Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Where The Dead Things Grow
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death 1 Corinthian 15:26, as quoted on the tombstones of James and Lily Potter
.
.
Remus Lupin didn't know where he was. He didn't know what he'd been doing just moments before. He didn't know whether he was heading towards destruction or deliverance, but he knew he had to head there or the same. He emerged from a forest of twisting trees and vaguely felt the impression of a dirt road underneath his feet. He blinked his eyes as he tried to adjust to the ambient glow of twilight that washed over him. He swayed for a moment, his head dizzy and his senses muddled. The more he tried to remember what was going on the more his memory disintegrated, like ancient material that falls to pieces in your hands.
Surely he wasn't drunk, he was rarely an excessive drinker. Something more sinister must have tampered with his mind. Perhaps it was a memory modifying charm, dealt to him by the enemy. The trouble was, Remus couldn't quite grasp who the enemy was. He knew he had one, but the face of it escaped him. He needed to find an ally fast, a trusted friend who could help restore the leak in his mind. Remus was too disorientated to risk apparating, so he thrust his wand out and waited for the turbulent roar of the Knight Bus.
His confusion only deepened when he heard not the mechanical thrust of a metal contraption, but the gentle whirring of wooden wheels. A young driver perched on top of an old fashioned carriage glared disdainfully down at him. The brim of his towering hat sliced across his cold grey eyes. Crisp white gloves clothed his delicately poised hands. The driver's posture was elegant, his expression sour. He had more the air of a gentleman than a servant to the weary traveller.
"Where are you going, Stranger?" The driver's inflections sounded peculiar to Remus' ear, familiar yet completely foreign at the same time. It was an English accent but a variation he'd never heard before. The voice echoed distantly, as if Remus' head was completely submerged in water.
"I meant to hail the Knight Bus," Remus answered, massaging his creased forehead.
"The Knight Bus can't pick up every lazy Witch or Wizard who can't be bothered picking up a broomstick. I get its sloppy seconds. Imagine me as a taxi service, if you will." A smile sprung briefly from the driver's twisted expression before his face settled back into despondency. Remus felt as if the driver was the type to easily bear a grudge and he felt a grudge quickly bourgeoning towards him.
"Are you going to get in or not? I don't have all the time in the world." The driver stopped and frowned at his own words before his icy expression cracked with bitter laughter. Remus felt that pounding sense of urgency to keep moving again, and so despite his wariness, he pulled open the whining door and climbed into the dark carriage. He fell hard against the cushioned seat as the carriage lurched into movement. Remus pounded angrily on the roof while rubbing his sore back. The driver slowed enough so that he was able to stick his head out the small window and call out to him.
"I haven't told you where I want to go yet," Remus yelled above the fierce wind that whipped his face and stung his eyes.
"Details, minor details. Here or there, we all end up in the same place. Most of us, at least," the driver mused cryptically, the forked end of his black coat whipping behind him like a devil's tail. In his muddled state Remus found the driver's unhelpful manner completely maddening. He desperately needed medical attention and the sour faced man was spewing riddles at him.
"Where is it that you want to go, Sir?" The driver asked with mock courtesy when he realized that Remus' head was still poking out the window. Remus scrunched up his face as he tried to squeeze a place of familiarity from his mind.
"Hogwarts. Better take me to Hogwarts. Dumbledore can-" he broke off as his startling words were thrown back at him by the air gushing past. Dumbledore was dead. He had been for a year. How could he have forgotten such a thing that was usually so ingrained in his thoughts?
"I can't take you to Hogwarts, Sir. We've just left there."
"Please, I wish to go back at once. I'm not well-"
"We can't go back the way we came," the driver sang in short rapid notes, cutting him off. Remus held his pounding head in his hands. He couldn't handle this man's obscure words and he certainly wasn't up for arguing with him.
