Author's notes: Well, this is the first HP fic I started, and my second finished. It's set less than a year after Sirius is sent to Azkaban. Yes, I am very well aware of the fact that the title is worthy of a slow, torturous death. Suggestions are welcome.
Warnings? Angst. Some slash implications, if you're looking.
Enjoy, and let me know what you think, ne? ^_^
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Made and Lost
===============
It was the quiet that woke him.
Always before, it had been voices— hushed, excited whispers that darted between the beds in the cozy circular room— but tonight it was silence that dragged him up from the grip of restless, barely-remembered dreams. Disoriented, only partially awake, Remus couldn't quite recall the shadowed faces that his nightmares held. Instead he drifted, pleasantly half-aware, watching the ceiling with golden eyes slightly out of focus.
It was raining, the boy realized after a time. Perhaps it had just started, or perhaps the hush of the room had been sufficient to drown it out, but the sharp staccato drumming its way across the glass was suddenly hard to ignore. The rhythm of it beat into his head, forcing a wedge between waking and the last lingering vestiges of sleep. Life swam reluctantly into focus as bleary golden eyes blinked into the darkness, the soft curves of his memory sharpening into stark lines and severe corners.
Rain-light played against the walls, washing them in silvery-blue streaks that leeched the warmth from the room. There was only one bed, neither curtained nor four-poster, and the dark shapes of metal padlocks lined the door. With a quiet ache of despair, Remus longed abruptly for the half-forgotten nightmares that had been abandoned in favor of a terrible reality.
He wouldn't sleep again, he knew. The night was half gone, and now that he'd awakened, oblivion seemed a strange and distant comfort. For another night in a long string of nights, Remus settled down to fight the bitter wave of remembrances that the silence brought.
He hadn't been counting the days. He's promised himself that he wouldn't, told himself that the passage of time wouldn't change anything at all. The world was moving carelessly on around him, ignoring his pathetic attempts to stagger along.
Soon, Remus knew, he would have to make a show of taking up life again; his parents had been as patient as could be expected, but the coldness in their eyes was enough to tell the boy that he was no longer welcome. He admired the courage it took for them to live one night a month in willing terror, admired their kindness for allowing him his moments of weakness. He'd never wanted to impose on them, never dreamed of saddling them with a monster for any longer than absolutely necessary. He'd had so many plans, before Fate had scattered them merrily to the winds. A life for himself, a promise of better things to come.
Closing tired eyes to shut out the thoughts he'd most been trying to forget, Remus lay for a long moment and listened to the rain tapping on the window. It was astounding, sometimes, the way that everything could change so quickly; even now, an aching sort of disbelief filled him when he recalled the plans that had been made and lost.
Some traitorous part of him still treasured the memory of the day, a fleeting moment toward the end of sixth year. The lesson had been particularly dull, and Sirius had never really taken to Arithmancy, a combination that always proved too much for Professor Canigan's patience. After the fourth tiny paper bird flapped its way across the classroom to collide with a Slytherin's head, the poor woman had snapped.
"This lesson is over!" she'd declared abruptly, and delight had glowed briefly in the young faces about the room. Then she'd spoken again, and her intent had become clear. "The next time I see you, I want a paper from each and every one of you, no less than two feet--" the Professor raised her voice over the collective groan of despair "—no less than two feet, on what you children plan to do when the world stops enduring your pranks! I want to hear exactly what careers you think will tolerate this sort of misbehavior— maybe then you little demons will realize that you'll have to grow up someday!"
In what was perhaps the biggest surprise of the year, James and Sirius had taken the assignment seriously.
What followed was a mad scramble for the library, owls to various officials inquiring about the requirements for jobs in their fields, and more genuine research than the two had ever faked before. It had been truly astonishing to see the amount of effort usually devoted to pranks directed toward schoolwork.
Remus had written the paper, of course. True, it had been unlikely that he'd be able to hold any of the jobs he'd researched. True, werewolves were banned from the field that most interested him— who had ever heard, after all, of a dark creature practicing defense against the dark arts? But even when he'd spent the entire night wreaking mischief across Hogwarts with his friends, he'd always managed to stay awake long enough to finish his assignments before class the next morning-- and so the boy refused to let something as trivial as the topic deter him.
It wasn't schoolwork, however, that kept those few days alive in his memory. It was a passing word of kindness, an offer that had made him nearly choke on the peculiar warmth that it had kindled in his chest.
It had been late afternoon, the lazy light and muffled whispers of the library's occupants conspiring to make him drowsy and more than a bit melancholy. He had nearly completed the paper-- was, in fact, finishing up the last paragraph when Sirius settled himself familiarly in the chair opposite.
He was aware for a time of sharp eyes watching him write-- could hear soft breaths of air as his friend mouthed the words as he read. When the other boy leaned closer to the center of the table, frowning as he tried to make sense of the sentences upside down, Remus ignored him.
