A/N: Well, this is the first chapter of my newest fic. I'm putting it under Sirius/Hermione because that pairing needs more fics under its belt. Enjoy, and please review!
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Introduction:
This may seem odd to you, the reader that I and my husband decided to publish the journals of our great-grandparents, but we feel it will help people to understand their lives. My great-grandmother, you see, was Hermione Granger. She was famous in her own right, as well as for being the best friend of Harry Potter. But she told my mother that her main accomplishment was her family, even though they went through some rough times.
My husband is the great-grandson of Remus Lupin, the werewolf who brought over several packs to Harry Potter's cause during the Second War. Remus was not entirely consumed by his werewolf identity. To his last few days he would play with his grandchildren in the sandbox and ruffle their hair with a wry grin.
But we feel that it will help the world to understand their lives and what they did, and also why they did it.
Sincerely,
Mark and Jocelyn Lupin.
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June 12, 1996
After Sirius died, I didn't really seem to want to live. It's a heady thing, you know, being the last one left. I don't count Peter on purpose (in fact, I can barely think his name without wanting to spit and retch at the same time)the moment he betrayed Lily and James he left the Marauders forever, so now I am the last Marauder, the last one standing, so to speak. I remember their faces, laughing, telling jokes, playing harmless pranks on others as we took our last train ride to Hogwarts. Lily and James were Head Boy and Head Girl. They deserved it. Sure, James was a prankster, but after fifth year he ended up reformingfor Lily, I suppose. That's one thing I envied about James and Lily. Love. Undying, unshakeable love. I remember their wedding, where, before they left for their honeymoon, James pulled me aside and told me that I would find someone, someday. It's been seventeen years, James. Where's my love?
I shouldn't dwell on the past. But sometimes it seems like the only thing I have left. Harry needs me. I don't know if he wants me to come anywhere near him. Perhaps it's too soon for both of us. I've lost my best friend, and he lost the closest thing to a father he's ever had. Sometimes I wish it was me. Me, who had fallen through the veil, and me who everyone was mourning. Werewolves aren't wanted anyway, so why should I be around? At least, besides the murder charges, Sirius wasn't an outcast of society. At the very least he would've been shunned. I know what he would've said, too: "It's fun that people think I'm still a murderer. Usually people are all crowded around me in Diagon Alley, but now I have plenty of elbow room." Me, people avoid because they're scared of lycanthropy. It's as if it hasn't struck them that it isn't airborne. I would need to bite them to give them the curse. And that's what it is, too. A curse. A Dark magic curse from hell. Occasionally I wish that someone would mistake me for a rabid wolf and shoot me, but it's stupid of me to be a depressed introverted "It's-all-my-fault" person. Harry's already like that, and we don't need two of them. I shouldn't say such things about him, of course, but sometimes my "gentle demeanor" leaves me.
The only bright spot since Sirius' death in my life has beensurprisinglyGinny. Ginny Weasley, who is eighteen years younger than I am. Ginny Weasley who was enchanted and taken prisoner by Tom Riddle in her first year. Ginny Weasley who, when I taught, never spoke to me, but smile and hurried away every time she saw me, blushing furiously. And, Ginny Weasley, who isor wasin love with Harry.
She was the one who told me to write it down. I've been moping around Grimmauld Place for far too long, and when she arrived from Hogwarts, after a short stop at the Burrow, she instantlyor almost instantlygravitated to my cause. "Everyone else is worrying about Harry, Remus," she had said. (I told her to call me Remus. I don't know why.) "You need someone to worry about you." And she has. Worried, I mean. Saying "bright spot" about her is funny, since she has such bright hair. It's this lovely shade of copper, really. I remember my one trip to America, five years ago, with their copper pennies. Her hair is about the shade of a new, shiny copper penny. I have one in my pocket right now. I keep it shined, just for her, though she doesn't know about it. She's calling me, now. "Remus! Mum, he told me to call him that. Remus?" Her head is sticking through the gap between my door and the door jam. "There you are," she smiles, "ready for lunch? Are you writing? I told you it'd be good for you. C'mon, Mum made your favorite: lovely chicken stew."