"Just take me to St. Mungo's. And please hurry." Before Remus pulled his head back in the carriage, he caught sight of a dog bounding with immense speed in the fringe of trees by the road. The dog was black and yet somehow completely vibrant, as if it exploded from a painter's colourful palette. The dog barked and the sound carried to him clearly, much more clearly than the driver's distant echo of a voice. Remus sunk back into the carriage, suddenly warmed and saddened by the memory of his childhood dog, Merlin. It used to gallop clumsily just like the one weaving through the trees until Remus had unknowingly taken it's life one night when trapped in his Werewolf state. It was an accident that tore at his insides and overwhelmed him with despair if he let the memory take hold to strongly.
He shifted his gaze to the skeletal branches that reached over the road and threatened to blot the sky out completely. Flickering lanterns hung from their spindly limbs. The carriage tilted as it rounded a corner, throwing Remus momentarily closer to the weak lights. He gasped when he realized that the lanterns weren't lanterns at all, but rather swinging birdcages, gently corroded by rust. He recognised the creatures contained in the hanging prisons from countless Defence Against the Dark Arts books. They were black-bodied pixies from the deep north of Scotland, known by the sinister title of Death's Shadows. The pixies earned this name because of the eerie light they exuded from their pores. Remus knew it was common practice in the 18th century to imprison them like this and harness their light as punishment for their practice of luring humans into harm's way. But that was outlawed at least a century ago when Death's Shadows became all but extinct.
"Curious," Remus muttered to himself. Surely no one at Hogwarts would authorise the endangered pixies to be hung along this stretch of earth road leading from its gates? Their flickering light seemed more a hindrance than helpful in exposing a clear way through this winding road. Remus caught the gaze of one of starved looking creatures. Its tiny hands clutched the bars of its cage, too weak to pull apart the crumbling iron. It stared longingly at Remus, it's limbs aching with bloodlust. He quickly pulled the lace curtain over the window before the Death's Shadows could intoxicate him with their glow and urge him to jump from the hurtling carriage and into their fatal embrace.
To distract himself, Remus studied his peculiar mode of transportation. The carriage seemed impossibly old. The cushioned seats were mouldy, and he was concerned the body of the carriage was crawling with hundreds of wood hungry insects. A smell of decay lingered in the air. The petite lace curtains sitting over the square windows stank of another era. He clutched at the collar of his robes as the carriage rocked dangerously from side to side. He felt as if the wheels could spin off at any moment. They whirled at a frightening speed, ticking with rapid precision. He imagined the wheels as giant clocks that were losing their hold on time as the hands spun out of control. Remus had no desire to talk to the insufferable driver again, but he felt compelled to question him about this rotting carriage that felt like it could become a vessel of death at any moment.
"How old is this carriage?" Remus yelled up to the driver's rigid back.
"It's old," the driver replied simply. "They say it's haunted you know." The thin man's voice brightened with vicious amusement. "Passengers have complained to me about having to share their journey with a ghost or two," he hummed. Remus dropped back into his seat and sighed to himself. What did he care if the carriage was haunted? His life was littered with ghosts. They were his constant companions. He settled back into his seat and inhaled sharply at the sudden appearance of a man seated opposite him. He was a rugged man bearing a steady smile. His hair was unclean, but lustrous all the same. He hands were huge; Remus imagined them to be animated when the man spoke. His eyebrows were thick and his nose battered. A scar faintly linked his eyebrows at the top of his nose. His eyes were lively; they shone warmly like the brass buttons that dripped down his coat.
"Are you to be my deceased travelling partner, then?" Remus queried conversationally. The man's pliant lips spread into an even wider smile that was nothing but friendly.
"Do you know who I am?" The ghost asked, his voice rich and comforting in the dreary carriage.
"How could I not? I saw your portrait every day during my teenage years. You are the great and courageous Godric Gryffindor, are you not?" Godric's laughter boomed with innocent pleasure as he slapped his knee in delight. Remus couldn't help but smile in return.
"Fame is delicious. Even if you have to wait until you're dead to reap the benefits."
