her waist, into a position that by now seemed so natural to both of them. But only in that time, that reality; those moments that they were completely alone. It would never have happened anywhere else.
'How do I stop this...us? I don't think I know how, Remus.' Her voice wavered a little. She felt as though she was teetering on the edge of a world about to break.
He dragged his eyes off the horizon and forced himself to look at her, to punish himself, to see the reality. He lifted a hand and carefully traced a set of lines across her face. Marking her, it felt to Lily, with some alien language she would never understand. The line followed the arches of her eyebrows, and the upturned tip of her nose, the circles of her cheeks and the shadowy streaks her lashes spiked over her face. His hand shook just a little.
'Well, when the sun sinks behind the trees, we'll get up, climb back down the ladder and walk to the common room...where you'll kiss James...and I'll sit in the corner next to the fire.' His voice was slow, clinical. It tore at her heart.
He took a slow shuddery breath and trailed his finger in a line, over her lips, chin and down her lily neck to where it rested in the dip of her collarbone, a fleshy inkwell.
'...And tomorrow we'll graduate from Hogwarts and follow whatever path life has planned for us.' He paused and her eyes sought his desperately. 'And that will be it, Lily. This will be over.' His voice was low and husky and his eyes wouldn't meet hers.
Lily shuddered as she realised the last shafts of sun were weakening between the dark-tipped forest and the blue heaviness of the universe. Her insides contracted, she was so cold, the breath squeezed out of her. One tear escaped and spoke it's own silvery language down her face.
'Why did we do this Remus?' She whispered.
'We never had a choice.' He whispered back, eyes now on hers as the beat fell before nightfall.
They pressed together, lips meeting, bodies crushed tight in the final passion of farewell. The darkness came swimming over them. The light was gone. They plunged into shadow. They parted on the edge of the just-bloomed evening.