For anyone who liked my OotP script and had decided to gamble on this story I thank you for giving it a go. It's a very different style, but to see how well I can handle more sensetive storylines. The story will amble between teen angst, supense, supernatural ad basicaly ho everywhere. Let's hope I'm up to it. The dedicatio of this story is to Rachael, as this is done as a long present to my lovely sister as it concerns her favourite characters and contains some plot points to please her. This plot may get confusing and convoluted, but is mainly concerned with the wonderful Sirius and Remus and what events have affected their past and will change their future. Sadly, NOT SLASH. I'm working my way up to that. Anyway, may as well let this get underway, there is very little of the overall plot in this first chapter, but is just to set the scene, which is why there is a lot of Harry.
DISCLAIMER: Do I look like JK Rowling? What? You can't see me? Well, all characters in this chapter are not mine. What? You CAN see me? What hidden cameras? Pervert.
Chapter One: Floodgates.
The wind howled outside, circling the fragile cottage with anguished wails and rattling the door on its rusty hinges. The rain was falling in thick drops beating against the small panes. The rhythmic pounding was soothing; the echoing of the rain in his heartbeat was almost hypnotic. Harry snuggled deeper into the tatty but comfortable armchair and stared into the blazing fire, as the yellow tongues licked and teased each other. As the wind picked up to stage another onslaught on the frail but resilient walls Harry smiled and mumbled
"I'll huff and I'll puff..."
"And I'll blow your house down" finished the big bad wolf, handing Harry a mug of steaming tea.
"Don't worry Harry" assured Lupin, neither big nor bad, but pale and wearied so soon after full moon. "It may not be much, but it's sturdy enough to withstand the worst kind of weather."
As Lupin smiled sheepishly Harry's gaze wandered the room. While Harry had already done this countless times, he knew he could do it many times more; Lupin's small lounge was a feast for the eyes. While the wallpaper was faded and dull, and the floor simple, inexpensive wood, everything was cheerfully clean and in pristine order. Each piece of furniture was from startlingly different time periods and style so that even the people in the room felt like items in a huge trinket shop. Harry snuggled deeper into the threadbare armchair and sipped his tea. While Aunt Petunia couldn't stand tea unless it was so thick with sugar the spoon could stand upright, Harry was used to no frills treatment, and did not mind in the slightest Lupin's sincere apologies at the lack of sugar in the house. Lupin seemed to feel very guilt at the lack of luxuries in his home, but it was Harry's conscience that remonstrated him for accepting Lupin's invitation when he could barely afford to keep himself, never mind Harry. Harry knew he had managed to find a job in a Muggle library, but this barely covered the expenses and upon Harry's arrival Lupin had had to take a break in order to guard Harry, and despite Lupin's cheerful hospitality Harry still felt more a burden than a guest.
A nasty voice lurking in the recesses of his head taunted Harry; he knew he was an inconvenience for his old mentor, but he, selfishly, would not willingly remove himself. Harry thought back to the long hard weeks at the Dursley's. While his 'family' seemed to have taken heed of the warnings from his friends, and outright threat from Moody, about mistreatment of Harry, they obeyed by simply ignoring him. Harry was glad of this, but such loneliness gave him too much time to brood. Ignoring warnings for his own safety he had taking to walking alone for entire days, thinking about everything and nothing in one confusing shape. Harry felt as though he was trying to fit a square thought into a round hole, and maybe if he could unravel his entangled thoughts into one fluid line everything would make much more sense. It was on these walks he had found his retreat. It was just a pond behind a children's park, unused other than as a graveyard for crumpled cans and takeaway boxes. Harry could wedge himself in between the twisted branches and sit for hours. His thoughts would transport him away from the shouts of children or the scent of forbidden cigarettes coming from the park behind him and he would rest in his misery. The elements had no effect on Harry, his desolation taking physical form and wrapping him in an impenetrable blanket of gloom. Here Harry his away from the world. He detached himself from an unhappy pas, an uncertain present and a hopeless future. He made no mention of this in his twice-weekly owls, having no desire to share his feelings with anyone else who couldn't possibly understand and instead provided short assurances of his health and safety.
It came as a great surprise then when he received a letter from Dumbledore offering Harry the opportunity to go and stay with his ex-professor for the final two weeks of August before the new school term, Harry noting that these were the weeks following full moon. To his own surprise Harry was unsure whether to accept, having withdrawn into himself he could not imagine coming out of his mental refuge to have contact with another human being. While last year all he wanted was company Harry was now uncertain how he would cope with the presence of someone who was so great a reminder of ... Harry checked himself. In the two days he had been at Lupin's neither of the two had made mention of ... him. Harry could not bring himself to even think his name, as it would make the loss all too real. A name would bring forth a face and a shape of his grief. The abstract depression with which Harry was filled was easier to cope with than the sharp stab of specific sorrow.
