Deus Fratri Sui Salutem Dicit!
Romulus, in his anger, threw him to his death, rebuking him also with these words: "Thus henceforth perish all who overleap my walls."
-Livy, Ab Urbe Condita (Book I, Chapter VII)
Mars was bright on the night that Remus Lupin was born. His parents barely noted it, not being much of stargazers, themselves, but it might have brought with its radiance a subtle nudge in the naming department. Or, perhaps not.
Though it loomed on the horizon, that was not the reason for the brightness of that particular star at that particular time. Its brilliance served as a beacon, for one who had been awaiting just such an eventuality: a return. Souls passed endlessly, unceasing, between the Underworld, and the world above. He knew that it was inevitable that this one should eventually return, had sworn long ago to look after this soul no matter its name and appearance, as he hadn't before
Now, the god Quirinus approached the quaint little cottage in which little Remus Lupin fretfully slept. It was a shallow, restless sleep, brought on by exhaustion, only after the child had cried himself hoarse in the solitude of his bedchambers. Quirinus didn't want to intrude, but...
This was—had been—his brother, back when Quirinus had worn a human form, and a human face, one of two hero sons of the god whose star now shone bright in the sky. It mattered not that he was born anew, of different parents, with a different face, desires, voice. The name was the same, and there was power in a name. What fools the parents of Remus J. Lupin had been; their poor choice in name had served as an irresistible lure to the caprice of fate. He blamed them. Quirinus blamed them, that he not feel the twisting in what had been his mortal stomach. Were it not for him, would his brother, too, have apotheosed, been borne aloft, saved, ascended? Would he then have avoided this curse, this suffering?
Remus Lupin, bitten by a werewolf, cursed to become a wolfish creature the nights of every full moon, as penance for the crime of another. As remembrance for an erstwhile surrogate mother, long forgotten. Quirinus pulled the pelt closer to himself, considered the door, briefly, decided that doors were for mortals, considered again, more deeply, unlocked the door, pushed it open, entered the sleeping house. He knew just where Remus was. He always knew. It was, as mortals would put it, a "twin thing".
He had been mortal, once. His brother was mortal yet. As penance for the murder of his flesh and blood (was it a crime at the time? The details of human law had evaded him sometimes even then. Had they frowned upon him, and whispered behind their hands "That man is kin-slayer"?), he watched over his former brother, eternally, until the highest gods saw fit to uplift Remus as they had his brother, long ago.
Quirinus cursed the name of Fenrir Greyback, who had brought the entire affair into a sort of knot. Now or never, came the refrain in the god's mind. Perhaps, if Remus did not make it in this life, he never would.
Be a hero, Remus, Quirinus thought, as he strode down the corridor, limiting himself to mortal means, mortal methods, the path his brother's parents had taken, the wood and stone and carpet upon which his brother had trod. He walked in the silence born of practiced, trained, stealth, a warrior's grace and agility, with no hint of his divinity to it.
He walked with silent purpose to Remus's room, noticed the door ajar from where Remus's parents had pushed it open to check on him. They'd only gone to bed an hour before, still crying, themselves. Such an adjustment to be made, in such a short span of time, a radical shift in their lives. What did you do with a werewolf child? A little boy who turned into a ravening monster once a month was not safe for playdates and sleepovers, and whatever other nonsense mortal children got up to nowadays. He would be isolated, ostracised, alienated, loneliness his truest companion, his life a bitter mire of missed opportunities, longings, regrets. He was a mage, a sorcerer, a—whatever they called them nowadays. But the old and wizened headmaster could scarcely risk his students' safety by inviting a monster to come to study at his school.
Shaking his head to clear away the melancholic thoughts, Quirinus pushed open the door, gently, that it not creak, and crossed the clean and rather Spartan living quarters to his brother's bedside. He stood there, for a while, pondering what to do, what he ought to do, what he wanted to do, what he deserved to do, what was appropriate for him to do. Such a tangled mess reincarnation had made of his life.
The boy was small, lean but not gaunt, still in the pink of health, not yet covered in the scars that Quirinus knew would later litter his body, as the wounds of a battle, this a battle against a foreign part of himself. Blond hair that might yet darken into brunet, unremarkable, with not even a divine glow to show that he had been the son of a god.
Only the brightness, the brilliant, triumphant gleam of Mars overhead, the day he had been born, hinted at the boy's truest identity. Now Mars rose in the sky, gaining in power and clarity as Voldemort's war approached. But Quirinus would think of war later.
For now, he stared down at the stranger before him, his brother, whom he might, but for patriotic pride, have built an everlasting kingdom with. His brother needed him now, and, though frayed by the passage of so many centuries, Remus's murder, and the very process of reincarnation, there still remained their bond, serving for a hint as to whom the boy on the bed had been.
He moulded his own features until they were a replica of Remus's, an eerie mimicry, an echo of earlier, happier days, when they had worked together, before the quarrel over Rome. He knelt down at his brother's bedside, and held out a hand. Something shimmered into existence there, a talisman, an amulet that couldn't be removed by any mortal means. A charm in the shape of a wolf hung from a leathern cord. He placed it in Remus's fist, and closed his fingers over it. He half-expected Remus to wake then—certainly, he twitched, as if beginning to regain consciousness, but he remained in that strange in-between, between wakefulness and sleep.
"Ah, Remus," Quirinus said with a sigh. "I think some part of you hears me, or at any rate, I will it so. This is yours. It will protect you, and look after you, will shift fate in your favour, as much as I can. It has all the powerful magic protections I can think of placed upon it. Don't lose it. But I have another thing to say to you besides."
He took a deep breath, and steeled himself, clung to the illusion of mortality, tried to remember how it felt, tried to guess at what Remus suffered.
"Be a hero, Remus, and make your father and me proud. So that someday, we meet again on Mount Olympos, the home of the gods, and will never again be divided, as I divided us, long ago. I will not permit that this be our final parting. Remus, be sure that I will be watching, and looking out for you. Remus, if ever you feel that the world is going your way, or that someone is looking out for you, I hope that even a vague suspicion of this night recalls me to mind. We might not exchange words, but know that I will be there."
He bowed his head, and rose, wishing that he dared to stay longer, to do more. But he couldn't force Remus's hand, could not control the course chartered to him by Fortuna. All he could do was hope, and perhaps pray, odd an idea as that now seemed.
"Forgive me, Remus," he said, turning from the bed with no further fanfare, and strode back through those halls, back outside, to return to his eternal home.
Snugly nestled in his bed, Remus Lupin opened his eyes to find his left hand clenched over the figure of a golden wolf.
End