I'll stop now. Since, after all, one can never beat a good bowl of chicken stew.
Later on June 12, 1996
The chicken stew was delicious, as usual. Molly makes fantastic stew. A bit of a problem, though, as the twins, who have just opened their joke shopWeasley's Wizarding Wheezesin Diagon Alley, which causes a few arguments between Molly and the twins. They're making quite a lot of money, though, and have offered to pay rent, repair the Burrow ("We've done most of the damage, anyway."), etc., but Molly's a bit stubborn. Arthur, on the other hand, has made an under-the table deal with them and is quite happy with it, according to Ginny.
Thank God for Ginny, who knows everything going on in the house. According to her, Ron has been trying to kiss Hermione, without success. Hermione, she tells me, is, or was, to her certain knowledge Involved with someone, but they broke up somehow and now Hermione's really upset about the whole thing.
Why gossip is keeping me interested in life, I don't know. Maybe it's just that someone is talking to me, and wants to see my expressions when they say something especially outrageous.
Bill Weasley, Ginny's oldest brother, is still "giving English lessons" to Fleur Delacour, the Triwizard tournament champion from Beauxbaton. I'm not sure I want to know how far said "English lessons" are going. Bill's entitled to his privacy, isn't he? I mean, he's how old? Twenty five, I believe. Though he's really quite intelligent, as he has the brainpower to work with goblins, of all people. I mean, I'm a werewolf, and I'm frightened of goblins. Good luck to him.
Ron, since he has been rebuffed by Hermione, has taken to writing some mysterious girl, and then moons over the letters he gets back. I remember doing that the summer after third year, with owls from Lily. Yes, I admit it, I had a crush on Lily Evans. But who wouldn't? She had been beautiful, even at the not-so-tender age of thirteen, with her big green eyes and long red hair. I tried to forget how beautiful she was when she and James started dating, for James' sake, and, now, for Harry's. The last thing either one of them wanted to hear from me was how beautiful I thought their mother and girlfriend, respectively, was. Sometimes I think I live on the past.
Ginny's just come in to talk.
Even Later on June 12, 1996
I'll record the conversation exactly as it happened. Otherwise I'll forget it.
"Remus?" Ginny said, bright head poking into my room. "Is this a good time?"
"Yes, come in," I said, closing my journalnot diaryas she came over to sit on the armchair across from my bed, where I was sitting, moving a pair of shorts, which I had thrown there earlier (reminder: must be more neat). "Is something wrong?"
"No, nothing. Just felt like talking, that's all." She cast an amused eye at the journal on my bedside table. "I thought you said you'd write in that when pigs turned blue and started performing Shakespeare."
"Well, I went to the market today and they were. So I started writing," I said, smiling back at her a bit.
"The truth, now," she said, folding her legs beneath her.
"I was going to explode if I didn't write somethinganythingdown. Get it out before it forced its way out and erupted onto someone in the Dairy section," I told her, twiddling my fingers nervously.
"What things?" she asked. "I'm not trying to pry, really I'm not, I'm just a bit curious. And Mum wants to know why you're being so odd," she added. "Her words, not mine."
I laughed. "Molly can be a bit prying when she wants to. I don't mind if you're her emissary, just glad it wasn't Ron, or Heaven help me, one of the twins."
"Lord. The twin's would've made things worse, probably," Ginny agreed, laughing.
"But, seriously, I was writing... things. Things about James and Lily, things about Sirius, and things about," I glared at nothing in particular, "him. Bastard."
"Go on," she prompted.
"And that's it, really. I don't think I've got it all out, yet, but it'll come." I smiled thinly. "Eventually everything comes."