"So you are a ghost!" Remus exclaimed. He wouldn't have been surprised if Godric was a hallucination regurgitated from his failing mind. "I feel honoured that you've shown yourself to me. But tell me, how come you look so solid?" Godric seemed absolutely vivid to Remus' eyes, the carriage they sat in seemed to grow even paler in comparison.
"My body is dead, this is true. But my spirit has never been more alive. This is the shape of my spirit, a reflection and reference to my mortal self. I was strong and beautiful, and so my spirit is too!" Godric broke into laughter again that suggested he was joking and that he wasn't really so conceited.
"But tell me, my good man," Godric boomed, his hands gesturing excitedly. "How did the battle fare? Did you enjoy it? Did your veins swell with adrenalin?"
"Battle? What battle?" The word filled Remus with panic. Fragments of images flashed before his eyes, too quick for him to decipher.
"His memory is still weak, Godric. You must be patient, you must be gentle." Remus jumped, at the new voice that sweetly filled his ear. Sitting next to him quite suddenly was a short woman with buoyant golden curls. Her eyes radiated kindness, and she wore the same jubilant expression as Godric Gryffindor.
"Helga Hufflepuff?" He queried softly, his eyes growing wide with wonderment.
"At your service, kind Sir." Her arm brushed against him and it startled him greatly. Her skin was warm and substantial, not like the ghosts of Hogwarts that left you in their icy wake.
"You're crowding him Helga, sit back and let him breathe." Advised a new, moderated voice. Rowena Ravenclaw had appeared seamlessly beside Godric.
"He doesn't understand what's happening. Let's get it over with and alleviate his slow working mind," drawled an imperiously mannered man. Remus was expecting it so he escaped uninjured when Salazar Slytherin materialized on the other side of Rowena. He was quick enough this time to catch it happening. Sparkling atoms drew together like glitter hanging in the air. With one almighty rush they condensed to make Salazar's solid figure.
Ghosts and the mystery of death had always been of keen interest to Remus, but he had never come across ghosts like these before. Their voices were supernaturally melodic, so sweet and clear beyond any human voice he'd ever heard. The colours they exuded were radiant hues that no artist had ever captured. They were vibrant beings that seemed to shake with a coursing energy. He sat in awe of them as their voices tumbled chaotically over each other. The way their squeals, their laughter and their arguments overlapped in bursts of noise reminded him sharply of the way he and his group of friends communicated in their teenage years. There were always jokes to be told and jibes to be made and there was no use waiting for a break in the conversation with such loud personalities about.
"He's determined to be wallow in memories," Salazar commented, clucking his tongue. Remus shook himself roughly. He had an opportunity to converse with the Founders of Hogwarts and instead he was dragging his feet down memory lane.
"Why did you remain on earth? I thought ghosts remain when they're weaker of character, when they want to cling to a desperate memory of their former life. I don't mean to be offensive but you don't seem the type to linger," Remus asked as politely as possible, not wanting to offend them. He'd never met such merry ghosts before.
"I think you'll find boy, that you don't even know where you are. We're not lingering on earth, we have a job to do," Salazar reprimanded, his green eyes shimmering, as if he were ready un sheath a sword and cut Remus down for his indecency of words.
"Steady on, Salazar!" Godric roared, leaning across Rowena and slapping Salazar on the leg.
"We're not to be the ones to tell him. His friends have reserved that right." The mention of friends made Remus' heart throb again. What friends did they speak of? One by one they'd fallen away from him, leaving him with a biting loneliness to contend with. Rowena leant forward and captured Remus with her dark eyes.
"Remus." Her voice was delicate and smooth. It filled him with a warmth that dispersed his bitter thoughts, just like a healthy chunk of magical chocolate.
"Hogwarts is ours. We dreamt it up, we built it, we nurtured it, we put ourselves into it. Every stone, every faucet, every faulty step is our creation. We shall move on to the next place once the last stone has fallen. We see it as our duty to shepherd those who depart from its grounds. To be your companion on a difficult but wonderful journey."
