This was derogatory. It was. Extensive months of work was laid all around him. If you were to walk in on Remus Lupin at this given moment, you would be inclined to say it was Sirius Black that had created this mess. It was not, however, at least not directly.
Tonks. Stop it. Stop it please. He could hear plates smashing above his head. Her aim was direct, a couple of them rolling around as if spiralling down a drain above his head.
This idea had started on the eve of the anniversary of Sirius' death. Now, he was the notorious owner of the marauder's map. Although it had been down to him for the very physics and anatomy of it, it had always been Padfoot's and Prong's legacy. Without them, it had merely been a thing that curled and lifted itself from the table. That was Sirius and James unleashing havoc and mind fuckery on him but the map had manifested into a joint effort, a new person of sorts. At his will, as soon as he entered the basement room, it would flap and soar in greeting.
When Sirius had died, a great deal had been done to his heart. It was never quite the same. Others who would comment now in reflection on that period of Lupin's life would describe it as generally consisting of screaming. Although most of it was internal and he was a walking shacken, broken-down washing machine of death in a living man, a werewolf's scream is never misheard. Stealth never had been his strong point. Then again, he was now perfecting the art to all but Tonks. The order tended to typecast him as a teacher.
Of course he never taught them anything, but as comes with the authoritative position, he was treated as if it was alright 'up there', There are some things magic just can't detect. A teacher trait that did contribute, though, was his initiative to understand, to pick apart. Yes, libraries were involved. Many, such as it were. Sirius nor James would have let him a step further into an establishment like that but as completely helpless to stop him as they were now, he had always found a way around their wishes. Especially when they were knocked out after a particularly hard day of traumatising first years and raising indecency among their peers.
What he had trouble with in the anniversary of Sirius' death was this: why, in the world of earths, in the god bloody name of Merlin was buried in his heart? The answer was simple, any muggle of any counselling kind could detect this in an instant. He'd lost Sirius. But that wasn't the only thing. It was a part of his heart that was nothing to do with the demolished state. That was gone forever but there are parts of the heart less easy to self-destruct. So, from then on the Marauder's map appeared as technology not just limited to paper.
Remarkably, applied to other hypothetical things, it fit perfectly like a key to a lock. What if, he had thrown his hands up in the air one day and had had waved in the air in Moony-fashion, labels could mark the heart, to pinpoint exactly what condition was clouding it? Initially it had seemed like a revelation, now it was a humongous pain in the ass and unconditional, erratic, ridiculous science and magic combined, two walks of life that should never coincide.
For tables of all sizes and variation around him, were what had been three years prior boxes of Sirius' belongings located with him now in the cottage which he inhabited. It had taken Tonks an extremely long time and an outrageous amount of uplifting charms and a kick in the right direction to make him leave Grimmwald Place forever. At first she had been more understanding than any woman should have to be, in the very least not someone who carried as much light as her to deal with a man who as far as diagnosis would go he would call himself clinically insane and much too permanently hungover to see life as anything other as completely draining. She'd been his psychiatrist many too many times but then her methods increasingly became violent and eventually he had to take heed. He was no match and it was in his nature to regard peace as the most vital thing. Back when Sirius was around, he was far strong-willed in intellectual combat but now he was a deflated marshmallow more quickly without him bringing it out of him. It came without fight.
On the boxes was anything from dismantled magical items to dissected thread from his cardigans and discarded daily prophets and occasionally the fair, odd Quibbler lost amongst the stern broad sheets. He liked to call that issue: issue black 22. More closer to him was a long, obscenely placed as if he had just walked in one day and apparated it in in a flurry. In fact, he had. Across it was a massive laminated sheet of parchment which showed in red ink every criss cross, mish mosh of the heart which he had allocated a very specific name to each valve. Tonks was there. Terribly small, I'm afraid, his tired voice had said, very small indeed. The area wrapped around had the appropriate name of 'guilt' and a little above that region span out an area so large he could hardly sketch defence against the dark arts and the rights of werewolves and the order among many other incredibly important things that was the complex matter of three boys, four is himself is to be included, remarkable men he could now say built in a large land encrusting the back of his heart. That was always strange, he would have imagined back in Hogwarts that they would have been at the forefront but it made much more sense now that they had taken a painful place to sit as reminder, whether it was when he was out battling against the harsh cold of Godrics Hollow or simply out for a butterbeer or a firewhisky as was often the case by the time that he got to a pub.
