This OS is written for the Pairing Diversity Boot Camp (impetuous), the 'Stretch Your Limits' Competition (Medium Level), the 'sad and depressing one-shot' challenge, the Pairing One Hour Challenge (finished this in one hour), the Harry Potter Spell Competition (Crucio) and the Hunger Games Fanfic Style Competition.
You Never You What You Have Until It's Gone
"You know, when I said you should move on, I didn't quite mean it like that." Remus managed a half-chocked laugh, but even he knew that it sounded more like a sob than anything else.
The werewolf was alone in the cemetery – and didn't that sound like the beginning of a bad joke? – in front of a small gravestone. He didn't think he had ever seen such a well decorated graveyard before – the war, though short, had made more damage than they could ever have imagined – not even in Godric's Hollow after Voldemort's death.
Then people from all over the world had come to see the place where the dark Lord had fallen, where the Light had had triumphed and to see the tombs of James and Lily Potter who had given their lives for their son. For a while the place had been covered in flowers of all kinds, crowded with witches, wizards – even Squibs came – of all ages, people left magical gifts – such as a particularly sad music box charmed to play a beautiful Requiem.
People liked to think their loved ones were happy in the afterlife, and it seemed that they also wanted to believe that the dead could see them and their actions. Perhaps they thought that by being as devoted as they could to the one they had lost – at least for a time – said lost ones wouldn't come back to haunt them as much. Well, Remus knew he did.
He could see everyone he had lost at night, he dreamed of them – if those terrible nightmares could even be called dreams – and even sometimes when he was awake – those where the worst. To see someone you love just in front of you, or somewhere in the street only to realize it was all an illusion… But sometimes he couldn't control himself and he went back to places they had been together, just in the hope to catch some – any – kind of residue, to see their shadows there, happy as they were.
After the first war, the only moments of peace Remus had had, what with three of his best friends dead and the last one whose memory hurt even more – how could he think about a betrayer after all? Death was kind compared to the bitter pain left by a betrayal – had been when he had gone to the cemetery, to see his friends' graves. He had to tell them he was sorry, he had to explain and he had to have someone to talk to else he went mad.
Today was really special though. After all, this one Remus wasn't coming for a simple friend. No, he was coming for someone who had been so much more than a friend… Just thinking about the loss, about the fact that he would never see Dean again, never see the one person he had loved smile to him again, hurt harder and deeper than betrayal ever could.
It was the first time he came here since Dean's death, the first time he was standing in front of his tomb. Coming earlier would have been like admitting that dean would never come back, that this horrible event had really happened and that everything was not some kind of a bad joke from the universe. (Or maybe it was… Remus was a monster after all).
Even here, even now, Remus kept expecting the young man to appear from nowhere, to jump on him from behind screaming his name. Remus would then act properly startled – even though he always heard the young man coming thanks to his werewolf's senses – before kissing him. It was what they did.
But the cemetery stayed desperately silent and Remus' eyes strangely dry. Too dry. Why couldn't he just cry?
Of course that wasn't the only reason for his absences – two whole weeks had passed after all. He had after all hoped for months after their death that Sirius, James or Lily would come back and tell him that it had all been some kind of a trick, and he still saw them sometimes in the corner of his eyes – but he still had been at their funerals.
He couldn't even do that for Dean. He had wanted to (oh how he had wanted to be there) but he knew he didn't have the right to ruin that last moment where Dean Thomas wouldn't be underground. He had been his teacher after all, and he couldn't show his face just like that when everyone knew what had really happened – and those who didn't would know just by looking at his face if he went, and the last thing he wanted was to make a scandal.
His parents, his friends hadn't understood – those were Dean's words, not Remus' who had been ready to stop everything, who hadn't even try to make anything happen – what their relationship was, they hated it, Remus could see it in their eyes, that they found it unnatural. Sometimes, Remus didn't understand it either, but he could never hate what they had because that would be similar to hating Dean and no matter how much he tried to distance himself from his ex-student he hadn't been able to.
Dean used to say that it couldn't be wrong, not when it felt so right, not when their magic was singing each and every time they touched or just were together. Not when it was something so beautiful. And then he reminded Remus that he was sixteen, soon to be seventeen and that then nobody would be able to say anything.
Breathing was hard, Remus realized. It was like he was drowning, except there was nothing to drown in – except his sorrow – and he could do nothing but stand there in front of the tomb of the one who had definitely been more than a student for him – hadn't been a student for quite a long time actually.
The worst part probably was that everyone blamed him. They blamed him for what had happened, for what Dean had done. Truthfully, the old werewolf couldn't blame them. He knew it was his fault. He had been so stupid…
When Dumbledore had asked him to come back and teach again three years after he left the school, he had thought it was a bad idea. After all, his secret had been revealed and he had had to leave. Nobody would want a werewolf to teach their children and anyway Remus didn't really felt good after the accident in June knowing he could have hurt any of the students under his charge.