"But I've travelled from Hogwarts by carriage before and I've not come across you-"
"This is a special journey."
"His friends want to see him now. Their excitement is palpable. We should leave him," Godric said to his comrades before turning back to Remus. "But first, do you remember anything of the battle? They ripped the ol' place to shreds, didn't they? What I wouldn't give to have been there!" Godric hounded him, his hands massaging each other excitedly.
"I don't know what battle you speak of," but even as he said this fragments of memories flashed more clearly through his mind. Wands drawn, piercing cries of agony, crumbling stone and finally an all encompassing green light. Comprehension was slowing dawning, but for all his quick wits Remus was keeping it at bay for as long as possible.
"Thankyou for defending our Hogwarts, you were a valiant soldier," Helga placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. His whole body tingled with the startling reality of her lips. Then she dissolved into those dazzling atoms that drifted out the window and up into the sky, like renegade stars that were returning to their place of duty as guardians of the night.
Remus hardly had time to consider the transition from when the Founders disappeared and three other people had taken their place. These people shimmered with as much vitality as the Founders and were just as impressive. Even though they were cloaked in more radiant colours than the last time he saw them, he would recognise them anywhere. They were his dearest friends, his James, his Sirius and his Lily. The next moment they were on top of him, their arms wound around him, ruffling his hair and punching his arm, Lily's lips on his cheeks just as Helga's had been. He sat there frozen, his muscles seized with shock. His mouth hung dumbly open as they bounced back to their seats, their smiles still holding on to him with their affection.
"You're dead," he spat angrily, dropping his chin into his neck. He had a horrible fear that this was all some terrible trick. That perhaps he'd been tortured to insanity just like Frank and Alice Longbottom and his mind was concocting this fantastical illusion to soothe his broken being.
"We know mate," Sirius said softly but without regret.
"I don't want you to be ghosts. I want you to have passed on to some place better." He couldn't look at them. Seeing them as ghosts filled him with a deep and dark sadness. He didn't want them to join the ranks of those desperate souls who cling to their former lives, out of fear for what lays before them. But they weren't like the wispy remnants of broken souls that haunted Hogwarts. They were glowing and they were happy. Confusion overwhelmed him once more. His face crumpled slightly under its weight.
"Remus." Lily's voice pierced his jumbled thoughts with an unearthly lilt, commanding his attention just as Rowena had.
"Don't be upset. We're not like the ghosts that cling to the earth, for fear of moving on. You need to understand. We're not where you think you are." Salazar's obscure words came to him more gently this time through the vehicle of Lily's patient voice.
"Look out the window, Remus. Tell me what you see." Remus had been stubbornly looking down until now, his gaze steadily trained on his knees. He was incapable of taking in the momentous sight of his dead friends sitting around him. Bur Lily's melodic tone caught his head in its sway and persuaded it to tilt towards the window. He saw a grey landscape illuminated only by the light of Death's Shadows. A fog wrapped itself around the trees rushing pass so that they appeared ethereal. Then the stuttered flash of black came again, the dog with boundless energy that was still keeping pace with the carriage. He relayed all of this to Lily. She urged him to look closer. James and Sirius were utterly silent, letting Lily deal with something they might not have the tact for.
"This isn't the world as you know it, Remus. It's another place entirely."
He turned back to the stream of loose grey shapes. It struck him that the trees outside didn't just look ghostly, they maybe they were ghosts. And when that thought formed in his mind that's when the landscape began to change. Colour pulsed through the grey in blotches like the rhythm of a rapidly beating heart. He concentrated hard on the flashes of colour, which began to take discernable shapes before his eyes. They were scattered flowers and trees that throbbed with the same vibrant energy as his friends and the Founders before them. They burst from the foundation of grey that was their roots.
"Remus, this is another place. This is where the dead things grow once their tenure on earth has ended," Lily said slowly and clearly.
