(Note from the author: These are not my characters, my world, or my
situations. They all belong to J. K. Rowling, and are protected by
copyrights.)
(MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR. READ: First off, I want to thank everyone who has been so supportive to "Forever Alive" throughout almost a year now. This is, indeed, the last chapter. Yet it is not finished. The Epilogue will be updated onto this site Wednesday, July 7, 2004, at midnight Eastern Standard Time. Sorry for the delay, life's been hectic. I will be willing to answer any questions about "Forever Alive" that you would want to ask. Also, I am thinking about starting a much shorter and condensed fanfiction story after the conclusion of this one. It will not be as long, and will take about a week to write. I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a Snape fic? If anyone has any other ideas, please post them with your questions. Just leave your queries and ideas/suggestions in your review of this chapter. All questions will be answered in a special "Reply to the Reviewers," posted on the review board one hour before the Epilogue is posted. Thank you for your support, yet again, and I hope that you will enjoy this last chapter of the Marauders' saga.)
"Come on, Lupin!" James laughed as he ran down the hall. He was carrying his broomstick, "Put your money where your mouth is!"
Remus laughed nervously as he was tugged along by Peter.
"Come on! Hurry up! We're getting behind him! Let's go!" Peter prodded. Sirius laughed, and shoved the two younger runts forward.
"Oh, I could do better," Sirius mocked Remus, "Better than you, James. Well, let's just see how well you do."
James was still ahead of the four of them, and he paused for a moment as they rounded a corner. His face melted into what Sirius called the "Evans" look. Lily was here somewhere in the vicinity of the boys.
"Evans! Hey, Evans!" James shouted as his three friends caught up with him. Remus saw the beautiful red locks of hair as he came to a halt. Sirius bumped into him. Sirius had been taller than him at the time.
That would change in the years to come.
"Potter," she said, but she didn't sound too thrilled with the exclamation.
"Out to hex anyone today?" she asked, and James mussed his hair nervously.
"No, just out to show Remus how to ride a broom," he said, waving a hand in Lupin's direction, "That's all."
"Yeah, he reckons he can fly better than James here," Sirius chortled, and Remus turned a bright shade of red. Lily smiled, and her beautiful green eyes looked into the mousy brown ones of the little boy. His still blond hair was shoved into his eyes, and Lily gave him a smile. It was a nice smile. Not a flirting one, or one that reminded him of his mother's ... it was just a friendly smile.
He forgot all about the broom. The next thing he knew, James was showing off for Peter and Sirius in the courtyard with his flying tricks, and he and Lily were sitting outside on the banisters. They watched James give two loops high in the air, and then swarm down to the ground going as fast as a hawk.
"Why are you so quiet, Remus?" Lily asked. She was thirteen. A beautiful age to be. Still a little girl, but growing into a gentle and kind woman.
"I ... I don't know," Remus stammered, giving her a shy look, "I've never been one for talking, I guess."
Lily nodded, as if contemplating something, and then looked back up to the sky to where her future husband flew. Of course, she hadn't known this at the time. None of them had known what was to happen to them all. Peter dead. Sirius a traitor. James dead. And Lily ...
Those green eyes would burn out sooner than expected.
"Have you ever flown before?" Lily asked quietly, looking up to the man she would die with.
"No," Remus said truthfully.
"How come?"
"I ... I'm ... well, I'm ..."
"Scared?" Lily asked, looking at him again with those eyes. Remus nodded slowly, afraid even to admit it. Lily smiled again, and set her perfect pale hand on his rough shoulder.
"Are you scared of everything?" she asked, as if discovering a new animal.
"Yes, I guess. In a way. Isn't everyone, though?"
"Are you scared of me?" she asked.
"Somewhat."
"Are you scared of James?"
"I guess sometimes."
"How about Sirius?"
"When he gets angry."
"And you," she asked, "Are you scared of yourself?"
Remus felt his throat clench up. The wolf, just starting to form and take on a voice in his head, laughed from the bowels of his mind. He felt his breathing become shallow, and he looked back to the courtyard. Sirius was jumping around, hollering to the skies. Peter was wringing his hands together excitedly, as if he was picturing himself gloriously perched ontop of that broomstick high up in the clouds.
