Yay! New chapter! Remus makes an unexpected friend; Lucius' comes home for the holidays; etc.
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns EVERYTHING except for Roxane, Sarissa, Raoul, Jacqueline and Grandfather Alex. The film included is called Camelot (1967), and, as an interesting coincidence, stars the late Richard Harris (whom you would recognise as Dumbledore from "Philosopher's Stone") as King Arthur. The book Roxane is reading is cited in the chapter, but for the disclaimer is "Orlando" (1928), by Virginia Woolf. The passage she reads is almost an entire chapter, I simply condensed the major themes. I love the Russian Princess part. Hee.
Have fun reading… BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOOOONN! *howls emphatically*
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Severus
It was March. The earth felt cool, vibrant – the heat of summer had yet to break through the industrial smog. The snow had melted long ago, and the new life underneath it sprung forth with a supernatural force; pink and purple flowers clashing against the green of warm grass. In the early spring mornings I would walk on the grounds with my mother, the dew glistening like teardrops from the gods.
But this morning was different. When I awoke, I dressed in my usual shirt and trousers and hurried downstairs for breakfast… I was later than I expected. Unbeknownst to me, my watch had stopped ticking during the night and I had overslept. As I passed the parlour on my way to the kitchen I heard my mother's voice from within – and she was laughing! Peeking through the double-doors into the room, I saw three figures, one only slightly taller than I was, all wearing long, black cloaks. It appeared odd to me at the time probably only because, in the Malfoy family it was difficult to wear Wizard dress save on special occasions. My Grandfather and Uncle did business with Muggles so often that it seemed easier to wear their clothing as well, to avoid unwanted questions. So, I was surprised by the sight of Wizarding cloaks on what I thought was a typical Tuesday morning.
My mother noticed me standing at the door, and beckoned me to her. I walked in slowly, tentatively taking each new step into this room of unknown people. The smaller figure turned to look at me, and as he watched me coming closer his face brightened. With the cloak covering him, I stared at his dark eyes and it seemed as if his entire body was simply made of black and white composites. I smiled and he glanced away, to the woman seated beside him. As I reached my mother she grasped for my hand habitually.
"Remus, I would like to introduce you to my old school friend, Raoul Snape –" here she nodded towards the farthest of the figures, a tall man with the same pale skin and dark eyes as the boy on my left. "His wife Jacqueline, and his son Severus. I hope the two of you will be friends."
I felt Jacqueline, Severus' mother, fixated on me with her pale green eyes. Smiling weakly, I extended my left hand to Severus and said: "How do you do?"
***
Dearest Father,
The train arrives at 3:45pm on June 15th – don't forget me! Evan's parents are traveling to France in the first three weeks of the holidays, so it's probably lucky he'll be staying with us – he says he hated Paris last time he was there. Too many tourists, of course.
I can't believe my first year is almost over! Soon I'll be an old, crabbed Seventh Year Prefect without any sense of fun – and I'm sure you'd love me that way, Father? No more mischief for Lucius! But I assure you, the dyeing of the caretaker's cat blue was a total accident. I was trying to work out my Transfiguration spells and cast the wrong one instead.
Might I have a party for my birthday, Father? I'd love for you to meet my friends and their parents – all good stock, no need to worry! Slytherin always produces the most excellent wizards, as you well know.
Must get back to my homework or Professor McGonagall will be HOPPING mad! (Bertie Clump was the other day, because Jacob Tanner transfigured him into a frog – trust the Hufflepuff's, Father).
See you in June!
Lucius.
***
I soon became fast friends with Severus Snape. To look back on it now, it was probably one of the best friendships I've ever had in my entire life… in him, I found a boy with a love for nature like myself that I had never thought possible. We were only young then, and could 'frolic with fairies' if we so chose – there was nothing to make us feel ashamed of our games. However, when June came, I knew that Lucius' return would change something between Severus and I. Lucius' had always been my only real playmate – unless you counted Sarissa, who was also arriving home from her Dutch prep school on the fifteenth – and his opinion, to me, counted more than anything. I was scared that Severus would feel bored just tagging along after us.
However, when Lucius came home I found that he had brought something I didn't expect – a friend. Sarissa was alone, but that was probably because she felt embarrassed by our dusty manor when she compared it to the tall tales of her prep school friends – French princesses, every one. With more silk than India to wrap them in; and more oil than Brunei to buy a little more silk. Nouveau riche, in Grandfather's words: and Muggles, Jewish princesses, every one. Sarissa wouldn't want her friends to think her any different.
Evan Rosier was an unusual boy. Sarissa was smitten by him immediately, probably due to her exercises with nuns that past year; also, he was the first real boy outside of the family she'd ever seen close up – not just on the film screen. For Lucius' birthday we went to the pictures, rather than host a party – Grandfather was away in America at the time, and I loved the film so much that I begged Mother to bring me again on my birthday, which was only a few weeks away. I adored the mythology of it: of King Arthur and his glorious Camelot… his queen, Guinevere, was beautiful but treacherous; his knights were loyal to his crown and his order, save one who betrayed him along with Guinevere; everything was magical, wonderful and mysterious. It was this that introduced me to the world of legend – something that would become part of my life all too soon.
