Goodbye Sky Harbor is a song written by Jimmy Eat World
I have borrowed it to write a story about Remus Lupin and his unnamed ladylove.

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"Is tomorrow just a day like all the rest?"

One more endless day without her? Will it be another day filled with sadness? Will I ever forget the look on her face as I put her down, laying her on the cold, hard ground?

Here I was, on my back on the warm, soft sandy beach she would never see. She had only known the dreary gloom of Britain, would never feel the soft sun-kissed shores of the Americas, never see a palm tree. She would never experience these things because of that terrible night.


How could you know just what you did?
So full of faith yet so full of doubt I ask.

How could either of us know what that terrible night would hold?

She never feared, never doubted. Doubt was my one true weakness, she said. As it worked out, doubt was the only thing that could save me.

She would not doubt that she had taken all of her potions on time, on schedule. She would never know that she was allowing the beast to give her the slip. I doubted everything, double-checked, drank more potion than was necessary. My doubt was the only thing that kept me human.

Time and time again you said don't be afraid.

But the night, I said, is full of fear. Every time the moon grows ripe, every time she fills she holds only fear. The boggart always turns into the silvery orb, I told her.

She laughed at me. "You're afraid of your own shadow Remy."

I couldn't help but laugh with her. She always teased me about those things we were too fearful to utter in truth. It was funny because it was true. The laughter chased the pain of that truth away.

"If you believe you can do it."

I didn't want to believe, but for the safety of everyone involved I had to. The moon had risen and while I had been careful to take my potions she had not. She was changing, turning into that thing I feared.

There is only one thing to do when a werewolf is loose, rampaging around a town filled with terrified people. That werewolf must be put down and to put down this werewolf was to steal away the life of the one woman who had truly understood me.

If anyone was to put down this werewolf it was going to be me.

The only voice I want to hear is yours.
Again.

Even howling it was the most beautiful sound I'd ever hear. Even full of pain her voice was that of an angel, hidden in wolfish garb.

I think it was serendipity when we met, wandering in the woods under the full moon, both of us werewolves. I could smell her like bread from a bakery down the street, that sweet, pungent scent that a female wolf gives off. We curled up in each other's paws that night, lying wild in the woods.

When we woke that morning it was to find ourselves wrapped in human arms, human flesh tingling from the sensation of being bare against grass and other flesh. I never wanted to leave those arms again.

I shall ask you this once again.
He said:
"I am but one small instrument."

They didn't even sound like my own words. For the first time she didn't understand what I meant. She thought I was capable of anything; she believed in me above all else.

I didn't think I could change the world. I didn't think I could end the prejudice against us. I didn't think I would be the one to discover a cure for the bite, but I was working tirelessly towards it anyway.

She never lost faith, even as I had to end her life.

I closed my eyes, trying to quell the tears gathering there.

Do you remember that?

It was so long ago and I felt so helpless. Yet her faith in me spurned me on and even now I work in her memory. If I do nothing else with this life I will find a cure and I will call it after her name. She will live on even when my flesh is gone. Her name will be well known even when my memory is no more.

So here I am above palm trees so straight and tall.

The skyline in Carolina was so sweet and smooth. It was a nice place to escape to, the beach and the ocean roaring with seagulls and tourists. This was the place we said we'd visit.

We were going to spend weeks just lounging on the pale sand, learning how to swim in the ocean, diving under waves. We were going to do all of this together.

You are smaller, getting smaller.
But I still see you.

She is so far away now, in my memory, lost forever because of a bad night, a moon that rose too soon.

Our relationship began as we both were werewolves and it ended on a night when she changed back to that form. I never understood how she could let the feral beast reign over her.

I dangled my legs over the dock and felt the shock of sea mist wash over my feet, that tickling sensation that she would never feel. I couldn't help my melancholy, not on this vacation that was supposed to be shared.

I looked up, over the blue horizon. The sun was dazzling, sparkling on the crests of waves so far out in the ocean that they wouldn't break for hours. She wouldn't have wanted me in mourning, basking in sunlight but thinking only of darkness. I braved a smile for her memory, picked myself up off the dock and looked back on her brief life like a glimmering bit of sunshine on a wave that would crash and be no more.