"More than anything else," he muttered, and Lily's smile faded. There was no way that she could have understood or known of the beast lurking within. She didn't know that this tiny boy sitting next to her turned into a monster that grown men would have liked to kill. Or that he could kill grown men. Who knew. Maybe he had.
But there was understanding in her green eyes. She understood him.
"How come?" she asked again.
"I'm not a good ..." he wanted to say person. But he couldn't use that word. He wasn't fit for that word. He wasn't a person.
"I'm not what everyone sees," he whispered, and Lily set her silky hand underneath his chin, and directed his eyes to look at her. She had wisdom past her years.
"Remus, you want to know what I see?" she said, and Remus nodded weakly. Her smile didn't return, but her face glew with happiness and truth as she spoke to him.
"I see an amazing spirit. I see a boy who is good. Who is beautiful. I see someone who will grow to do great things. He just doesn't realize that yet," her hand fell back into her lap, and they both heard James land on the ground, "Don't ever forget that. You have a light in your eyes. Don't let it die."
Remus nodded obediently.
"Lupin! It's your turn!" Sirius said, shouting over to him as he walked across the grass, holding James' broom in his hands, "Come on! Let's see how well you ride!"
Remus jumped off of the banister, and walked to Sirius. His good friend, Sirius. How it pained him now to remember.
He reached for the broom, and Sirius didn't let go. Remus drew in nearer as Sirius leaned over him.
"Tonight, right?" he said, "You go tonight?"
"Yeah," Remus said quietly, "I do."
"You want me to come?"
"I'd kill you."
"I know," Sirius said, unfaltering.
Remus looked up at the boy who was struggling day and night to crack the code of the Animagus spells. He couldn't yet turn into a dog. Didn't he know the consequences of what he was proposing?
"No, Sirius, you ..."
"Do you want me to come, Remus."
Remus shook his head, "No. I don't."
And Sirius nodded. He understood.
Sirius had been willing to die for his friends. Even at a young age. Even at the tender year of thirteen he had been willing to sacrifice his well being.
So why had he turned?
This memory still haunted him.
"You want me to come?"
"I'd kill you."
"I know."
Sirius Black. He had shown Voldemort to the door of the Potters. He had killed James. He couldn't believe it.
That's what all the papers read.
That's what the world told him.
Sirius Black had killed James Potter.
It seemed like the world had not only stopped, but it had ended as well. The eyes of Alice Longbottom haunted Remus to that moment. They stood for all that had gone and had been replaced by a façade of a life. He had found himself last night, looking up to the moon, and remembering those days in the shack. Yearning to have one more go at it. One more night with the four of them. So young. So ...
Alive.
And then he had remembered a memory that hadn't meant much to him at the time. It was funny how one forgets the most significant things and cherishes the most intricate details. It had been a night in fifth year, a few months after they had gotten used to their newly found powers. Moony and Padfoot had been wrestling on the ground. And Prongs had been watching from above his tall neck. Wormtail was squeaking around, shouting up at the larger dogs.
It was that small memory that sparked tears in the creases of Remus's eyes. He hadn't cried for Sirius. But he did now.
What had they not done to fulfill his life? Why had he done such a thing to James? Why the hell had he turned into what he had?
When the morning had come that day, Remus had left the cabin with no intentions of going to the Wizengamot Trials of the afternoon. He was on another mission. He needed to let it out. It was pounding in his head. All of it.
He turned the corner of the corridor of the school, and into a familiar classroom. Unfamiliar children sat in the same seats that his friends and him had sat in. The friends that had died such horrible deaths.
And the one man that he thought he had known.
How coud he have been so blinded by friendship and love and trust?
He didn't even notice the old woman at the front of the classroom pause from her lecture, and give him that all too familiar look over her glasses. She sighed, checked her watch, and then turned to the children set in front of her.
"Class dismissed for the day," she said, and the students grabbed their books and things and ran for the door, past the poker faced man in torn robes. He didn't even notice them.
"Mister Lupin, I presume," Professor McGonagall said, setting her wand down upon the desk, "Fancy seeing you here."
Remus jumped, and stepped farther into the room. He had a look of anxiety in his eyes and complexion. He wrung his hands together; an old habit that Professor McGonagall hadn't seen him do for years.
"Professor," he said, coming closer, "I need a few minutes of your time, if you have it. I don't know when your next class is ..."