I'm not entirely sure why I wanted to write this conversation down, but somehow it meant something to me. It's late now, because Ginny and I went downstairs to watch Tonks, Fred and George perform a makeshift play after we were finished talking. I should go to bed now, since I have to get up early.
July 30, 1996
I haven't written in a while, I know, but I've had work and then Harry showed up, looking a mixture of relief from being away from the Dursley's, anger at himself (still), and happiness to see Ron and Hermione (who was still resisting Ron's half-hearted advances, which are egged on by Molly, who wants Hermione to get together with one of her sons, though Ginny says it's not going to happen). He's been spending a lot of time with me, surprisingly, since I thought he'd want to stay away from me because of the memories of Sirius. It seems not, however, which is puzzling me. He hasn't "adopted" me, has he? I've already got one teenager (Ginny) I don't need another.
Today's his birthday, though, so I guess I should be a bit more tolerant of him. He's sixteen. I remember the day he was born. I was there. Here, let me write it down:
I had to stay at Lily and James's that week because I had been evicted from yet another building because of the lycanthropy. Not that I had bitten anyone, or made undue noise. No, it was the simple fact that I was a werewolf that caused my unfair eviction. But let the past die. As a song from my youth said, "Live and let die."
I was asleep on the couch when James ran down the stairs, glasses hanging from one ear, saying frantically, "Lily's having the baby!" I suppose I remained calm because, after all my years of unrequited (and unknown) love, this child wasn't mine. It was his, and I had nothing to do with it, besides being "Uncle Remus". So, I told James to go get the Mediwitch at St. Mungo's (since Lily was to far along to be transported to the hospital) and climbed the stairs, gulping down my disappointment to find Lily lying in bed, huffing as the contractions came, and screaming occasionally. I took her hands and told her to breathe, which she did.
A few minutes later, a harried-looking Mediwitch came up the stairs after the immensely disheveled James and came over to deliver the cinch in what was to be the silencer of any romantic feelings I had for Lily. The moment the little bundle of black hair and green eyes emerged from the birth canal and let out a wail to rival those of banshees, my feelings went to the back of the closet to be buried by skeletons, old shoes and past, unknown, crushes. The Mediwitch handed me the new Potter as James cut the umbilical cord, a silly grin stretched across his face. I handed him back his son and muttered a cleaning charm over myself and the bed, not daring to look at Lily, for fear I would stare. I left the room and went to the fireplace to Floo the appropriate people. Sirius, of course, was the first, and he arrived scant minutes later with Gillian Prewett, a girl who was later to be killed by Voldemort, and, who I later discovered, was Molly Weasley's niece. Dumbledore was next, then McGonagall, along with Ian and Harriet Potter. I wrote the Evan's, and got a response from them that they'd be along as soon as they could find someone to watch Petunia, Lily's much plainer and (even I, a person who dislikes to say anything bad about anything associated with Lily Evans-Potter, admitted) boring older sister. By the time I went back upstairs, everyone was crowded around the bed, smiling and laughing with the happy parents. Lily saw me hang back and waved me forward. "Remus," she said, "meet Harry James Potter." I smiled then, and truly let go of my love. I let it go to this tiny bundle, who stare up at me and gurgled, true to form as a newborn. Gillian commented about how he was so much more robust than her aunt's twin boys were when they were born, and I now know she was commenting on Fred and George. Funny how that never struck me until now.
They christened him a few days later. Sirius was his Godfather, of course. He and James were best friends, and I didn't mind. They promised to make me Godfather of the next little one. Little did I know that that would never happen. Lily thought Harry should have a Godmother, too, just to make it a bit more rounded, but James said, no, he's got one, and nothing's going to happen to us, anyway, is it? And, if it did, nothing would happen to the Godfather, would it? Funny how both of those things were wrong, isn't it?
