A Solitary Echo
By: Dark Draconain
Rated: PG
Feedback: Makes me smile.
Disclaimer: Remus, unfortunately, is not mine.
Summery: (prePoA) The beast within can devour a man.
A/N: Written in August 2004. I apologize for emo!Lupin. I know it's shitty characterization, but I like the prose too much to get of rid of this. So just bear with it, yeah?
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A Solitary Echo
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The street was worn, cracked, and empty. The decay was so complete that not even a London sewer rat would linger there. Mangled boxes, sodden and crumpled, decorated the sides of derelict buildings, spilling across sidewalks. Ominous clouds hung overhead, threatening a downpour of icy raindrops across the earth.
A figure stood alone amongst the wreckage, soft eyes glancing over the ruin, a gentle breeze billowing his frayed traveling cloak. The man was unremarkable, the faded colours of his worn garments barely contrasting his surroundings, his pallid face cast into shadow. Bright eyes, dimmed only slightly by time, were all that offered a hint of life. In his hand he clutched a scuffed suitcase, the stamped letters "Professor R. J. Lupin" peeling away.
Remus Lupin, the sole inhabitant of the putrescent alley, staggered down the street, searching for refuge. His footsteps echoed across the pavement, ringing in an inconstant pattern that betrayed a limp. He stopped at a tattered, once-red awning, climbed the crumbling stairs and entered the building.
Indistinguishable grey rubble loomed ahead, obscured by layers of disturbed dust that lofted through the rancid air, falling upwards in a delicate dance. Lupin pressed forwards, tearing cobwebs with his hand, marching to a pile of moth-eaten blankets thrown in a corner. He dropped his suitcase, listened to the dull thump that was consumed by pressing silence. Words were no longer uttered in this place; here voices were silenced, life stilled.
Memories, however, flourished: Painful remembrances of happier times, tinged with longing and regret. Time was naught in the folds of these decrepit buildings. Days crept into nights, and nights back into days; in between all that remained was thought. Lupin shifted on his grimy blanket throne, running calloused hands through greying hair. Once, long ago it seemed, he had had friends. True friends. Friends who stayed by him, accepted what he was. Lupin knew, even as he grew up with them, that it couldn't last forever. For him nothing good could. He had spent every moment of his existence in fear: Fear of rejection and persecution. There was little comfort in the life he now lived, but it was one devoid of apprehension. And that was at least a hollow comfort.
For what was there to dread in a life that held nothing: a life without meaning? Pain was only temporary; it fell away, like ashes in a dying fire, leaves in an autumn tree. Lupin had only the full moon left. It remained, a glowing orb of disdain, casting silver beams of scorn. The moon was the only thing Lupin felt anything for: hatred so pure it burned his soft-spoken nature, scorched his soul.
It was that glowering circle that was his eternal curse. It hexed his hopes and overshadowed the man he was. Because that moon, pale and impassive, could reveal his true self for what it was: a werewolf—despicable, volatile, and dangerous. And while he would give anything for that not to be true, he knew that no amount of want or sacrifice could ever change what he was; what the world saw him as: a half-bread and a monster.
Lupin knew, as he sat in the abandoned building, that no matter what he did, he would always be despised. He would always be alone. And when Remus Lupin died he would leave only a footprint of misery and regret on the forlorn ground behind him.
fin