Or rather, tried to. Minutes dragged slowly onward, the werewolf's mind clearing itself entirely of careers and essays, distracted by Sirius' presence. The reigning debate-- whether he ought to write that he was "intrigued by the opportunity available in the field" or that the "challenges provided offered valuable experience"-- faded away in a spectacular loss of inspiration.
Lifting weary golden eyes from the nearly-complete paper, Remus had offered a somewhat unconvincing smile. "Bit of trouble finishing up," he'd admitted.
He wasn't sure what he'd expected. Some of the good-natured mockery that was never far from his friend's voice, perhaps-- or one more in the endless stream of teasing comments about his perfectionism. But certainly not the sight that had greeted him. Not the curiously tired look in Sirius' eyes, or the way the set of the boy's mouth proclaimed him completely unamused.
It was disconcerting, to see him so somber.
Leaning forward across the table, Sirius laced long fingers together and set his chin atop them. "Canigan's a bloody git, that's all." It was a statement of fact, spoken in the tone he was so fond of-- flippant, carelessly uninterested.
Remus blinked at him, twice. "Pardon?"
"You see? Lock yourself in the library all day, and your brain gets addled up." Abruptly, the other boy pulled his hands apart, thrusting one finger skyward in an effort to emphasize his point. "I said 'Canigan is a bloody git'."
"Well, yes," the werewolf agreed, quirking an eyebrow. "I caught onto that part. But what's she done now?"
"Oh, nothing new," Sirius declared airily, rocking his chair back onto two legs. "But the assignment, for starters."
"You seemed to be rather enjoying it." Looking back, Remus had thought that the statement came out a touch more bitter than he'd have liked it. "You're finished, after all. Haven't you and James owled about the--"
"Give it a rest, Moony."
And he did, mid-sentence. The boy fell into stunned silence-- because in that moment, the tone of Sirius' voice had matched the same tired expression haunting his eyes not long before.
"I've been thinking some," his friend began, leaning back so far that his chair seemed likely to tip. "About what I want to do-- after Hogwarts, you know. With the paper and all, it's a bit hard not to."
His words drifted to a stop, the strangely pensive quality of the thoughts swallowed in the hushed activity of the library. Remus waited, trying very hard to not breathe. Bizarrely, he'd felt as though a breath of air could break the moment.
It didn't, of course. The wait stretched for too long, and the werewolf gave in at last, sucking tiny gasps through his teeth. And, quite more tangible than the dream he'd feared it to be, the conversation held uninterrupted.
"And I know that-- well, the Potters are great to me. I mean, James' parents are top rate, but-- I can't stay there forever, if you take my meaning."
His friend had shifted forward abruptly, and the chair fell to all fours with a thump. "So, when I do find my own place-- after school, and all-- I thought it might be nice, if-- well, if we shacked up." That same sharp, intense stare had found startled golden eyes. "Together. You know."
Suddenly, the complexities of language-- much less the ability to pick the right phrases for what he felt right then-- had seemed overwhelming. A strange strangling sensation had come upon his chest when Sirius got to the word 'together'.
An awkward moment struggled by as words continued to fail him. Two.
"Right." Sirius raked a hand though his long hair. "Well. Just thought I'd run it by." Pushing himself to his feet, the boy had offered Remus a smile that reminded him very much of his own, on the days when pretending to be happy hurt a little. "I guess I'll just be--"
"No!" It had dawned on Remus very suddenly that he needed to say something, and in the space of a heartbeat, he'd surged to his feet and was holding firmly to Sirius' sleeve from across the table.
"No," he repeated more calmly, aware of the eyes his outburst had drawn from around the library. "What I meant to say is-- If you'll have me --" The boy took a breath and tried again. "I think that it'd be-- well-- brilliant, really."
And Sirius had smiled. Not mischievous, or daring, or insinuating. Just happy. And Remus had smiled back, and meant it.
He'd finished the paper some ten minutes later.
And honestly, it was nothing more than two feet of lies about what he planned to do with the rest of his life-- but that hadn't mattered. Because somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd believed that whatever came his way, Sirius would help him through it.
He'd said together, after all. And maybe Remus had been hoping too hard, but the boy's smile, and his eyes, and the way he'd spoken… If only for a moment, it had made him believe in someone.
But that someone had been lying.
And there it was-- out in the open, harsh and unavoidable in the too-quiet room. Sleep had retreated entirely, leaving the young werewolf alone with the truth, and it cut him more deeply than even the nightmares he'd left behind so short a time ago.
They were dead, and it was Sirius' fault. There would be no more muffled snickers, no more casual insults or half-thought-out plans.
This was the future he'd planned so carefully. Night after sleepless night. Parents who didn't want him, and a world that wanted him even less.
Together. What a terrible word to lie about.
