There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world.

-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Selecting a Ghost


PART III:
GHOSTS

Every house needs at least one ghost, Sirius told him once.

Remus had looked at him, appalled. You're joking.

Sirius smiled. Not at all. New houses, they're dull. Empty. You need people who've lived in a place. You need proof the house's alive.

After a time, Remus asked, Does your house have ghosts? and hoped that he had not crossed some boundary line.

Sirius fell silent. He gazed into the fire sourly, his lip curled up and his eyes only revealing half their depth.

I'm sorry, Remus said quietly. I didn't mean anything by it. I won't mention it again.

After heaving a deep sigh, Sirius said, No . . . It's fine. He paused. We don't have ghosts anymore. My dad -- he-- Well, he had m all banished.



Yeah. When I was a kid. We had loads of ghosts when I was little, and then Dad called in this bloke, and he banished m all.

Do you miss them? Remus asked, hesitant to speak for fear of offending his friend again.

Who, the ghosts?

Well . . . Yeah.

Sirius looked back at him, his eyes dark in the firelight. Y'know the Bloody Baron, right?



And you met my mum last winter, yeah?



Imagine if they'd had carnivorous, sour-faced, whiny kids. Kind of like -- if Snape were a vampire. That's what our ghosts were like, the whole lot of



So, no, I don't miss

We never had any ghosts in my house, Remus ventured.

It's better that way, Sirius said. He looked back at the fire.

. . . It must be awful, to be a ghost, Remus said slowly, rubbing the pad of his index finger over his thumbnail. To live --or, or, exist for so long . . . ? To have been so, you know, so scared.

I wouldn't want to be a ghost, Sirius said.

Remus stared at his soft, pale palms. He didn't dare look at his friend. Neither would I, he said quietly. He glanced towards Sirius, but Sirius was no longer paying any attention.



He'd brought home a cat. A sickly, thin, white and grey tabby that was losing its fur. He was quite certain the poor thing was on its last legs, but he didn't care.

They'd just moved, partially to be closer to James and Lily, partially because Remus had just lost another job, and, most of all, because Dumbledore was worried about their safety. All the parts of Remus' life would have fallen apart eventually; it was only a matter of chance that they all happened to come to pieces at the same time.

And so there he was, in Aylesbury on a wet day, in their first-floor Muggle apartment with the halogen light bulbs and the microwave and the plastic bath tub built into the wall. There he was in Aylesbury with a shivering, damp tabby that kept mewling pitifully, even though he'd dried it off and fed it and situated it in a pile of sheets near the radiator.

By the time Sirius got home, Remus had levitated a chair into the hallway and was sitting with the cat in his lap, reading a book called At Swim or Drowning. The cat squeaked unhappily when the door opened and Sirius stepped inside, shaking water from his dark hair.

Remus said pleasantly, not looking up from his book.

What're you doing in the front hall? Sirius asked, pulling off his jacket, which was quite wet. He paused after he'd hung it up, having spotted the animal curled up in his lover's lap. What's that?

Remus told him what it was.

What've you got a cat for? Sirius didn't seem angry. He didn't seem angry yet, Remus amended silently.

It followed me home, he said.

You? It followed you home? Sirius exclaimed, incredulous.

Why wouldn't it? he asked mildly, marking the page in his book and putting it down on the arm of the chair. Sirius, you're dripping water all over the floor. Here-- Gently, he lifted the old cat from his lap and put her down amidst the warm sheets. She squeaked again, but stayed put. He hung the wet jacket on a hook beside the radiator. Take off your shoes and put them over there to dry. As Sirius did so, Remus moved the chair back into the front room. By the time he was done, Sirius was positioning his shoes by the radiator.

I still don't see why you brought home a cat, Sirius said, as though it were some personal offense.

You're soaked through. Remus lifted Sirius' damp sweater from his middle and proceeded to peel it away from his skin, finally pulling it up, over his head. I brought home a cat, he said, brushing a gentle kiss across Sirius' lips, because I felt sorry for her. She's dying.

I don't want it to die here, Sirius said. Luckily, he was not as upset as Remus had been expecting him to be.

They usually go hide some place before they die, Remus told him. His grandmother had kept numerous non-magical cats, along with a very magical and decidedly mean parrot named Clementina.

Oh, wonderful. So we'll be wondering for days what that smell is and where the cat is, until one of us finds it dead, holed up in a cupboard, or something.

Well, maybe . . .

Sirius put his cold hands on Remus' upper arms, gentle. he said, I don't like cats.

I know, but . . . please? She won't stay around very long.

Can't we just give it to an animal shelter? It's not even magical.

Remus sighed softly. If you really don't like it . . .

I mean, we can't even really afford an owl, Moony. Pets are expensive.

I know . . .

Maybe another time. When I've got a full-time job, Sirius ventured.

