A/N: A heartfelt thank-you to kmcartneyyyy, drwatson, and all my guest reviewers!
"Relationships? Mostly anonymous. Brief. Then there's no one to explain the absences to, the sickness. But no one can go without human connection altogether. Not even me."
—Subject 33
"I love these things," Will said.
"That's not what I expected you to say," I laughed as we gazed around the ballroom from our winding stairway vantage point. My father's New Year's parties were known for their obscene luxury, an unabashed display of wealth becoming more and more rare among those with a conscience. But Xavier never failed to be seduced by the promise of a new start, and so he rang in year after year surrounded by a thousand of his closest friends.
"No, really, I love them," Will continued earnestly, swishing some alcoholic amber liquid in his wineglass.
"You're more social than I am, then."
"Am I? I don't know. I just love small talk. I love engaging people in heated conversations about the weather. The eternal question of whether or not it'll snow. How cold it is. How grandiose the party. Observing the other person's realization of how much they care about such inconsequential things."
I watched his eyes as he spoke, the exaggerated energy of his gestures. To have learned what I did about my mother and then to be here in my father's home sipping drinks with Will and listening to him wax on about his investment in the inconsequential felt surreal. Many times in the last week I'd caught myself watching my own interactions from far away, somewhere above myself, unable to shake the small and meaningless nature of almost every encounter.
My mother killed her brother.
Isn't it a beautiful party?
My uncle was a werewolf.
Do you think it'll snow?
I watched myself drain my glass as Will continued to speak, his excitement dulling to a low drone in my ears like the soft buzz of a dragonfly.
"I like making other people feel comfortable," he was saying, then looked meaningfully at me and paused. "It doesn't seem like I'm doing that for you, though, Cora."
"What?"
He gestured to my empty glass as I was in mid-sip, apparently attempting to swallow air for the sake of something to do with my hands.
"I'll get you some water," he said with half a smile as he took my glass.
I began to look around the room in a daze. Without the glass in my hand I felt even stranger, nothing for my fingers to clutch or fidget with. And that's what I'd been doing, really, for the last week—distracting myself. There was one thing I'd avoided confronting, even in my own mind: that the moment my mother told me what had happened, what she'd done, I'd hastily done the math, my heart in my throat, trying desperately to confirm that in fact, Remus could not have been the wolf who bit Orpheus, that the timeline was impossible. I'd breathed a sigh of relief when my brain snapped back to reality and I remembered that my mother was older than Remus, that the numbers couldn't possibly match up in a way that made him the culprit. And then I'd put it out of my mind before dealing with the second question, which was whether I could have continued to allow my feelings for him if the opposite was true. Whether I would have been able to stop.
Avoiding the issue, however, meant avoiding the wolf himself. We'd planned to meet for lunch the day of the New Year's party, to talk strategy should any members of the Wizengamot be present. It had been Remus' idea and would have been useful, too, considering how many of them were milling about right now, slightly drunk, and how often politics came down to exactly this: getting some lawmaker another glass of brandy and engaging in light contest to predict upcoming snowfall to the centimeter.
But I'd begged off the meeting with some made-up excuse about helping my father prepare for that night. Mostly I'd slumped around the house in a satin robe I'd found in a guest room closet, drinking off-tasting sherry and questioning my motivations. And here he was anyway, a force in his own right. Walking around with two drinks in hand at all times, laughing with a trail of men I recognized from the committee meeting. When it came down to it, I seemed superfluous. The ease of his interactions made me unreasonably suspicious, even jealous in that moment, an unfamiliar feeling when it came to Remus. Why should tonight be so easy for him? Why was he so much stronger than I?
When Will came back with our drinks I excused myself to wander around the room aimlessly, half-following Remus as he moved from one government official to the next. It seemed as though our more recent meeting had made up for the incident with the white-haired man at that first party—how quickly the politicians can put the past behind them when majority support seems near. I should've been happier, watching Remus talk and laugh with the people who had the power to change his life. This was what taking control of himself again looked like. And yet I couldn't shake the deep, persistent sense of foreboding that followed me back and forth across the ballroom floor. The note my mother had sent me, arriving just this morning: Don't tell anyone what I did.
At some point Remus took notice of me, beckoned me toward him. He was talking with my father, of all people, their heads bent together conspiratorially. Remus towered a good six inches over Xavier, so he had to hunch his shoulders slightly just to carry on a conversation. I turned instead and made for the balcony, feeling suddenly ill, letting their bodies and faces recede behind me. Something about the glass-paned French door seemed inherently comforting the closer I got. I was aware, in a vague sort of way, that I was drunk.
Outside smelled damp. The wrought iron railing was a shock to my senses, but the cold brought me back down from the flurry of my thoughts.