"Do you mean this is… the afterlife?" The word sat strangely on his tongue. He felt like he should be laughing in disbelief, but instead he felt completely calm and infinitely curious.
"Only for flora. It's where dead flowers and trees end up once they expire."
"What about the grey trees, the ones that look like ghosts?" It struck Remus that he should find this conversation odd, but somehow it felt natural to him as if he already had this knowledge in him somewhere, and Lily was simply unlocking it for him.
"They're trees that are still alive. You can still see everything that lives in the real world, but they appear here as ghosts. They act as a sort of blueprint for this place, a skeleton so to speak. Everything that is dead is solid and colourful and layered on top of the ghosts of the living." Silence met the conclusion of Lily's lesson in death. The sound of the carriage's rickety wheels echoed around them. Remus thought that it might not be the sound of the wheels at all, but rather the cogs and wheels of his brain that were grinding heatedly in overdrive.
"Remus, look at those flowers and trees. They are death. What do you think of it?" Lily asked, using the exact same probing tone that Remus used to employ when he was trying to lead his students to an obvious conclusion. He'd thought he knew what death was. He'd seen it enough times in his life. To Remus, death was the agonizing scream that signalled a soul leaving its body. It was the worthless rubble James and Lily's house had been reduced too when they were murdered. It was the burning red that stained his hands when he tore his childhood dog's stomach open and spilled its entrails on the floor. Death was senseless and ugly. Or so he'd thought. The dead flowers and trees that raced pass filled him with awe. If this is what death looked like, then death had a handsome face indeed.
"I think they're beautiful." He turned towards his friends finally, sliding his eyes from James to Sirius. They had always been particularly fine looking specimens, but now they were almost unbearably so, enhanced by death's enchanting embrace.
"I think you're all beautiful." And then the realization swelled comfortingly inside of him that if this was the face of death, then he had nothing to fear from it. Lily folded his hands in hers and this time he was ready for the shock of solidarity, the warmth that radiated from her skin. She smiled at him with the slightest hint of sadness.
"Remus, you're beautiful too." He slipped his hands out of hers and held them in front of his eyes. His skin had a golden shine to it, like the glow of a candle smouldering in the night. He brushed his fingertips hesitantly over his cheeks. His flesh felt softer than any earthly substance he'd come across. Finally, he let the truth swallow him. This knowledge had been nibbling at him, vying for his attention for a while now. Remus was beautiful. And he was dead.
His initial reaction was slightly unexpected. Instead of embracing his long lost friends as they had done when they first saw him, he pounded frantically on the carriage roof. The driver pulled the carriage to a jarring halt. Remus threw the door open with such urgency it nearly fell off it's hinges. James, Sirius and Lily exchanged worried glances. Was the news too much for Remus to handle? Was he going to run from them in blind panic? But Remus didn't move, except to lift his fingers to his impossibly soft lips and let out a piercing whistle. The carriage rocked violently as the black dog hurled itself into it, overcome with pure excitement. It clambered into Remus' lap, its tail thumping rapidly on his leg, it's wet tongue slapping against his face.
"Merlin," Remus cried, pulling the rambunctious dog tightly to his chest.
"Merlin, I've missed you." Tears poured from Remus' eyes and slipped into the contours of a full-bodied smile. It was relief he felt spreading through him. Relief that death hadn't been painful, that the transition had been relatively easy. It was relief that Merlin seemed to bear no grudge against him for taking his life when he was in the clutches of his Werewolf state. And it was the overwhelming relief that death didn't mean eternal loneliness. He was reunited with his dearest friends, people he'd deeply feared he would never get the chance to see again.
"Oh, and I guess I've missed you lot, too." He was able to embrace accept the reality of his friends now, and they fell about him again with Merlin happily crushed between them. But Remus' joy was short lived. Now that he'd accepted his death, his memories were pouring back to him at an unsympathetic pace.
"Dora…" He groaned, that luminescent colour of the dead draining from his face. He closed his eyes and saw her being swallowed by the green light, only moments before he fell to it.
