Timeline: Set after the Last Battle, but written befor I'd read book 7, so not at all compliant.
Had this idea while playing this peice for Art Splash, a concert of many small children singing. There is no real hidden meaning behind 'Mark' as a name, apart from a suitable one for the character.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
"Come on Mark, time for bed," chivvied Remus, picking up his three year old from his mums lap. "Say night to mum."
"Night mum! Come dad! Come." Mark loved his Dad tucking him in for the night, and he hadn't done so last night.
"Teeth time!" Mark sang, leaning dangerously over the bathroom sink.
"Good boy" encouraged Remus, depositing Mark near the sink. "Show Dad you can do can do your teeth." Remus worked his arms slowly while his son attacked his teeth. Last night had been full moon, and Mark didn't know properly that his dad was a werewolf.
How do tell you son you may kill him for dinner one month?
Rinsing out the basin, Mark asked "Sing tonight?"
Remus nodded, "Yeah alright," as he gathered his son- his whole son- in his arms. "Come on." He said, kissing his soft brown hair, and walking to Marks room.
Lying him down on the low bed, he tucked the blankets in firmly, settling the quilt given to them by Andromeda when Mark was born.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Remus asked, "What song do you want?" Mark hummed a few bars. Remus concentrated, then realised what it was, "'Bridge over troubled waters' Mark? Alright then. Dad'll sing that then. Lie down now and sleep."
Mark nodded, "Dad sing." He said to his teddy bear, "We listen, Dad sing. Mum don't sing." He added to Remus, with an important air. Remus nodded, grateful Nymphadora hadn't sung to Mark yet.
She didn't sing.
Clearing his throat Remus hummed a bit. He liked the song but so many memories were connected to it he wasn't sure how he would react if he sang it to his son. How Mark even heard it was a bit of a mystery. Nymphadora must have had it playing one day while she was working. However, how could he refuse his only child? Settling Mark he began.
"When you're weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all"
Nymphadora (Tonks) Lupin was intrigued. Remus didn't often sing and as far as she knew, he hadn't sung this song for anyone since Sirius had died. Managing to get down the stairs she stood outside the room watching Remus sing to his son. Their son.
"I'm on your side, oh, when times get tough"
That was what it had been like for Remus. Poor man. He hadn't told her even half of it, she knew that, but what she knew he'd had things tough, not all of it because he was a werewolf.
"And friends just can't be found."
Tonks was almost crying. Remus had had friends, good friends, who'd accepted him, werewolf and all, and they'd died, or joined the other side.
She had no idea what had happened to Peter. Didn't want to either.
Mark settled down further, pressing his cheek onto the bear that had been his fathers before him. Remus had yet to tell him he'd stopped using it when he was bitten- a young lad not unlike Mark.
"Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down, like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down."
Tonks was crying now, silent tears rolling down her face. She could hear the sacrifice in his voice, not sorrow, resigned acceptance. That was what he'd done for many people, and was still doing here. But this was more; he was here helping without expecting to get anything in return. She'd tried to explain to him, time and agin, the subtle difference between gentleman and idiot. He insisted he was on the right side of the line, and always had been. She had her, often voices, doubts.
Remus blinked down at his son. Mark was still awake, but his eyes were drifting shut. Softening his voice still more, he began the second verse.
"When you down and out, on the street."
Tonks shut her eyes and leaned against the wall. She hadn't known it at the time, but while he was 'dating' her, while the war was going on, he'd had no house, no fixed abode, nowhere to live, to go home to. He hadn't really hidden it, and had spent so much time fighting, werewolves, giants, wizards, that she had just assumed, along with the rest of the world, that Remus was off fighting or else compiling for the order. When you see someone on the same situation for years then you forget they have other parts to them.
"When evening falls so hard, I will comfort you."
How many times had Remus slept on that park bench she'd found him on just before that last, bloody, fight?
Not that it was his fault. She knew he'd slept, or at least spent the night, at various places known to the Order. He'd worked so hard, up till then, his only rest being the book he was researching, more for something to do than for any hope of publication, despite her repeated altercations about his penmanship compared ot the worlds in general. The shock she had seen on his face when she found him, the shutters that he'd snapped over his eyes…
"I'll take your part, Oh when darkness comes"
He'd taken her part up for her, but a reciprocating gesture seemed, by watching him, to be impossible. He was so… controlled... almost concise in his living. She wasn't sure, yet, if it hid anything beyond the werewolf. It would take time, she knew. Time they now had. If only she could take away those lines now, remove the grey hairs, set the record straight. That was what he called her 'irrepresable youth' bubbling up. Well, she was youthfull, she always countered.
She concentrated on the words. They way he was singing them. No problem, he seemed to say, when you need me, I'll be there.
Mark, she suspected, was long forgotten. At least he was asleep though. She was now easily veiwed from the bedroom, something she didn't think would be a problem anymore. This was certainly one thing they'd cleared up.
"And pain is all around"
She could hear, in his voice, the … regret, she had to call it. But the way it soared with the chorus, quiet, soft, but still soaring, made her smile.
"Like a bridge over troubled waters
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled waters
I will lay me down."
Gently, she crept in, just as he kissed Mark and pulled up the blanket. Turning, he crept out, leaving the promise of servitude and love to Mark, and to her, who had known the song, played rather more boisterously then by her cousin, a promise for even better days to come. The words ran out the window like a whisper.
Later, when the full moon came and stole her husband again, she could imagine them, creeping back from the shadows where he hid.
"Sail on children, sail on by
Your time has come to shine, all their dreams are on their way
See how they shine, Oh when you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled waters
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled waters,
I will ease your mind.
I'll ease your mind."