Severus, Sarissa and I tended to play alone, although on occasion we longed to be invited into one of Evan and Lucius' games. Sometimes we would simply sit beneath one of the huge fir trees, welcome shade from the glaring summer sun, and watch them racing across the estate, chasing each other and, when they caught the other, wrestling them to the ground playfully. Sarissa feigned disinterest in their childish game, but I knew that out of the corner of her eye she was fanning her fascination for the constantly active Evan. I never said anything to Severus, and smiled inwardly at the thought of her – my cousin, only two years my senior! – actually feeling that way about the troublesome Evan Rosier. It was not that I didn't understand the infatuation: I thought I knew what love meant, from wistful first glance to tragic end, and then begun over again. Only it was strange that my cousin, Sarissa… that she could feel the same as Arthur had, and Guinevere – and Lancelot! – when she was barely ten years old, and prone to throwing mud pies, eating paste, and tugging at our stately Persian cat's tail whenever it dared go near her (not that it was normally a friendly cat; her name was 'Prince' and demanded the treatment along with the name, despite the change in sex we had despaired over after she bore several litters of half-breed kittens to a mangy tom). Her adoration for Evan seemed incongruous with both her age and her immaturity.
We would follow Lucius and Evan from tree to tree; until the day they invited us to join them in the forest we never dared enter. Grandfather had once told me that gigantic goblins waited inside to gobble me up – for that was how they received their name, for gobbling Lupins. But with Lucius and Evan leading the way, how could we help but follow, no matter what the consequences? Surely, Grandfather might become angry (a sight not worth the effort) – but, without incident, he would never need to know. I remember how the trees closed around me as we walked, and I lingered to examine the small woodland flowers that grew in profusion beside the rabbit-path. The day was warm, and I felt a mosquito settle on my right arm. I drew my left hand back to slap it away, and the sound resonated among the trees.
I was now totally alone.
***
Roxane sat, her legs propped up on the chaise lounge as she read from her copy of what was termed a 'modern classic' in Muggle literature – Orlando, by a Muggle named Virginia Woolf. She had immersed herself in the book, which began in 16th Century Britain, and, looking around herself at the Malfoy Estate, felt as if she were living in the home that is at the centre of Orlando's obsession. As her mind pictured a skating man and woman, gliding over the frozen River Thames, gazing down through the ice into the image of a sunken ship with an apple seller sitting calmly on the deck, a scream sliced through the stagnant summer air; the ice cracked suddenly and floated into the waiting ocean, a million lives trapped in unwilling death as they were swept into the sea.
She dropped the book, it falling to the paving that covered the courtyard, and looked up with a fear in her eyes reminiscent of the fools sailing to their doom atop a melting iceberg. Roxane watched Severus emerge, his terror mirroring her own. Something clamped heavily onto her stomach and she had a sudden impulse to run; not toward Severus and the forest from which the shriek had come – but away, far away, to dive into the ocean and greet those whose hearts had sunk just as hers did with the look on the small boy's face. Instead, she steeled herself and began the slow walk up the slope and into the new life she had merely glimpsed in her vision.
When Severus reached her, she saw that his face was flushed not only with exertion, but with the heated tears that felt as if he was weeping his own blood. "Remus," he breathed heavily, and Roxane nodded, the lines around her eyes deepening slightly. "He's…" Severus couldn't finish the sentence, and was reduced to sobbing against Roxane's hip. She held him tightly as he cried, and felt the flame of love she felt for Remus flare up in her soul like a relit pilot. Not knowing what to expect, or what waited for her in the cluster over trees she had never explored in her own childhood, she grasped Severus to herself and trudged up the hill, resolve imprinted in her heart. My son, the flame echoed within her body, Remus.
***
The full moon rose that night, and Roxane watched her son sleep fitfully in his bed, the bites and scratches scarring the left side of his body from knee to breast. The tears she had not shed in front of him streamed down her face, the rivulets warming her face against the cool night air. But she cried not for Remus, for the son whose brains whom her mother had described as, "coveted by kings", would now never be trained; his life would be irrevocably changed by this fateful day.
Roxane's tears flowed not for Remus; or for the shame this affliction would bring upon her family; or for the terrible burden they would have to bear. The weeping was for the loss of love – for, as she herself knew, her husband was not the strongest of men: and, she would never be able to tell him the truth for fear of his reaction.
And, as these selfish tears were shed, we are reminded that although she thought of this primarily, it is undoubted that Remus, and her family, were all taken into account. Archibald was a Lupin – and, unlike Roxane's bond to a name, and a heritage, Archibald was, as her Father often said, from a family of fools who were never satisfied.
The full moon rose; and Roxane prayed for her husband, not for her son.
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