"It's soon," his old teacher said, very confused, "Is there something wrong, Mister Lupin?"
During his time here at Hogwarts, Remus had felt cared for by one teacher. The teacher he had almost killed in his dormitory room one night. The teacher who had told Dumbledore that she would risk her well being to accompany him once a month.
"I ... I need someone to talk to," Remus said truthfully, "I know you're busy, but I really need to ... just talk. That's it."
Professor McGonagall had never seen him like this. So angered. So upset. She took her wand in her hand, and with worried eyes, nodded sympathetically.
"All right, Mister Lupin," she said, as the first student came filing into her classroom. She motioned towards her office door, and then turned to the student, "Amelia, you are in charge of the class until I return. I expect you to be on your best behavior."
Amelia nodded, and the professor followed her old student into the back room.
"Do you feel guilt?" Professor McGonagall asked him quietly as he took a seat in the chair across from her. He looked like the student again, ready to be taught a lesson by just another teacher of Hogwarts.
"I don't know what I feel," Remus said. This was the first time he had spoken of such things. The first time he left his guard and let his secrets out. He couldn't even talk of these things with James ...
James.
"Losing a loved one is the hardest obstacle one faces," she said understandingly, "I have lost many in my lifetime. As will you in years to come."
"Years to come," Remus huffed, "Professor, how many more years?"
"What?" she asked.
"How many more years do I have to endure this hell?" he begged of her, "All of it, banging against the inside of my skull! Professor, I was taught to stare death in the face and laugh. I was taught to face my monsters. To kill them. To do whatever I could to see their end. And I've tried! I've tried to keep a straight face! I've tried not to listen to him!"
"Remus ... who ..."
"But he's there! Pounding me into the ground. He knows I'll die before he does! And then what? Then I'm just a demon! I'm a monster! I was the one they pointed their finger at first! I was the one that James thought it was. I can imagine them, all standing around, going 'You know, that Lupin is unstable! We've known him for some odd years, and he's done nothing but try to maul us to pieces! To try to get us killed! He acts as if he has a good head on his shoulders! But no! He doesn't! He's just what Klien thought he was ...'"
"Mister Lupin, you're not making any sense ..."
"Someone told me once that I had a light. That under everything, I had a light. And she told me not to let it die. She told me that! And I listened! And I tried to continue to listen as the years wore on. But Professor, I have seen so much death! How can one live among death!? How can I continue to listen to Lily's voice about not dying when she IS dead!? When James ... When James' best friend kills him in cold blood? How can I believe in my world? How can I keep that light shining?"
"Mister Lupin ..."
"And Alice," Remus said, standing up, his poker face falling off in a matter of moments, "She stared at me. She stared right at me. Right through me! She didn't even feel Neville in her arms! She's alive, but inside ... inside she's gone. They're all dead. How long will it be until I'm dead?"
"I ..."
"I have tried, Professor! I have tried to be the smart one! I was always the smart one! The one who knew right from wrong! The one who would tell them not to do something or keep them out of trouble! That was always me!" Remus cried, his hands becoming fists, "But when they needed me the most, what did I do? I told them off, and slammed the door behind me. I didn't even look back! I didn't even ... look ... at that murderer ... and ... he was right there. I could have killed him. I could have stopped him."
"You were always the smart one," Professor McGonagall said, interrupting him while she had the chance, "But you were never the strong one."
With this remark, Remus looked to his old teacher, broken. All formalities that remained disappeared. His mask fell to the ground and shattered. And the professor watched as the headstrong man Remus had worked so hard to become fell away and revealed that little boy who had not disappeared after all. The little boy who had been so frightened of himself that he could trust no one. Not even his own judgement.
And Remus cried.
He fell to the ground, head in hands, knees to arms, and cried.
The room was quiet for a moment as Professor McGonagall looked to her student, no trace of sympathy or understanding on her face. She was appalled.
"I don't know what to do," Remus said, his raspy voice breaking the silence, "I don't know what to do anymore."
"You're alive," she said tersely, "You should count that as a blessing."
"I don't want to be alive," Remus said darkly, and Professor McGonagall slammed her hand down on the desk.
"Look at yourself!" she barked, "Look at what you are resorting to! What do you think James would say if he could see you now! What if he was standing there in that corner, looking at you bawl like a little first year?"
