Title: Words
Pairing: Remus Lupin/Lily Evans
Rating: T (minor suggested adult themes)
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the charachters from it. The song used in the fic is from "Darts of Pleasure" by Franz Ferdinand. Sadly I do not own that either.
Summary: Strange Lupin-y fic about the significance of words, and what draws him to a certain redhead.
Authors Note: A strange little fic that strolled into my mind a few hours ago while I was listening to Darts of Pleasure. I absolutely love the lyrics to this song, so I felt a fic ought to be written to go along with them. I'm not very good at writing things in a short amount of time so this will probably end up being revised and re-written at a later date. Please read and review, so I know what to change the next time round. I would adore some constructive criticism. Even if its just to tell me never to write again.
Thanks,
Vaime.
Words of love and words so leisured
Words are poisoned darts of pleasure
Die, and so you die.
He'd always liked words. Ever since he was a little boy and had sat with his mother reading Tales of Beedle the Bard.
Words were easy. He could remember words quite clearly after he read them. That's why he'd always been so good in tests. The words didn't mix themselves up in his head like they did for Peter, or become pictures as Sirius had once described. For him the words all stayed the same on the page. He could commit them to memory easily, and recall them later on in a test when he needed to. That's why he liked them. Words always stayed the same. They were pleasantly, refreshingly normal.
Words didn't become a werewolf once a month.
They could be as dangerous or as safe as you wanted them. He liked that.
You are the latest adventure
You're an emotion avenger
You are the devil that sells her
A line of dark fantastic passion
A passion for words had lead to a passion for reading. Shakespeare became his hero. He could manipulate words far better than Remus could ever dream of himself. Sometimes, when he returned from Hogwarts during holidays, he liked to sit outside under the stars and use the moonlight to illuminate the worn pages of his second-hand volume of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The moon didn't seem quite so scary then.
At an early age he had conquered the entire volume of Tales of Beedle the Bard, as well as many muggle fairy tales. He'd never admit it (especially not to Sirius – he'd have a field day) but Beauty and the Beast was by far his favourite. The idea that a beautiful girl could fall in love with a monster was almost laughable. But everyone could dream.
He often dreamt of his ideal woman. He had found her in his favourite volume of Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew. He would read it over and over again. His mother once commented that he could probably recite the entire play off by heart. The character Katherine enchanted him in a way that none of the giggling girls at Hogwarts could. While most boys were salivating over pictures of underdressed witches (or at least, Peter, Sirius and James were) he preferred to daydream about his favourite heroine. There was no fear of rejection from a girl from a book.
You are the latest contender
You are the one to remember
You are the villain who sends her
A line of dark fantastic passion
He'd never been any good at manipulating people. Not like Sirius and James were. They had the ability to manipulate anyone to do exactly what they wanted. That's why they never got half the detentions they deserved. No, people were too hard to manipulate. But words on the other hand… they could be manipulated. They were easy.
He knew from experience the power words could have. He'd watched exchanges between Sirius, James and Snape long enough to know that a few well chosen words could do much more damage than a well-aimed Bat Bogey Hex. Sirius was especially good at using words to hurt. Remus had often taken note of the satisfaction he got whenever he managed to stir Snape up into a rage, without even getting out his wand. Yes, Sirius could be very clever with words when he wanted to be.
He'd never used words to hurt though. This was the power of words, not only could they be used to hurt, but they could also be used to strengthen. He'd become good at choosing words to build up Peter's confidence after particularly hard transfiguration lessons. The power felt good. He liked knowing that he could help someone so greatly, despite what he was.
Just like words, he could help or harm.
You can feel my lips undress your eyes
Undress your eyes undress your eyes
Skin can feel my lips they tingle tense anticipation
This one is an easy one, feel the word and melt upon it
Sometimes she sat in the library with him.
She had smiled when she saw him reading the works of Shakespeare. The muggle section of the library was pitifully poor, only two shelves. It was right at the back, so hardly any students bothered to visit there. In all his five years at Hogwarts he'd only seen three other students there. All of them were muggle-born. Lily made four.
He was reading The Merchant of Venice for the fourth time. It seemed a strange coincidence. He returned her smile.
She told him that she had always wanted to be Portia.
He had just smiled vaguely and re-read the same sentence a few more times. It was the first time he didn't trust himself to make words.
She came back more and more after that. They would often read together, recommend each other books or do homework at the small table. He liked watching her eyes light up when she told him about her favourite book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, or how she thought the themes in To Kill a Mockingbird applied to the current war. She liked classics. He liked how animated she was when she described the books to him, how she unconsciously brushed her red hair from her face.
In his mind she became the real life Katherine. Like Katherine, she was often foul-tempered and sharp-tongued, prone to loud displays of anger. She was intelligent and independent. And she also constantly belittled the men who sought her hand. Well, she belittled James anyway. She was also beautiful, something he was sure she shared with the fictional Katherine.
I know that you will surrender
I know that you will surrender
And I want this fantastic passion
We'll have fantastic passion
She scared him. He wasn't entirely sure why.
It could have been the way she seemed to talk to him without speaking. He could understand words, but the language of the female body was still a mystery to him. The way she would glance up at him across a table in the library… he didn't understand what those looks meant. Nor did he understand the way she would wet her pretty pink lips or the way she would lean forward more, exposing more of the milky white skin beneath her collar where she had neglected to button her shirt up to.
Perhaps it was the way she cocked her eyebrow when she caught him watching her in return. The way she would smirk slightly, as if she knew exactly what she was doing. He always knew where he was with words. He had no idea when he was with her.
It worried him, the way his skin would burn whenever she brushed past him. However foreign this silent language was to his brain, his body seemed to understand and react to it without him even knowing. Even when he wasn't looking at her, she could still cause a heat to rise in his cheeks.
He lost his faith in words the day she ran her fingers across the sensitive skin on his torso and breathed nonsense into his ear. His breath caught in his chest as she kissed down his jaw line. There were no words to describe way her stockings felt beneath his palm. He couldn't think of the word that expressed the way her lips felt against his, how her back arched slightly as she pressed into him. The feeling of his arms around her waist…
After a while, he stopped trying.
You can feel my lips undress your eyes
Undress your eyes undress your eyes
Words of love and words so leisured
Words are poisoned darts of pleasure
Die, and so you die.