Closing his eyes against the rain-light playing along the ceiling, Remus listened to the silence.
~owari~
Warnings? Angst. Some slash implications, if you're looking.
Enjoy, and let me know what you think, ne? ^_^
===============
Made and Lost
===============
It was the quiet that woke him.
Always before, it had been voices— hushed, excited whispers that darted between the beds in the cozy circular room— but tonight it was silence that dragged him up from the grip of restless, barely-remembered dreams. Disoriented, only partially awake, Remus couldn't quite recall the shadowed faces that his nightmares held. Instead he drifted, pleasantly half-aware, watching the ceiling with golden eyes slightly out of focus.
It was raining, the boy realized after a time. Perhaps it had just started, or perhaps the hush of the room had been sufficient to drown it out, but the sharp staccato drumming its way across the glass was suddenly hard to ignore. The rhythm of it beat into his head, forcing a wedge between waking and the last lingering vestiges of sleep. Life swam reluctantly into focus as bleary golden eyes blinked into the darkness, the soft curves of his memory sharpening into stark lines and severe corners.
Rain-light played against the walls, washing them in silvery-blue streaks that leeched the warmth from the room. There was only one bed, neither curtained nor four-poster, and the dark shapes of metal padlocks lined the door. With a quiet ache of despair, Remus longed abruptly for the half-forgotten nightmares that had been abandoned in favor of a terrible reality.
He wouldn't sleep again, he knew. The night was half gone, and now that he'd awakened, oblivion seemed a strange and distant comfort. For another night in a long string of nights, Remus settled down to fight the bitter wave of remembrances that the silence brought.
He hadn't been counting the days. He's promised himself that he wouldn't, told himself that the passage of time wouldn't change anything at all. The world was moving carelessly on around him, ignoring his pathetic attempts to stagger along.
Soon, Remus knew, he would have to make a show of taking up life again; his parents had been as patient as could be expected, but the coldness in their eyes was enough to tell the boy that he was no longer welcome. He admired the courage it took for them to live one night a month in willing terror, admired their kindness for allowing him his moments of weakness. He'd never wanted to impose on them, never dreamed of saddling them with a monster for any longer than absolutely necessary. He'd had so many plans, before Fate had scattered them merrily to the winds. A life for himself, a promise of better things to come.
Closing tired eyes to shut out the thoughts he'd most been trying to forget, Remus lay for a long moment and listened to the rain tapping on the window. It was astounding, sometimes, the way that everything could change so quickly; even now, an aching sort of disbelief filled him when he recalled the plans that had been made and lost.
Some traitorous part of him still treasured the memory of the day, a fleeting moment toward the end of sixth year. The lesson had been particularly dull, and Sirius had never really taken to Arithmancy, a combination that always proved too much for Professor Canigan's patience. After the fourth tiny paper bird flapped its way across the classroom to collide with a Slytherin's head, the poor woman had snapped.
"This lesson is over!" she'd declared abruptly, and delight had glowed briefly in the young faces about the room. Then she'd spoken again, and her intent had become clear. "The next time I see you, I want a paper from each and every one of you, no less than two feet--" the Professor raised her voice over the collective groan of despair "—no less than two feet, on what you children plan to do when the world stops enduring your pranks! I want to hear exactly what careers you think will tolerate this sort of misbehavior— maybe then you little demons will realize that you'll have to grow up someday!"
In what was perhaps the biggest surprise of the year, James and Sirius had taken the assignment seriously.
What followed was a mad scramble for the library, owls to various officials inquiring about the requirements for jobs in their fields, and more genuine research than the two had ever faked before. It had been truly astonishing to see the amount of effort usually devoted to pranks directed toward schoolwork.
Remus had written the paper, of course. True, it had been unlikely that he'd be able to hold any of the jobs he'd researched. True, werewolves were banned from the field that most interested him— who had ever heard, after all, of a dark creature practicing defense against the dark arts? But even when he'd spent the entire night wreaking mischief across Hogwarts with his friends, he'd always managed to stay awake long enough to finish his assignments before class the next morning-- and so the boy refused to let something as trivial as the topic deter him.
It wasn't schoolwork, however, that kept those few days alive in his memory. It was a passing word of kindness, an offer that had made him nearly choke on the peculiar warmth that it had kindled in his chest.
It had been late afternoon, the lazy light and muffled whispers of the library's occupants conspiring to make him drowsy and more than a bit melancholy. He had nearly completed the paper-- was, in fact, finishing up the last paragraph when Sirius settled himself familiarly in the chair opposite.
He was aware for a time of sharp eyes watching him write-- could hear soft breaths of air as his friend mouthed the words as he read. When the other boy leaned closer to the center of the table, frowning as he tried to make sense of the sentences upside down, Remus ignored him.