Harry had been even more surprised by the very fact the offer was made. After all, hadn't Dumbledore told him his aunt's house was the one place he was safe. Although the enormous amount of spells placed on Lupin's small cottage by Lupin and Dumbledore himself had not escaped Harry's notice, Dumbledore's words still echoed in Harry's head,
'While you can still call home the place where your mother's blood
dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort.' Harry felt a further pang of guilt as he remembered how little time he had actually spent in this refuge and wondered if Dumbledore had discovered this. An unexpected thought occurred to Harry, that perhaps his Aunt Petunia had something to do with his removal. He had often been shocked to find her staring at his face with an expression nearing pity lightening his aunt's stern and pointed face. Perhaps Harry was not the only one with contact to the wizarding world. Much as his aunt detested his background, Harry was amazed to find his aunt, though nor deigning to speak to him more than necessary, also not frowning at him with the same revulsion as usual. Just as this change was apparent to him, it could surely not have escaped his aunt's notice the dramatic alteration in Harry.
Harry was right. His aunt had observed how Harry's own aversion to his relatives had been replaced by a cold indifference. Fear of the freaks intervention had prevented herself and her husband from attempting to control 'the boy's' life, and as such he seemed to have taken it upon himself to remain as far from human contact as possible. When she did see her nephew he barely spoke or ate, in fact he showed, to her, little signs of actually living at all. While Petunia had little personal connection with her nephew, she had not so little compassion as to ignore someone in such an obvious downward spiral of self-destruction. And while Petunia was loathe to create any sort of personal connection with the freaks, she was not totally ignorant of her sister's practices, and was well aware of how to use an owl, and after all, the boy seemed as disinterested in his as he did anything else.
It was the eyes that scared her the most. Those green orbs, so reminiscent of his scoundrel father had lost all of their fiery defiance that she was so used to. Their passion was gone, and replaced with ... nothing. They seemed extinguished, dead. Behind his pupils was a great sucking void of depression, and this scared Petunia. But that old crackpot would know what to do.
The old crackpot was very disturbed by Petunia's letter. Of course he hadn't expected Harry to be coping well, but his apparent lack of emotion was worrying. What was the use of protecting Harry externally, if he was crumbling internally? Perhaps the most risky road would be better for Harry. And perhaps it would help another, another who was distressingly withdrawn. He rarely expressed his feelings when he was younger, and seemed in no danger of starting now. But, Dumbledore thought, the two that have lost everything could find something in each other.
However, so far neither Harry nor Remus had broken the silence stalemate. Conversation was trivial, as both feared any deeper conversation could scratch the surface of buried thoughts and send forth a torrent of unwanted confession. In the two days Harry had been staying with Lupin the routine had been simple. Simple breakfast, practice of defence (which to both teacher and pupil's delight Harry was advancing in spectacularly), simple lunch, forcing Harry to get on with delayed homework, simple dinner and simple evening relaxation, allowing the depleted energy of the lycanthrope to restore itself. Harry had to admit he was happier here than the Dursley's, having cracked his first contented smile all summer, but while he was still holding himself back, the pressure of repressing his memories was overwhelming.
Lupin's lounge did nothing to ease the oppression of memory. The nostalgia was tangible. Pictures of friends of all shapes, sizes and species smiling and waving lined every surface not dominated by magical gewgaws. An array of talismans cluttered the mantelpiece, centred around a dreamcatcher, the filigree metal twisted in the shape of a hand. In the palm was a ruby coloured stone, containing writhing smoke that was constantly in motion. Such expensive objects seemed greatly out of place in the otherwise simple cottage, but Harry knew that their monetary value could not even compare to the lifetime's worth of memories contained in them. Most intriguing was the towering Grandfather clock that stood in the corner. Its smooth shining case was of beautifully carved mahogany and the glow from the fire reflected off the glass face in brilliant facets. Meandering up the dark wood were golden figures that glowed in the firelight as though they were made of liquid sunlight, the rippling light giving them the illusion of movement. Almost hypnotised, Harry rose from his chair to inspect the clock more closely. Now he could see that there was not one, but three faces, arranged in a triangle, only one of which recorded the time, at least in the traditional sense. Forming the top tip of the triangle, the bronze hands stretched to the roman numerals. Shaped like shooting stars the hands echoed the celestial theme that governed the face, with shimmering planets of gold and bronze slowly orbiting all three faces. Harry noted the lack of silver and realised that the donor must have known of the lycanthrope's condition, but compensated by filing the available space with gold, bronzes and platinum. There was a fine line between tacky and breathtakingly beautiful, but the clock managed to stay on the right side, despite its decoration. To the bottom left of the actual clock was a single circle, brilliant in platinum. While it was not solid, it still seemed to be a sphere, but insubstantial as shadows flitted across it. Harry studied it quizzically, as he could find no use for this shimmering orb, other than its simple but delicate beauty.