It's funny how all of this comes back to me on this, of all days. Of course, one year and three months later they were killed by Voldemort, personally. I suppose that that, in a morbid way, was kind of an honor. To be killed by Voldemort himself, not some nameless lackey. I, of course, am not to be killed. They try to recruit me. Bloody buggers. Last time a fellow werewolf tried to convert me, I told him to Go To Hell. My exact words, actually. He responded, "Sure, and I'll see you there." Wanker.
Oh, God, Harry's calling me. It's probably a good thing that I've been remembering everyone since I should tell him about his parents today. Humor him, you know. After all, he is sixteen. It is his birthday.
August 8, 1996
Today is my birthday. I am thirty four. Oh God... Where's the Firewhiskey?
August 9, 1996
I will never drink again, for under the influence of fifty-year-old Firewhiskey I become rather a different person.
So, after ingesting about a quarter of the large bottle (and, trust me, you can get drunk on a quarter of a bottle) I went downstairs to find it was quite empty. I had forgotten that the Weasley's (with the permission of Dumbledore) and the Guard took Harry out for a late Birthday celebration and that Ginny had stayed behind because she'd employed the use of the Extendable Ears and listened in to a conversation the Order had had the night before. So the entire house was empty. Except for Ginny and me. Which, it turns out, was a huge mistake.
Ginny came down to see what the raucous noise was (in my drunken state, I had knocked down a few things) to find me slumped on a bench in the dining room. I forget how, exactly, she managed to get me back upstairs, but she did. My memory picks up with her sponging my forehead with a cold washcloth.
"Remus," she said, "what's the matter?"
"Dhrunk," I slurred. "Dhrank half bhottle 'f Furwiskee. Nhot half," I said, correcting myself, a perfectionist even while drunk out of my gourd. "Forf."
By this time she was staring at the three-quarters filled Firewhiskey bottle on my bedside table, innocently sitting on top of this journal. "A fourth of that bottle of Firewhiskey?" she asked faintly.
"Yup," I said proudly. (Another reminder: Never, ever, ever drink again.)
She shook her head. "Blimey. You're going to have a hell of a hangover tomorrow morning. I should try to find some of the sobering potion Bill's got." She stood up, but I reached up and grabbed her wrist tightly.
"Nho," I said, still slurring. "Sthay. I'm fhine." I struggled to sit up and she grinned a bit and helped me.
"Really, Remus, did you have to get drunk while Mum was gone?" she asked me, something coming into her eyes that I didn't recognize.
"Yup. What, dh'you objehct?" I asked.
"Yes, I do. You ruined a perfectly good opportunity. Though," she said, putting her finger on my cheek, "maybe now it's the perfect opportunity." Then it happened: The catalyst that will ultimately lead to my demise from the hands of Molly Weasley, who knows all that goes on under any roof she's under. Ginny kissed me. It was innocent enough, for a kiss, at first, and then she turned it into something that changed my perspective. From out of her innocent little mouth that I had seen many times, came her tongue, that pushed open my lips and entered to explore in a manner I hadn't in years. After a few moments, she retreated to allow me the same pleasure.
And this morning, as I look at her red hair draped on the pillow, her little hands wrapped around my arm, I think, 'Why God?' I know what you're thinking, journal, since it's what I would be thinking if I was reading this without knowing the details: I had sex. I hate to say it, but, I wish. No, I did not have sex with Ginny (again, I wish) though I'm pretty sure we came this close to it. Still, what we did do was far too much and I don't think it should ever happen again, though, God help me, I wish it would. Suddenly, the feeling that disappeared when Harry was born, the feeling I had for Lily, has come out of my closet, from under the other, past crushes and tiptoed by the skeletons of my family to attach itself to Ginny. And now, I think, 'Maybe it's not so bad.'
If there's more kissing, I could definitely live with this. Not that I'm touch-deprived or romance deprived, mind you. (It's been fourteen years since I dated.) Shit! I hear Molly coming down the hall!
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A/N: Well, this is it. I do hope you enjoyed it, since I've spent quite a while on it, so please, please review!