I could hear footsteps behind me—of course, hadn't I expected as much, always the hero, always the good guy, and always at his own expense.
"All right, Cora. Now you're just being difficult."
I turned to look at him, framed by the outline of those glass French doors. He'd somehow managed to buy a new suit—probably an investment in blending better with those who attended the parties like this one. It was simple, plain black, but fit well and emphasized his height, made his presence unintentionally commanding. He'd thrown me off just by following after at me, looking at me now. I groped for my anger.
"I've done plenty," I said. "I'm allowed to have an off day. You wouldn't even be here without me."
Some part of me stung to watch him shrink back as I spoke, a ghost of something dark and lonely passing over his face.
"Why are you acting like this? I thought we were on the same side."
"Maybe it can't be divided so easily. Maybe it isn't about sides at all. Us and them. Or us and you?"
"What are you saying?" I'd done it; something had slipped down over his features and hardened them, a kind of guard. I knew it well. I'd just never seen it directed at me before.
I turned away and leaned out far over the balcony railing, so that my torso was horizontal to the ground three floors below. From some angles, I thought, I might appear to be flying. I heard Remus walk closer to me, could imagine him standing uncertainly behind me, his arms moving up from his sides to catch me if I fell.
"Was it… was it something at your mum's?" he whispered uncertainly. We could hear the clinking of glasses a room away, scattered laughter breaking our silence like the erratic chirping of crickets. "Did something happen?"
I hated how easily knowable I was. How my fears and disappointments and concerns could be so quickly calculated. Irrationally I wanted to hurt him, to create distance again between us. It was too hard to be so close to someone who understood so well and yet never be able to touch them.
"Remus… I just need to know…" I paused. I was still leaning out over the edge. If I focused my eyes at their uppermost point I could almost block out the ground below me, the flat snowy expanse that surrounded us. Nothing but cool black sky if you looked up.
"Have you ever killed anyone?"
He stepped back. I could feel his heat receding and hear the beat of his worn leather shoes on the cold tile.
"What?"
"Have you… have you ever…" The moment of courage had been brief and now was already faltering. But the inquiry still hung there in the distance stretching between us, unanswered. He stared at me, eyes wide, still beautiful but now afraid. Guarding something.
"Wh—why would you—"
I could hear my father's voice then, his New Year's toast wafting out to us from inside, though he could have been a thousand miles away at that point. I could hear his words but was unable to process them, instead going back and forth over the fact that Remus had not yet told me no. No, he hadn't killed anyone. I needed to hear it.
"Why are you asking me this?" The question was cold and stern, yet I thought I sensed something else in his tone. A hint of desperation.
"Why can't you answer me?"
He looked at me for a moment that stretched too long. "You really think I'm capable of that?"
My thoughts flashed to my mother. Knowing what she had done, having to bear the weight of that information on my own. The idea that a person I loved so deeply could do something so awful. I didn't know if I should tell him. Tell anyone. Especially of my newfound fear that what my mother was capable of now also extended to everyone else in my life.
He took a breath. "Almost," he said.
"What do you—"
"I mean almost." He wasn't looking at me. "Years I kept myself in check. My whole life, practically. Then, the year I taught at Hogwarts. Three students on the grounds one night."
I thought of the severity of the injuries he'd had, that last day in Hogwarts before he'd left for good. I wondered how many of them were self-inflicted.
"But I've never taken a life," Remus said steadily. "I've made mistakes and I've come close, but I've never lost myself completely. And that matters a good deal to me." He paused. "I would have hoped there were certain truths about me you never felt you had to question. Certain… guarantees. But I can understand why you had to ask."
Did he? The look on his face then, like something had torn away between us.
"I'm sorry," I said, pushing away from the balcony railing. The snow slipped out of my vision. We could hear the countdown happening just beyond the door: joyous, drunken numbers being shouted into the wide-open space, signifying something slightly different to each person. Change, promise, freedom. And here we were, on the outside of all that, without even a single flute of champagne between the two of us.
We still had a few seconds of the year left. He pulled me to him and kissed me once, very briefly, on my forehead. A sudden indulgence after the events of the night. His hand wound through my hair more slowly, inciting gentle chills down the length of my back. I looked up at him in confusion and he just smiled, sadly shaking his head.
Three, they screamed on the other side of the glass.
Two.
One.
Attempt #20
2 1/2 c powdered aconite
3 tbsp essence of dittany
1 c fluxweed, shredded
1/2 cup valerian oil
1 tsp powdered silver
8 5-cm strips wiggentree bark, stewed separately
1 1/2 tbsp crushed moonseed
1/4 c lavender buds
1/2 tsp powdered silver
Notes: Another failure. It's been six months now. The Veritaserum Immunity Draught took me two years. I believe I have it within me to do this, eventually. I'm just beginning to doubt whether a year is enough time.
