I apologize wholly for the lack of updates. This chapter is finally finished, I've felt awful for not posting. Unfortunately, my life has been going well lately, and it's hard to write about Remus' depressing life when you feel good. I've won some art awards in New York and am no longer broke, and for the next few months I'll be busy with a Shakespeare production, which I've landed one of the leads for. Thank you so much for reading! Please review. Hey, e-mail me, I don't hear from you enough!! gudrosity@hotmail.com I'll be back soon! Xxoo. :) :)
He undid the window's small lead latch and slid his body carefully through the round opening out onto the slate roof. There he could sit with his legs braced up against the crumbling gutter work and roll a cigarette in silence. He could think of Sirius as the clouds rolled in and the darkness folded away, the sun like a blaring red beacon rising above the forest.
He could lie back on the cold slate and spread his arms out onto the mossy tiles. Another puff from the cigarette and he would throw it over the gutters to spiral down, down, down, to hit rooftops and windows before dying in the morning wet lawn. A noble death for that small smokey stub. If I was a braver man, I might take that death. Remus said quietly to the sunrise.
The thought of Sirius out of Azkaban was one that made the smallest hairs on the back of his neck rise from his pale skin. The thought of that dark man in an apartment somewhere, in a bar, in a crowded street. Sitting on an empty rooftop under the rising sun.
Part of him wanted to leave. Wanted to search every hostel, every pub, anywhere that dark man could hide. He imagined his wand at Sirius' throat. He imagined the words, whispered them, ran them over his tongue and through his teeth to be swallowed whole again with the bitter taste of trepidation.
Avada Kedavra.
He closed his eyes and turned his head so that he could feel the wet moss of the rooftop on his smooth cheek and thought he could never say that spell. Even if he found Sirius, those words would never come.
And here was Harry, with James face and Lily's eyes, and in the past few months Remus had begun to cling to the moments that Harry occupied that third row seat, seventh from the right in his dimly lit classroom. He tried not to stare at the scar, at that black hair, at the way he slouched ever so slightly in his seat. What a strange sensation, almost parental he felt suddenly. Fatherly. That fleeting thought,
He could have been my Godchild.
But of course, he wasn't.
Remus went to the library one night, late enough that the place was deserted save Pince, and she said nothing to him. He had developed a sort of aura about him that kept the other professors and adults at Hogwarts at a distance. Like mice move away from a sick brother. As if his touch might harm, the very air he breathed might kill.
Yes, he thought somewhat sarcastically, tragedy is contagious.
He took an old spell book without signing the pad at her desk, and Pince said nothing as he carried it away.
Upon his rooftop he opened the leather bound volume without noticing the text or title, and near the back there was pressed a small piece of brown paper. His hands removed it shakily, unsure. There had been only a fleeting feeling before that this page might still be pressed here. The luck that no student had discovered it, no librarian tossed it away. He unfolded the creased page and looked down at Sirius' scratchy handwriting.
It was only a scribble, a note left for his tired eyes late one night as he studied alone. Something to greet him as he turned the last page and took the final notes for his midterm exam. He looked at it with a frown though, and ran a thin finger over the curves of black ink. In and out of each loop, each dot, each apostrophe. And then slowly he took the cigarette from his lips and lit the corner of the brown paper. Something had been growing in his mind. A seed planted years before that in this cold castle was growing closer and closer to break the surface of his mind.
He watched the edge light and pass quickly, turning the brittle paper into dark ash. And he watched it burn and curl as if in pain and finally let it drop from his fingers, down, down to be forgotten in the night air and the dark sky that blanketed him on his dark rooftop like an snowy owl into the night.