"Tonks is here," Sirius quickly reassured him. "She's waiting at the train station."
"She wanted to come and meet you but I demanded we could have you to ourselves for awhile first. I have been waiting longer," James said almost childishly. In that moment James had shifted to his teenage self and back again. He'd stuttered effortlessly from one age to the other, as if Remus was watching him through a muggle TV set that was flickering between different channels. They were capable of doing that, Remus realized. He had thought that the Founders had seemed younger and more immature than how they were portrayed in history books but they were simply reverting to their younger ages. The dead were timeless creatures.
"Train station? What train station?" He asked, curiosity seizing him again.
"This isn't our place to settle. This place is just for the flora. It's an in between place for us, a bridge from our world to the next place. The carriage takes you down this dusty road and to the train station. And from there we get the train to the next place," Lily explained.
"The next place? Where's that?"
"No idea. And we won't know until we go there. It could be oblivion," James grinned with an intense air of mischief.
"Or the pits of hell," Sirius smiled just as devilishly.
"The only way to find out is to take the journey," Lily added biting her lip, but enthusiastic all the same.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Remus beamed, reflecting the same excitement that his friends exuded in their shimmering frames. Remus had always loved puzzles. He devoured every one the back page of the daily prophet had to offer while he sipped his morning tea. Death was the greatest puzzle of all and he was in the process of unravelling its mystery. He felt now that the whole point of life was simply to find out what comes next. And the answer was so close; he was racing towards it, thundering down the dusty road that led to this ultimate knowledge. When they'd attended Hogwarts Remus and his friends had lived for this feeling of adventure, of risk and of daring. And now they were jubilant be feeling it in death as well.
"Why haven't you already made the journey?" Remus queried, distracted by Sirius constantly lifting the lace curtain to peer into the sky, impatient for the train station to loom over them.
"We were waiting for you, you dunce," James teased.
"When you get to the train station you can choose to board straight away or wait for loved ones to take the journey with," Lily informed Remus.
"You all waited for me?" He questioned modestly. "Even you, Merlin." He gave Merlin a vigorous rub on his stomach and was glad to find that there was no evidence of the damage he'd done to his living body.
"My faithful companions," he whispered as Merlin stared lovingly up at him with an unshakeable love, an eternal loyalty.
"What have you been doing all this time?" He asked, wondering what kind of an existence could be had in a place that was filled with disturbing beauty and jarring dreariness at the same time.
"Meeting people, travelling mostly. You know most things that are made in the living world appear ghostly. But it's so strange Remus, there are some places that appear exactly as they do on Earth. Nobody knows why. Like Stone Henge for example," Lily leant forward on her knees, talking rapidly.
"It's as solid as rock," Sirius joked.
"We think they're weak points between here and earth. When you go there you can hear the whispers of the living," James said, his eyes shining with the enthusiasm for their well-calculated theory.
"Like the veil at the Ministry of Magic, where you can hear the whispers of the dead," Remus said, locking eyes with Sirius. So there were still mysteries to be pondered here, Remus mused. But Remus was distracted once more by the return of unwelcome memories of the living, as if they were still whispering to him through the weak point of his mind.
"Harry? What's become of Harry?" He asked earnestly.
"He survived," Lily smiled proudly. In that moment she looked far older than the years she lived on earth.
"He's wonderful isn't he? Our Harry?" James asked. There was slight uncertainty buried in his question. Remus knew it wasn't because James doubted such a fact, but because he simply didn't know. Remus felt strangely guilty that he'd known their son better than they did.
"Yes," Remus answered vehemently. "Yes he is." James nodded in gratitude and then flickered to his teenage shape.
