A Broken Glass Kind of Magic
By: Vain
12.6.2002
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I own neither Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, nor Harry Potter. They are the intellectual property of the stunning and much-admired J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter and all related characters and elements are the trademarks of Warner Bros.
Meaning: NONE OF THESE CHARACTERS BELONG TO ME, NOR AM I PROFITING FINANCIALLY FROM THIS.
The plot and story are wholly mine, so don't take them upon risk of disembowelment with a Spork.
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This story takes place a few weeks after the events in book four:
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Possible slash warning for mild Remus / Sirius content.
Please Read and Review.
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This fic is a gift to Apapazukamori-sempai and Rackam Rose-oneesan. ^___^V
To my eternally beautiful dolls . . .(heh . . .),
Happy Non-Denominational Winter Holiday!!!!!
*glomp**snuggle**rolls*
Always yours in adoration,
Vain-imoutochan
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"At times, I almost dream . . .
I, too, have spent a life the sages' way and tread once more familiar paths.
Perchance I perished in an arrogant self-reliance an age ago
And in that act, a prayer for one more chance went up so earnest, so pure . . .
Instinct with better light let in by death that life was blotted out not so completely,
But scattered wrecks enough of it to remain dim memories . . .
As now . . . when seems once more . . .
The goal in sight again."
~ The X-Files
Season 4; Episode 05:
"The Field Where I Died"
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The moon is settled high in the bruised velvet sky and the fire is warm. It's more than enough light for me. I like the solitude here.
You stagger in at half past eleven, dripping rain water all over the roughly hewn wood of the cabin floor. I watch as you push the door closed with your muzzle before you stumble over to lie in front of the fireplace. A log shifts; the fire pops; your breathing evens out and you close your eyes before I can think of the words to greet you.
I don't know why I'm surprised.
Dumbledore sent me an owl two weeks ago and told me what had happened: the Tournament, the duel, Voldemort . . . And you never were very patient. Even Azkaban would not have changed that—could not have changed that.
That was something that was fundamentally you. You . . . and therefore indestructible.
After a few more moments of watching you sleep I give up on the idea of trying to get anymore reading done. My gaze flickers to the copy of "Killing the Moon—Werewolf Transformation and How to Control It" sitting in my lap. It was written by a young witch name Alatza Hardhaire; she too is a werewolf. It looks promising so far, but, despite your feelings about Snape, I have to confess that I miss that potion of his. Our Potions Master always did say I'd regret shirking off in his class.
I close the manuscript and stand to go to the tiny kitchenette. I can't say that I'm surprised you didn't transform when you came in. You can travel faster in your canine form and after all that's happened . . . You've spent so long in that form, it's no shock that you feel more comfortable like that. I can't help but feel like a coward, though. I'm happy you stayed like that—it spared us both the burden of words.
What would I say to you? I'm sorry? No. That seems too weak and there's too much to apologize for between us. No simple word will do and we both know it. I watch my hands shake with detached interest as they retrieve two teacups from the cupboard.
Could I say it's alright and that I understand? I want to, I truly do. But I can't. I can't because it's not alright. I can't because I don't understand. I can't because I'm Remus Lupin and you're Sirius Black and things like that were never said between us. They were never necessary.
An ivory colored mug slips from between my trembling fingers and shatters on the ground with a dull explosion. Little creamy white pieces of clay skitter across the floor mockingly. I freeze for an instant, trapped in the silence that always follows such loud sounds, but you don't wake. With a violent shiver, I press my hands hard against the narrow counter and squeeze my eyes closed until the trembling passes. I stand like that for a long time.
Damn you. Damn James' stubbornness. Damn Peter's treachery.
Damn you all.
When I can move again, I get another teacup—green this time. It's the exact same shade as Harry and Lily's eyes: pure, vibrant emerald. Beautiful. I place it on the counter next to my own cobalt grey cup. The yellowish magical light that hovers in the center of the ceiling casts weird shadows as I set about making the tea. Darjeeling, right? Or was it Earl Gray that you always favored? I can't recall.
My mind mercifully wanders away from your cold, wet form laying on the warm hearthstones and the words I can't say to more pleasant fantasies. They're my guilty pleasure, this world of "What-If" I've created behind my eyes. What if you had never been arrested? What if we had recognized Peter for what he was sooner?
I'm not greedy enough to wish James and Lily back. But how would our lives have been? Harry's life? You would not be lying in front of my fire half dead with exhaustion and Harry . . . Harry would have been with us as he most assuredly should have been. You are his Godfather—his guardian—and the boy cares for you just as much as you care for him; that much was obvious from Dumbledore's letters.
Even now I can't suppress the shiver of jealousy that creeps up my spine. It's silly, I know . . . I don't even know whom I'm jealous of. I can still remember when he was born. The only person prouder than you was James. Lily would laugh over it and say that she always knew her son was in good hands as you'd cradle him in your arms or hold out your fingers for his tiny hands to grip onto as he tried to pull himself upright. You loved him like he was your own.
I suppose I should have picked up your burden after they died and Dumbledore sent Harry to the Muggles. But how could I have looked into that tiny, scarred face—even then, James' face with Lily's eyes—when I couldn't even bear my own reflection? When word came that you had been their Secret Keeper, you may as well have signed my death sentence as well. It hurt too much to be true and yet it hurt too much to be a lie. The incongruity destroyed me.