Or rather, tried to. Minutes dragged slowly onward, the werewolf's mind clearing itself entirely of careers and essays, distracted by Sirius' presence. The reigning debate-- whether he ought to write that he was "intrigued by the opportunity available in the field" or that the "challenges provided offered valuable experience"-- faded away in a spectacular loss of inspiration.
Lifting weary golden eyes from the nearly-complete paper, Remus had offered a somewhat unconvincing smile. "Bit of trouble finishing up," he'd admitted.
He wasn't sure what he'd expected. Some of the good-natured mockery that was never far from his friend's voice, perhaps-- or one more in the endless stream of teasing comments about his perfectionism. But certainly not the sight that had greeted him. Not the curiously tired look in Sirius' eyes, or the way the set of the boy's mouth proclaimed him completely unamused.
It was disconcerting, to see him so somber.
Leaning forward across the table, Sirius laced long fingers together and set his chin atop them. "Canigan's a bloody git, that's all." It was a statement of fact, spoken in the tone he was so fond of-- flippant, carelessly uninterested.
Remus blinked at him, twice. "Pardon?"
"You see? Lock yourself in the library all day, and your brain gets addled up." Abruptly, the other boy pulled his hands apart, thrusting one finger skyward in an effort to emphasize his point. "I said 'Canigan is a bloody git'."
"Well, yes," the werewolf agreed, quirking an eyebrow. "I caught onto that part. But what's she done now?"
"Oh, nothing new," Sirius declared airily, rocking his chair back onto two legs. "But the assignment, for starters."
"You seemed to be rather enjoying it." Looking back, Remus had thought that the statement came out a touch more bitter than he'd have liked it. "You're finished, after all. Haven't you and James owled about the--"
"Give it a rest, Moony."
And he did, mid-sentence. The boy fell into stunned silence-- because in that moment, the tone of Sirius' voice had matched the same tired expression haunting his eyes not long before.
"I've been thinking some," his friend began, leaning back so far that his chair seemed likely to tip. "About what I want to do-- after Hogwarts, you know. With the paper and all, it's a bit hard not to."
His words drifted to a stop, the strangely pensive quality of the thoughts swallowed in the hushed activity of the library. Remus waited, trying very hard to not breathe. Bizarrely, he'd felt as though a breath of air could break the moment.
It didn't, of course. The wait stretched for too long, and the werewolf gave in at last, sucking tiny gasps through his teeth. And, quite more tangible than the dream he'd feared it to be, the conversation held uninterrupted.
"And I know that-- well, the Potters are great to me. I mean, James' parents are top rate, but-- I can't stay there forever, if you take my meaning."
His friend had shifted forward abruptly, and the chair fell to all fours with a thump. "So, when I do find my own place-- after school, and all-- I thought it might be nice, if-- well, if we shacked up." That same sharp, intense stare had found startled golden eyes. "Together. You know."
Suddenly, the complexities of language-- much less the ability to pick the right phrases for what he felt right then-- had seemed overwhelming. A strange strangling sensation had come upon his chest when Sirius got to the word 'together'.
An awkward moment struggled by as words continued to fail him. Two.
"Right." Sirius raked a hand though his long hair. "Well. Just thought I'd run it by." Pushing himself to his feet, the boy had offered Remus a smile that reminded him very much of his own, on the days when pretending to be happy hurt a little. "I guess I'll just be--"
"No!" It had dawned on Remus very suddenly that he needed to say something, and in the space of a heartbeat, he'd surged to his feet and was holding firmly to Sirius' sleeve from across the table.
"No," he repeated more calmly, aware of the eyes his outburst had drawn from around the library. "What I meant to say is-- If you'll have me --" The boy took a breath and tried again. "I think that it'd be-- well-- brilliant, really."
And Sirius had smiled. Not mischievous, or daring, or insinuating. Just happy. And Remus had smiled back, and meant it.
He'd finished the paper some ten minutes later.
And honestly, it was nothing more than two feet of lies about what he planned to do with the rest of his life-- but that hadn't mattered. Because somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd believed that whatever came his way, Sirius would help him through it.
He'd said together, after all. And maybe Remus had been hoping too hard, but the boy's smile, and his eyes, and the way he'd spoken… If only for a moment, it had made him believe in someone.
But that someone had been lying.
And there it was-- out in the open, harsh and unavoidable in the too-quiet room. Sleep had retreated entirely, leaving the young werewolf alone with the truth, and it cut him more deeply than even the nightmares he'd left behind so short a time ago.
They were dead, and it was Sirius' fault. There would be no more muffled snickers, no more casual insults or half-thought-out plans.
This was the future he'd planned so carefully. Night after sleepless night. Parents who didn't want him, and a world that wanted him even less.
Together. What a terrible word to lie about.
Closing his eyes against the rain-light playing along the ceiling, Remus listened to the silence.
~owari~