"Trust me and Lily to spawn the hero of a century," he said pompously, nudging Lily with his elbow. She rolled her eyes and flicked James' ear. The carriage rocked with pointless laughter. Remus felt as if he'd travelled back in time to the teenage years that he missed so sharply once they'd passed. But the joy quickly dispersed when a disturbing memory returned to him. In his mind was etched the image of a raw pink blob of flesh that bawled endlessly through the night and curled his tiny hand around his thumb. A son. He had a son. Despair shook his body. He had been selfishly happy that he wasn't going to be separated from Tonks; that he wasn't going to be deprived of her company. But the price of that was too immense. To leave Teddy defenceless and alone was unthinkable.
"I have a son," his face caved to the grief that pulled at it. "I have a son, Teddy. I can't leave him. I have to go back," Remus moaned with wild panic. James and Lily exchanged a weary look that held a well-aged pain.
"You can't go back, Remus," James said quietly.
"I have to, it's my duty as a father," he pleaded, sliding to the carriage floor and beseeching James as if he held the power to send him back, as if he was the puppeteer that plucked the strings that controlled his destiny.
"Please, tell me how to go back, tell me how to be a ghost in their world. I can watch over him. I can help him," he wailed, his chin quavering.
"It's not a good idea, Remus for you or him," Lily implored him, avoiding his gaze with a strangely guilty expression. Again she looked infinitely old and almost defeated.
"If you attach yourself to them, even if they can't see you, they can feel your presence. It dampens their spirits. It affects their mood, makes them sullen," she said as she fiddled with the hem of her skirt.
"Then I'll wait for him here. I'll wait and take the journey with him," Remus insisted, his hands balled in defiance. His tears were dripping down the length of his nose and soaking into the carriage's ancient wood. Sirius knelt down on the floor beside him and gently pulled Remus' shoulders up. He placed his hand over Remus' heaving chest.
"Can you feel that pounding?" Sirius questioned, his voice gruff with discomfort. Remus could indeed feel a deep throb under his ribcage that seemed to be drawing him onwards like a magnetic pull. If he weren't distracted by the grief he felt for his newborn son he would find the sensation unbearable.
"It only gets stronger the longer you stay here." Sirius brow was knitted with a gentle pain. Remus finally understood why Sirius' body quaked with impatience. The energy it took for his friends to remain here and wait for him must be consuming them.
"You have to trust Teddy will be fine, Remus," Lily said and he thought that she wasn't only trying to convince him, but also herself.
"Now you know what it's like to die, you have no need to fear for him," James said, and Remus thought that this much was true. The grief he felt for his son made him determined to deny their logic. He desperately wished that oblivion would meet him at the end of the train ride so that he could be saved from this pain. But as much as Remus tried to punish himself by wallowing in the anguish he felt for his lost son, he couldn't. There was a deep joy that infected the dead, making it almost impossible for him to stay sad for long. It was like thick putty that patched up the holes torn in him by his misery. He knew his friends were right, and when he finally accepted this, the carriage skidded to a stop. They piled out of the carriage and Remus blinked in the eternal twilight that surrounded the station.
"If you have anything to ask the carriage driver, you best ask him now. You won't get another chance," Sirius said with a smile that burst with eagerness for the journey they were about to embark on. Remus had forgotten all about the petulant driver and was glad of it. He bore no curiosity towards him until he saw him sitting above the carriage, now completely transparent and lacking solid form.
"But you look like a ghost!" Remus cried. The driver glared down at him with a jagged scowl.
"That must mean…you're not dead? You're alive! How can that be?"
"I am alive. Eternally so," the driver replied with a sorrow that was so complete it deeply unsettled Remus and almost made him feel sorry for the insufferable man.
"Ask him why. He's obliged to answer you truthfully." The driver shot James a slicing glance at his suggestion.
"Why? How do you travel through here, transporting the deceased?" The driver's lips pulled apart as if they were being wrenched open by an invisible force.
"I lived on earth long ago, a wizard like you. I hated death. I despised death. And so I quested to best it by the aid of dark magic. And I was punished dearly for it," he replied bleakly.
"By who? What force governs us? What force delves out punishments?" Questions were pouring out of Remus' mouth in an endless stream. He had to clamp his lips shut to allow the driver a chance to answer.