I never forgave you for that. Anything, anything I would have forgiven you of, even killing James and Lily. Anything. But deceiving me, lying to me for so very long . . . that was unforgivable. I gave up on everything then, I think. The moment I realized that—realized what I had lost, what had never been mine to lose—and I knew that you meant more to me than even James and Lily was the moment you really did kill me. I was just as dead as they were, just as lost to Harry. So why burden him with a corpse? Why mock his parents' memory with the weak and hollowed shade that used to be Remus Lupin?
No. Best to stay away, far, far away from the boy. After all, I was only a werewolf. Sirius Black's confident; Sirius Black's friend; Sirius Black's . . .
Past.
It's all in the past. I don't even know why it worries me anymore, especially when the present is so demanding and the future casts such a long, heavy shadow over everything. But that's why you've come, isn't it?
You've come for your precious godson. You've come for Lily and James. You've come for Dumbledore and even, though you'd die before you admit it, Snape. You've come so that you can finally kill Peter Perrigrew and fight Voldemort, the causes of all this woe and grief. I know this and yet I can't help but wonder, hasn't even the tiniest part of you come for me? I wonder what you would say if I asked you . . .
I won't dare of course. Not if it means facing the broken glass blankness of your once-vibrant eyes or staring at the unnatural line of a mouth that once always seemed just seconds away from laughter. Asking would hurt too much, but seeing such empty, eloquent answers would hurt far, far more.
What have they done to you, Sirius Black? What have I done to you?
And would you tell me?
As I carry the tea tray back into the main room, you stir by the fire and open your dark eyes. I look down at the bread, cheese, meat pies, and bread pudding that I don't remember preparing and wonder what kind of tea I've made you. You were always terribly picky about your tea. Was it black tea? Or perhaps the Darjeeling . . .? No. Earl Gray. You always did favor Earl Gray. I set the tray on the small, uneven table between my chair and a large, lumpy spinach green chair before the fire.
You rise and I turn my back to toy with the binding of "Killing the Moon." I know that you're transforming, but I don't want to see it for some reason. I swallow hard around the lump that's risen in my throat and notice almost absently that the fire has gone down. How long was I in the kitchen? Time seems to have blurred since you stumbled in, but you always seemed to have that way about you. I never could describe it—I never knew what it was. Your own kind of magic, perhaps. A broken glass kind of magic now.
I toss a log onto the fire and watch it crackle and catch aflame, only vaguely aware of the sounds of you settling down and preparing your tea and helping yourself to the food. I watch the flames for several minutes and allow you to eat, trying to ignore the feel of your eyes boring into my back.
"He's back," you rasp out at last.
I turn, internally bracing myself for what I'm about to see. Even knowing what you looked like after your escape from Azkaban, I can only see you in my mind's eye as young and beautiful, leaning against my shoulder as you laugh at one of James' jokes and bounce little Harry on your knee. The memory could not be further from the image before me. Your hair is oily and thick with dirt. It hangs limply in front of your face, but cannot hide the shallow, gaunt cheekbones and thin, bluish-purple lips. Your robes, once immaculate, are now ragged and torn, barely clinging to your skeletal, emaciated frame.
To my credit, I don't let loose the wail that always seems to build in me at the sight of you humbled like this. I don't let loose the howl of grief and injustice and rage that claws its way to the tip of my tongue because if I do, then I'll never stop crying. If I do, then I'll break and I have no right to break after what I've done to you—what I've allowed them all to do to you.
"I know," I say. My voice sounds thick and distant to my ears, so unlike my own. "Dumbledore sent me an owl."
You say nothing, preferring instead to look at the flames. I look at you, drinking in the sight. Even if they've torn everything you were to pieces that are only being held together by sheer willpower, it's still you. You. And somehow I cannot marvel enough at that. You're back, and you never betrayed me. You never lied to me. You never killed me. And suddenly, quite suddenly, it's alright. I don't understand it—perhaps I never will—but it's really alright because it's you and that has always been reason enough for me.
You take a sip of your tea. "Darjeeling," you murmur in your rough, broken glass and smoke voice. "My favorite." You turn your impossibly deep eyes to me and for just an instant I sense a hint of old laughter teasing the edges of your lips. "I'm surprised you remember . . . It's been so long . . ."
And then suddenly, much to my horror and my relief, I'm on my knees in front of you and another of my mismatched teacups shatters on the ground. Tea goes everywhere. I wrap my arms around you gingerly, fearing I'll break you or crush this fragile dream in my embrace, and bury my head in the lap of your filthy robes. You smell like dirt, and rain, and earth, and sweat, and a suffering so deep it burns my eyes and I don't care because you're here. You're here. Oh, God . . .
"I missed you." My voice is so low that I wonder if I spoke at all, but then you put a gently comforting wasted hand on my head and stroke my hair and I know that, for the moment at least, the world is right again.
The first drop of water on my neck surprises me and I shiver. The next makes me want to wail anew. I grip your robes a bit tighter and draw closer to the feverish warmth you emanate. If you're crying I don't want to see it. I couldn't bear it. And so we stayed like that, neither moving, neither speaking, and each trembling like an infant in the other's embrace.
We sat for a long time, until the moon slid low in the night sky and the fire died, as crickets and silence soothed us. Around dawn, a simple whisper broke the stillness:
"I'm sorry."
But I'll never recall who said it.
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"At times, I almost dream . . .
I, too, have spent a life the sages' way and tread once more familiar paths.
Perchance I perished in an arrogant self-reliance an age ago . . .
And in that act, a prayer for one more chance went up so earnest, so pure. . .
Instinct with better light let in by death that life was blotted out not so completely . . .
But scattered wrecks enough of it to remain dim memories . . .
As now . . . when seems once more . . .
The goal in sight again."
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~ Fin ~
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