Title: Out of Darkness
Author: E. Kathleen Roper
Rating: R for future scenes
Pairing: Lupin/Snape with references to past Lupin/Black
Warnings: Slash, Violence, Drug and Alcohol Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts and Actions, Angst, Not for Sirius fans.
Summary: Returning to the Wizarding World after many years, Remus must face the demons of his past and try to pull his life together as the world prepares for the second rise of Voldemort.
Author's Note: This story has been previously posted, but is being rewritten in its entrity. While every single line has been changed, it is still essentially the same story.
Timeline: Set duringPrisoner of Azkaban.
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Chapter One: New Beginnings
Tap, tap, tap...
The room was dark, lit only by the thin, yellow hued bars of light that filtered in through the small, dingy window that was set high in the wall of the cramped Muggle flat. A man dressed in tattered clothes was slumped across the battered table, his outstretched hand curled loosely around a chipped glass that held several inches of cheap vodka.
Tap, tap, tap...
The night had been a long one. He had gone to work, some hours before sunset, only to be sent away with two days pay in his pocket and a firm warning not to return still ringing in his ears. The job hadn't been a good one, tending bar in a seedy, smoke filled pub, but it had paid the rent and put food on the table. Though admittedly, more of his pay had gone towards his next drink, than to food, as of late.
Tap, tap, tap...
It was almost laughable, really. He was a wizard, a good one at that, and he couldn't even keep a job in a filthy Muggle pub. Bad enough that he couldn't hold down a job in his own world, because of what he was. Yes, he could fool them for a time, but they always caught on soon enough. A few months and they would begin to suspect. They might buy the illness excuse for a while, but if he stayed long enough, the moon would always show them the truth.
Tap, tap, tap...
Now even the Muggles didn't want him. They might not believe in werewolves, but they certainly believed in drunks. Apparently Muggles are no happier to pay a drunk than wizards are to pay a monster. But no matter. He would find another job, somewhere. Perhaps a bookstore this time; pubs were just too much of a temptation. Several hours of serving drinks, and a man tended to get a bit thirsty himself.
Tap, tap, tap...
The incessant tapping finally worked its way through alcohol induced haze shrouding his mind and he jerked upright, spilling his drink as he reached reflexively for his wand, briefly forgetting that he no longer carried it. He blinked blearily around the room, searching for the source of the noise, before his eyes lit on the window and the owl perched outside.
An owl? "Bloody thing must be lost," he muttered to himself, "haven't gotten an owl in years." The window groaned in protest as he forced it open, and the owl hopped down onto the table, seeming to give him a disapproving glare as it held out its leg impatiently so that he could remove the attached letter. It took several tries before his numbed fingers managed to unfasten the knots holding the letter in place, and once he had freed it, he had to hold it at arm's length and blink repeatedly before the words stopped swimming long enough for him to see that it was indeed addressed to him.
His name, Remus Lupin, was scrawled across the front of the letter in a familiar, flowing script, and flipping it over he saw the distinctive seal of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. "Hogwarts. What in the hells does Dumbledore want now?" He could vaguely remember speaking with the man a few weeks ago. Or had it been months? Dumbledore had said something of troubled times ahead, and had hinted that perhaps it was time for Remus to return to the Wizarding World. But certainly he had made his intentions to remain here clear. Hadn't he? There was no place for him there, not anymore.
With a sigh, he righted his glass, ignoring the spilled liquor on the table, and splashed another few inches of the clear liquid into the glass. After taking several sips to steady himself, he ripped open the envelope and squinted at the letter. He had to read it through three times before the contents fully sank in. Dumbledore was asking him to return to Hogwarts. As a professor.
Laughing bitterly, he drained his glass and read the letter yet again. So. Dumbledore wanted him to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. Yes, it made a morbidly funny kind of sense. As a creature of darkness himself, he would be in the perfect position to teach others about the Dark Arts. "And tonight, class, we'll be learning about werewolves. I'll just lock myself in that cage over there, and as soon as the moon rises, you'll know exactly what a werewolf looks like. Won't that be educational?"
After fumbling for a pen, he scrawled the word "NO" in large letters on the back of the parchment before stuffing it back into the envelope and reaching out to return it to the owl. But then he froze, his hand hovering uncertainly a few inches away from the impatient owl.
True, there was no place he wanted to revisit less than his old school. There were simply too many memories. The bad memories he could handle, he faced those every day, but there were pleasant memories as well. He wasn't certain that he could stand the constant reminders that he had once been happy. The laughter of children, and countless smiling faces might well be all that was needed to finally push him over the edge.
Releasing the letter, and allowing it to flutter to the floor, he dropped his head to the table again and laced his fingers protectively over his neck. He could feel the cold, wet puddle of spilled vodka beneath his cheek. "Over the edge," he muttered darkly to himself. "And what, Lupin, makes you think that you haven't fallen over already?"
The very fact that he used more words in speaking aloud to himself, than he did in talking to actual people, should have been a fair indication that he had fallen long ago. His life had been on a downhill slide for years. Ever since...Sirius. Before, it hadn't mattered quite so much that he couldn't find steady work. With the war, there hadn't even really been time to try. And at least he had been useful, then.
But then everything had changed; in an instant, his entire world had been shattered. James, Lily, Peter...Sirius. All of them gone, one way or another. The war was over, and all that was left to do was rebuild. But Remus had had nothing left to rebuild; the pieces of his life were irrevocably broken. So he had simply slipped away and tried to start anew. In time, he had found even that impossible, and had left the Wizarding World altogether.
He had made a clean break from his old life, and no one had sought him out. Not until now. Now Dumbledore was offering him a second chance.
There was nothing left for him here, just as he had thought there was nothing left for him before. Could he really go back? Was there really still a place for him, somewhere? Sitting up and reaching for the fallen letter, he knew that he had to try.