Remus thought that it could be years before that was possible again. The Order needed them too much. Neither of them had time to hold down a full-time job. All right, Remus said.

Sirius ran his palms up and down Remus' arms soothingly. Pets are expensive. And, besides, who knows if we'll have to move again. It probably wouldn't like that very much. Moving.

She won't be alive that long, Sirius.

All the same . . .

I know. It's fine, Remus said. Can we let her stay the night? There probably isn't an animal shelter open this late.

It isn't that late, Sirius said.

It's late for animal shelters. Do you mind keeping her just for one night?

That's fine, as long as I don't have to sleep with it. Her. The cat mewled again and Sirius looked at the frail tabby as if she were swearing at him.

Oh, good.

Sirius turned to look at him. You haven't already named it have you?

Remus asked, looking up, surprised. No . . .

Are you going to?

Remus fell silent and gazed down at the cat. She was looked up at him with wet, doleful eyes. He noticed that she was drooling. . . . It's just . . . she followed me home, Sirius, and nobody else wants her, the poor thing.

I know, Moony, Sirius said with a sigh. But we can't keep a cat. It isn't practical.

I know.

In the morning, after Remus has gone to work, Sirius took the cat to an animal shelter. When Remus came home at one, both the cat and Sirius were gone from the apartment, and even the blankets were no longer heaped in front of the radiator.



The brass pots hung in the kitchen, reflecting the early morning sun like relics. Remus stood in the doorway, studying the empty room. Sometimes he wondered how the sun could stand to rise every day. He'd been wondering it every morning for days, weeks, months. He was so tired. He didn't know how the sun could find the strength to rise when he could hardly find it within himself to breathe sometimes. But he hurt less than he had the day before, and he had come to the conclusion that this was the best he could hope for, at least for a long time.

Remus filled the teakettle manually and set it on the stove. He didn't know if there were any matches in the house. He'd been using his wand for so long that he didn't keep track of things like matches anymore. His wand, however, was upstairs, and the journey up the stairs was too arduous at the moment, with his aching muscles. He shuffled around the kitchen, moving brokenly, looking in each drawer for matches. A pair of spiders had knitted thick webs across the interior of one of the drawers, covering the artifacts inside with their sticky gauze. Remus could not bring himself to disturb their skillful work, and he couldn't imagine there were matches under there, anyway. Another drawer, this one wide and deep, was stuffed full of newspapers dated between 1967 and 1983. The photographs were yellowed, but still moving, their subjects blinking up at him sleepily. He pulled all the brittle newsprint out, looking at each section only briefly before dropping it on the floor.

He let the last piece of newspaper fall to the stone floor. His legs were shaking, as were his fingers. In the fifth drawer he opened, under a moldy oven mitt, there was a box of matches, damp as if it had been sweating beneath the pot holder for years. The musky scent of rotting paper and wood now filled the kitchen aggressively, soaking into everything. He knew that if he were to smell his own hands, they would smell like decaying paper.

Taking up the box of matches, he went back to the stove. The cardboard box was weak and soft and seemed poised to collapse upon itself, but Remus retrieved a match regardless. He struck it against the rough strip on the side of the box, but nothing happened. He tried again, and the corner of the box broke. He struck the match again, and still nothing happened. He dropped the match to the floor and tried again with another, holding onto the broken wall of the box to keep it from giving way. This match broke in two, as did the next one. The fourth, fifth, and sixth matches all had their red tips scraped bare before Remus dropped them to the floor. It was the seventh match that, miraculously, caught fire, but Remus was so surprised that he accidentally burned one of his fingers and dropped the match to the floor in shock. There, its flame licked against some old newspaper, and Remus ground his foot into the burning paper before the fire could spread. The soles of his feet were thickly calloused, so it wasn't too painful.

As he was sucking on his finger, waiting to stop shaking before he attempted to light another match, an owl appeared outside the window. Abandoning his matches, he went to the window and opened it for the dour-looking brown owl, who refused to come inside. Remus untied the letter from its leg and the owl immediately ruffled its feathers and flew away.

The smells of smoke and cold now mixed with the smell of age that had wrapped itself around the kitchen. The light was bright as he unrolled the letter.

Mr. Lupin --
Due to your extensive absences, and an apparent malaise for your job in general, we have made the decision to let you go from your position at Bosch Booksellers. Your last paycheck shall be delivered at the end of the pay period.
-- H. Bosch


Remus dropped the letter to the floor just as he had dropped the newspapers. He briefly considered lighting another match and letting the whole house go up in flames, but he knew that it would never burn.

The brass pots hung in the kitchen, reflecting the early morning sun like relics. Remus stood in by the window, studying the empty room. Reflecting on it, he decided that there was no possible way he could stay. He couldn't be here, in this house, any longer.