But apparently whatever Umbridge had done had been worse than the danger of a werewolf and the fear people had of them because according to Dumbledore the whole Council had agreed that he was probably the best choice for the year, provided he stayed in a locked room on the full room.
Albus had pleaded his case well because Remus had actually agreed to come back and teach Defense again – the subject was even more important now that Voldemort's return was public knowledge.
It was like coming home though and Remus had happily packed his meager possessions and what he would need for Hogwarts. The smiling faces of his students when they saw him had warmed his heart and it had been them who, ultimately, had convinced him that he had made the right choice.
It hadn't taken him long to see how much his home had changed in just three years – not even that actually, a little over two – and by the end of his first class (Gryffindor/Slytherin, 6th years, of course) he had realized how much everyone, even him, had changed.
He couldn't remember how it had begun. Maybe it was when the young wizard – who was almost an adult though! – had taken to steal glances in his direction when he lectured, or when Dean had begun to wear provocative clothes in his classroom – an habit that didn't last long – or maybe it was when the young man had asked for private lessons.
Remus had always been rather obtuse – Sirius used to joke that he was the most oblivious guy on Earth, Remus suspected that it was because he kept expecting to be disappointed, to be left behind when people realized what he truly was – and so it had taken the young man a really long while until his professor noticed anything.
He had tried to stop it of course – it wasn't right, it couldn't be… Though Remus already wondered what he truly was denying, his own traitorous feelings or Dean's? – but the Gryffindor was very persistent. In the hope it would discourage him, he had taken him on a walk – it wasn't a date, and anyway that couldn't happen on school grounds because there was nowhere to go for a date – and they had pick-nicked under a tree, hidden from the world because it was in a small alcove on the border of the Black Lake but far away enough from the school that people couldn't see them or didn't thought to come.
It hadn't ended like he had wanted. No, it had been better. There, under an ancient, strong upstanding tree that probably had seen thousands of couples, they had shared their first kiss. Everything had kind of snowballed from there – because it had felt right even though Remus had wanted it to be wrong – and by December they had been together.
It was the happiest Remus had ever felt in a long time – actually he couldn't remember ever feeling better. So of course it couldn't last.
The thought that his happiness had been ruined by his own foolishness was what hurt the most. But it really proved that the universe was cruel – and that it had a very sick and twisted sense of humor –because it always took what you cherished the most.
It reminded him of that saying… You never know what you have until you lose it. He had known what he had had, and it had been fantastic. The young man had been so full of life, so impetuous… How had he ended up this way?
Remus could still see the scene as clearly as the day it had happened. Each time he closed his eyes, and there it was. There he was. Blood, so much blood… And his face had been at peace. He remembered not understanding. How could he be at peace with so much blood? How could he be at peace when he was leaving him alone?
But this was just the end, had it been just that, maybe Remus could have forgotten, could have forgiven himself for not seeing.
But it was worse, far worse. Because all of this, this horrible scene that would have a place in any horror movie, had happened because of him, of his stupid actions.
His stomach churned uncomfortably as he recalled what had started everything, how this hell had begun.
He had been going to their place – the place where their story had begun, where that magnificent tree was – when he saw them. There was a boy kissing a girl. A very normal scene, especially since he knew the place wasn't a real secret. He had found it and he knew others had too; the proof of this was carved on the dark and old tree, a multitude of names engraved there.
He hadn't recognized the girl, but the boy had been strangely familiar. It wasn't until they both began to talk and that he saw their faces that he realized that Dean was there. They had never really put a name on their relationship – it was mostly stolen kisses, moonlight walks, hidden glances and secret meetings but they both knew it was something more and that it was strong – but he had never thought something like this would ever happen.
He had honor though, and he wasn't one to make a scandal, so he turned back, ignoring the burning pain of betrayal that made him feel like he was back to being a schoolboy – it wasn't like he could make a scandal anyway since they weren't supposed to be together. He couldn't do anything and that was the worst. He could feel a rage at the back of his mind and without thinking he knew it was the wolf. His curse.
The next time he had seen dean he had told him they were over. He regretted that. But what he regretted the most was not listening and ignoring the other man after that.
It wasn't until he had found the lifeless corpse of his ex-… His ex-world, because that was what the younger man had been for a too short while that he understood that he shouldn't have judged. After all, didn't he himself know what it felt like, to be judged by others?
Gryffindors were impetuous, be it him or his younger lover. He regretted that it had taken him so long to see it.
To Dean Thomas, a fantastic young man who should have had the world before him.
May he be happier where he is.
Remus didn't leave any flowers, though the place was so full of them that they probably wouldn't have been noticed. He knew the other man had hated them. Too girly.