Remus didn't answer. If only James was standing there.
"After all he did," Professor McGonagall said, "After all that he did to try and save you. To protect you, this is how you repay his memory. By crying. By giving up!"
"I'm not giving up ..."
"Mister Lupin, you still haven't defeated him," she interrupted him, "You still haven't killed that monster."
"I can't!" Remus said, standing up, "There is no cure! I'm a werewolf, Professor I always will be a werewolf!"
"The monster was never the wolf, Mister Lupin!" she shouted. Remus jumped back, now afraid. He had never seen her like this, "The monster was your fear."
He didn't understand. Professor McGonagall sighed, and patted her bun to make sure it was still in place. They both could hear the children outside, ready for their Transfiguration class.
"That is the monster that has consumed you, Mister Lupin," she said, "And that is the monster that is consuming you now. Yes, James is dead. That will not change. He won't be coming back to save you from yourself again. Now you must do that for yourself. You have to find the man inside, and realize that you are alive. That you are not in Azkaban. That you're name isn't on that bloody wall with so many people that are not as lucky as you to be standing there, able to breathe."
Remus looked to her as she gathered her books and things. She came from behind her desk, and looked up into the eyes of the man now taller than her. He had stopped crying, and the mask was placed back on. Never to be removed again.
"They will never truly die, Remus," she said in a softer tone, placing a hand on his shoulder. It was old and cracked, unlike the hand of Lily's that had laid itself there years ago, "Their memory, and their lessons, but most importantly their love ... those things remain forever alive in our hearts."
"Forever alive," Remus mumbled, now dumb to the world. Now unable to see anything but the dancing faces of four boys in front of his eyes. So young.
"Yes," Professor McGonagall said, patting his arm for support, and then walking to the door.
When Remus looked up, she was gone.
It rained that night. It rained hard. Remus sat on his porch, staring at the rusting axe in the wood. He hadn't touched it for months. The last time he had chopped wood had been the day of Harry's birth. Harry.
He wondered how Harry was.
"That old hag," the wolf scoffed, yawning and setting himself at Remus's feet, "Thinking she knows us. But we both know she doesn't."
It was raining. He could see it outside the iron bars of the window. It hit the stone and bricks with so much force. Making little puddles and tidepools in the cracks and crevices. Sirius stared at them, with fascination. That rain was free. Those stones and bricks were free. So close to him, and yet a lifetime away from where he sat on the ledge of the window.
The dementors had taken another break, had decided to go torture some other victim. Sirius was left to think. Left to stare at the cold stone and the cold sky and the cold thunderclouds above.
Remus.
He had thought it to be Remus. How could he have even suspected him?
And now Remus. The last Marauder. Alone out there somewhere.
"He'll die," he said aloud to himself, "He doesn't have us. That thing will kill him."
Kill him.
For the past two weeks, he had played those images around and around in his head. The glowing rubble of the Godric's Hollow street. The dead face of James. The hair of Lily. And the sewer opening up to the hells below.
The one thing that kept his madness at bay was Frank's question.
"Were you responsible for the deaths of James and Lily Potter."
He had heard it in his head. It had been from far away. But it had rang in his head for days. And for days he had contemplated his answer. He had repeated it to himself as he paced his cell, counting every brick. Timing every moment that went by.
"Yes," he would whisper to himself.
When the dementors were close to him, he would see that scene in his flat play out again. Him begging Lily and James to listen to him. Him pleading with them to get Peter.
They had trusted him.
They were now dead.
Sirius bit his lip as he looked out to the clouds above him. The moon. He couldn't see the moon tonight. He wondered if Remus could.
"You didn't kill them," he whispered now, "You didn't turn them in. You tried to be their friend. You tried to save them. And you would have given your life for them."
After a week had passed of the "Yes"'s being whispered between the lapses of insanity and the memories of his childhood home and the deaths of James and Elise and Lily and his friends, the answer had changed.
He saw Peter's face, before the explosion. A complete look of content. He had outsmarted his genius friends. He had finally come out on top. He was finally soaring through the sky instead of James.
And that look helped the clouds in Sirius's own mind part. A moment of clear thinking had come to him.
He was innocent.
It had been a cold night a few evenings ago that he had sat here, on this ledge, and looked up to the half moon. And it was then that he had answered correctly.