"Nature. Our lord and master. Our mother and our murderer." The driver' grey eyes glassed over as he glanced with fear at everything that surrounded him, as if the trees could stretch their branches out at any moment and torture him for their amusement.
"Nature has a sense of justice?" Remus asked.
"Do you think this is justice?" The driver spat, his ghostly face morphed by rage. He tugged at the reins that seemed melded to his hands.
"That I be locked in this position for all eternity? That I'm doomed to be the servant of the dead that I hated so passionately? Nature has no sense of justice, Sir," he curled the formal address with disgust. "Nature has a cruel sense of humour. It gave me exactly what I wanted, eternal life, and in doing so revealed to me what death really is. Death is beautiful, it is right. And I will never know it. I will never shine with your radiance. I ache for death's complexion."
Remus agreed that this was a heavy punishment. But the driver seemed to feel no real remorse over his attempts to cheat death, only regret that he didn't possess the beauty and power of the dead. This was his folly, Remus thought, and it was likely that this flaw of vanity still bound him to the carriage. It occurred to Remus that this man was very similar to Voldemort, that he was the archetype for his character. Or maybe these power driven men were destined to emerge continuously through the course of humanity on an endless loop of destruction and downfall.
"There was another wizard, like you, who sought to defeat death. Will he be punished in the same way?" Remus burned with the desire for Voldemort to be punished so severely that tears would wet the monster's cheeks and that he would feel real despair in the empty organ that posed as his heart.
"Maybe. Maybe not. Life isn't fair and death isn't much better. He could escape unpunished. There are no rules, only circumstances. Or maybe he'll receive my sentence, and we can take it in shifts," he joked bitterly. The driver wheeled the carriage around and tore back down the dusty road illuminated by Death's shadows. Remus wondered vaguely what manner of friend or foe who fell at the battle of Hogwarts would be his next foggy minded passenger.
"He's a barrel of laughs, that one," James commented darkly.
"Hey, Remus, did you meet Godric? Now that guy's funny. He might be old fashioned but he knows some incredibly dirty jokes," Sirius smiled lewdly.
Now that they'd put the difficult conversations behind them, his friends has stopped flickering between old and young ages and seemed to have settled into their teenage state. Remus thought, if you had the choice, why wouldn't you revert to an age when you were particularly spry and in his case, particularly happy? He wondered if he had unconsciously stripped the years away, too. He wondered whether the grey had been washed from his hair and the deep wrinkles ironed out of his skin. He wondered whether his smile was as unaffected and innocent and his friends.
Remus still held Merlin in his arms, despite the fact that he'd always been on the hefty side. He wasn't ready yet to stop feeling the dog's warmth and energy pressed against him. There was an endless stream of people and animals filing through the grand entrance of the train station and heading towards the open doors of the softly humming train. Birds swooped gracefully under the arch while mice darted between feet and paws. There was even a steady line of ants scaling the white steps up to the entrance. The diligently trudging insects looked like black wool that had somehow been stitched into the hard ground. Seeing that the animals were headed to the same place as humans filled Remus with immense relief. He had a nagging fear that maybe he wouldn't be permitted onto the train with the others. That maybe being a werewolf made him more animal than human, and that he was destined for another place all together.
"We're going to go save a carriage at the back," James said, tugging on Sirius' sleeve. The two boys shoved their way unapologetically through the crowd, leaping over the animals that trotted underfoot. Remus had been anxiously scouring the station as soon as they entered it. Lily pointed towards the great black and silver trimmed steam train. A blossom of purple hair stood out against it, even more vivid in colour than it had been in life. Lily squeezed his hand before running after James and Sirius with the abandoned glee of a child. Remus pushed his way through the hordes of bodies, parting the dead with his desperate anticipation. As he made his way towards Tonks and the train behind her, a violent concoction of excitement and fear, trepidation and joy, stirred in his stomach. Remus didn't know whether they were heading towards destruction or deliverance, but he knew they had to head there or the same.