"It's the moon", supplied Lupin from behind him. Harry jumped, the silent movements of the man startling him.
"Enchanted to show it's phases. Just in case I forgot." He continued, a wry smile teasing across his lips.
More careful scrutiny revealed that the orb was less than whole, shorn of silvery wrapping on one side, showing the waning profile of the moon. This confirmed Harry's belief that the giver knew Lupin very well. Harry's heart skipped as he wondered which of Lupin's close friends could have given him the beautiful piece, which of his old friends that Harry knew.
"Have you seen this?" Asked Lupin, gesturing to the final part. Harry recognised the style immediately. Similar to a normal clock face but without the numbers, Harry was put in mind of Mrs Weasley's kitchen clock. However, while hers had different hands for each family member, Lupin's clock merely had the one hand, this, Harry had to smile, in the shape of a leaping wolf. The inscriptions in gold around the clock face were also different. Overall, they had a light teasing tone; "Not eating enough", "What about sleep?" and, to Harry's dismay the golden hand was resting firmly on "Worrying too much". Many of these reprimands were seen, but two phrases were almost obscured by dust. Squinting closer Harry chuckled at the line "Doing things you ought'nt", and his heart positively leapt to make new lodgings in his throat as he deciphered the line, sadly almost totally illegible through disuse, "Marauding".
Lupin saw the reaction from the boy he always thought of as a godson and smiled sadly.
"It was from Sirius. A present for my 18th birthday." He explained,
"Sirius", breathed Harry, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Of course," replied Lupin, his voice beginning to crack under the weight of precious memory, "Surely you recognise the theme?"
Harry tore his eyes from the word Marauding, to which so much overwhelming connotation was attached and followed Lupin's eyeline. Lupin was staring at the characters adorning the sides of the clock, which Harry now saw were very familiar. A hot red ball of anger was ignited as he saw a rat scaling the distance from the top to the faces display, but this was quickly quelled by the intense wave of raw emotion that rolled over his heart as he recognised wolf, dog and stag. It welled up from his stomach, grasped his heart roughly and overflowed from his eyes, forming salty rivulets streaking his face. He gasped with the relief of pressure that had been building up inside his body, and as the dam broke, felt the unrelenting tears wash away the tension in his quaking frame, supported now by the strong arm of Remus. The older man's arm remained strong and comforting as the tears welled up in his own eyes, and Harry grasped the front of his worn jumper, pouring out his emotion into his chest. As the time stretched out as they remained in the same position, holding each other as the sound of wracking sobs echoed in the small room. No words were exchanged. None needed to be.
It was later that Harry was to be found face down on the rug, his nose buried deep in a pile of photo albums. Now the storm had finally broken, Harry felt calmer winds blowing inside him, and could view pictures of his family (and in this he was happy to include Sirius and Remus) with some pleasure and thrill of excitement as well as sorrow. He was slowly making his way through Lupin's huge photo albums. It seemed, as with the ornaments crowding the small cottage, that Lupin never threw anything away. As he absorbed the detail of every page Harry searched out familiar faces or locations, and in doing so came across a photograph he had seen many times before. Smiling as he looked at his parent's wedding day he traced the faces of his parents with his finger and smiled as Sirius' lost grin presented itself for all to admire. But, unusually, this smile was not directed at Harry. He stopped short. There was something very unusual in the picture, two new figures he could not place or recall.
"Professor?" called Harry to the kitchen, where Lupin emerged carrying fresh cups of tea.
"Harry? I've asked you repeatedly" admonished the older man, his prematurely lined face crinkling at the eyes as he smiled.
"Sorry", corrected Harry, enjoying the familiarity of the name, "Remus, who are these in the picture? I don't remember seeing them before."
Harry pointed to the mystery figures that seemed to have materialized in the picture. Identical females, they were both grinning wildly, and one was leaping up and down and waving frantically with both arms gyrating above her head. Harry laughed as he stared at the comical figures that had taken places between the seemingly amused Sirius and Remus.
Harry felt Remus peer over his shoulder to look at the photograph, and then leapt in alarm as the two cups of tea fell from Remus' hands and smashed on the floor. As the tea soaked the carpet, it seemed to be draining the colour from Remus' face.
"Remus? Remus? What's wrong?" asked Harry urgently, startled to say the least.
"Oh Merlin", was all he received in reply.
Ooooh. Quite pleased with this so far. Hope you are, too. If you are or aren't please don't hesitate to tell me what particular parts you liked or didn't. Please don't be put off by female original characters, I've tried to make them as un-Mary Sue like as possible. They are, however, necessary to the plot I'm trying to achieve. Please R&R. Sham.