Harry was a part integrated but rightfully so, an entire part of his own. He often seemed like a tumour of Remus' own demise. It wasn't the boy's fault. He had inherited the love of both James' and Sirius' ruleful, rule-less love among his own for him and there was no one on the right sight of the border between life and death that regarded him higher. At times, the thought of Harry loitering about out there in the cold, godawful world around him was his only smidge of sanity. It would only got harder for him, and Remus was under compulsive suspicion that it kept him up at night that Harry was about to encounter more than what they had already suffered at the hands on and he felt that maybe, no indefinitely, that he was going to be less of a help than what was good for him.
He touched the areas nearest to him from angle that in gold lettering were named 'mother' and 'father' and the names that spawned restlessly from them. His hand stuttered as he traced them, the names for which the animals and the men whom he had killed in his other form. His heart didn't beat very well down there. He had various heart surgeries performed there, and he had even had to conjure a stitching or two to keep all the blood from spilling out. He had been stood in the same place for a number of hours and the plates had stopped above him and he could hear the faint drone of a shower, each individual tear-drop reminded him of July 1980.
His figure drowned in shadow, his spine had began to ache uncharacteristically against the stern wall of green wool that covered it. If he had not known better, and was a bit more naive about his condition that he was actually beginning to change. He wasn't, it was as human as a war. His heart lapsed gently and his breath rasped in a faint memory of asthma he used to have before first year in Hogwarts. It had left rather suddenly joining a compartment of a ragged black haired boy, tie askew and wand brandished on the Hogwarts express. He had seemed to pass it on to Peter who suffered with it all the way up to Sirius finally snapped and came up with a spell to remove it.
It had been a long-time coming. He was shaking so impulsively that it reminded him of the small chunk of chocolate hidden within his pocket that rustled with his bodily pulsations. His facial expression twisted in recognition and he held it, losing himself subconsciously in his faults and taking it out again, acting almost as if he didn't have it, not recognising the substance had melted all over his fingers. He watched the parchment with all of the concentration he had the entire time he had spent in education, and that was all the concentration ever physically possible in the company of rowdy friends. It was sad that he was beating his record now. Any second now. Anyyy second.
There. That. Then. His head span and he had to steady himself by reaching out an arm to hold himself up, his clean hand almost wounding him in the abdonomen where pain collected. He held it there and he drew inwards in himself with elation at what commenced in front of him. His eyes consumed and reflected the the lights of the golden marks that rioted like swarms of bees in a hive. The real heart which the parchment represented suddenly felt as if was inhabited with such insects. It momentarily made him feel extremely ill. It was not something he had ever spared a thought for, let alone created the notion of. Of course it was just imagery but even so, there was something warm about seeing each individual that he cared for buzzing around his heart like little...God, Sirius would bark with laughter if he ever heard this, but...but angels, in a way, in some sort. He regained his masculine composure, his lips twisting and his teeth brandishing wide, his eyes looking everywhere as if he could see them lift themselves from the parchment and float around him, further animated and twisting and turning around him, touching his facial scars and healing him with warmth.
This was a huge advancement. Although every millionth of a dot didn't have a name, the fact they were there at all was something supernatural, even for a wizard of his level. The world thought it knew magic. Heavens to hell, they did not know a thing. He was so out of his mind to think for a second to close to a minute how a muggle's perception and reaction to an amateur trick of a so-called magician was closer to magic than he had ever come. The shock was something he wasn't used to. He knew all there was to know about spell after potion after spell and there was nothing that he could never anticipate but this was a different matter entirely. It showed that the showmanship of a magic act performed for muggle children - the larger the performance, the brighter the lights, the cheesier the wording, the more elevating and utterly moving it was. He fell backwards onto a box that he knew was behind him, scrabbling for a mug of coffee that he had leant beside it, raising it to his lips, looking as if he had seen far too many ghosts to put a number to and he was being forcefully revoked by joy. "Sirius, even this would stun you out of daily expecidades." he chucked throatily, out of ridicule or pain, he couldn't know.