"No." he muttered, "No."
Sirius's chest hurt from the tattoos that they had engraved into his skin. His clothes were torn. His hair was matted with his own blood. His eye ached. But his spirit was not broken.
It never would be.
Peter's face always came in and out of dreams. And after Peter had melted away into the darkness of his memories, another face would come. The face of a little boy.
Laughing at his pet dog.
"Doggy!" he had squealed once, hours before the house had been torched.
Sirius could still feel the little boy in his arms at the hospital, looking up to him in complete trust and love. He would hold him again someday. He would protect him and teach him all about his father and what his father did. He swore himself that oath.
Sirius smiled to himself in this dark cold dismal dungeon. Not all was lost. He was a father. He had a child out there, alive and safe.
"Harry," he whispered, looking to the moon once again as it peered from behind the clouds and rain. It was not full yet, "Harry Potter."
Harry Potter, Peter thought to himself, shivering. He fell down, losing his footing on the side of the Muggle sewers. He had to make it out of here. He had to run away from that horrible scene he had created. He would start a new life. He would begin again.
And hide from the world that wanted to kill him.
Harry Potter was still alive. But Harry would know nothing of him. He would know nothing of the three men who had stood alongside his father and mother. And if he did know of them, he would be taught to hate the werewolf who had abandoned them and the murderer who had betrayed them. And poor Peter Pettigrew. He was a good man. He went chasing after Sirius Black. He wanted to be the hero he never could be. After his unwavering loyalty to the Potters, he had given his life for them. He had faced the evil Black and had died for it.
That is how it would go down in the history books. He had read the Daily Prophet for the past two weeks. And he knew this now. He knew what the world thought.
Yet the Dark Lord's followers knew the real story. They knew that Peter had been praised for his efforts, being a double spy for the Order. And now they all would be out, looking for that man. As far as they knew, he was dead. He had killed himself in that explosion.
He lay in the sewer water, not moving a muscle. He had fallen and didn't have enough energy to get up.
What had he done.
What had he done.
"Remus," the wolf sneered, drawing closer, "You were the monster all along. What do you think of that."
"That isn't what she said," Remus said in a dull tone.
"That's exactly what she said. The fear. I know that I'm certainly not the fear. I have no fear."
Sirius remembered a time when James and Remus and him had been all together in the Shrieking Shack. The dawn had just come, and Remus had just changed back from a wolf to a boy. Peter had been on the lookout for Pomfrey. And Sirius and James smiled at Remus.
"We did it again," James said in that lively tone. One that Sirius thought would never fade out of his memories. But even now, that voice was growing dimmer. The face of his friend was disappearing and mixing with faces of strangers.
"You mean you did it," Sirius said, sitting exhausted on the ground, "Remus Lupin, congrats."
Remus had smiled. Not the faint smile that his friend usually wore. A true smile. One without restrictions.
"Prongs! Come here for a minute, would you?" Peter's voice shouted from the tunnel. James got to his feet, and ducked under the floorboards.
"You did it," Sirius said, nodding towards Remus, "You stayed with us all night."
Remus returned the nod, and sighed, tired from the excursions of his battle.
"One day," Sirius remembered himself saying, "One day, you'll get the best of him. You'll kill him. And then, you really will have done it."
Remus nodded again.
"The real Lupin lives here," Sirius said, touching Remus's fast beating heart with his palm, "Never forget that."
Wormtail continued through the tunnels of sewage. Farther and farther from the crime scene. Closer to a destination not yet agreed upon.
Remus stirred in his sleep as he sat in his chair on the porch. He had pulled a blanket around his body, and trying to drone the wolf out. He remembered a time now, more clearer than the others. Much more clearer than the others.
Sirius had pointed to his heart one night, when Remus was doubting all. After Remus doubted even his own sanity. He had beaten the wolf, but the creature was still lurking in the corners of his mind.
"The real Lupin lives here."
It was raining above, Peter realized as he stepped underneath a gutter. The drainage fell onto his head, and he whimpered. His clothes were torn. His knees were scabbed. His hair was matted with feces and other wastes. He smelled of a sewer rat.
That's what he was. A rat.
Sirius shifted on his ledge, and continued to stare at the moon. He was innocent. This would give him back his sanity. He would hold onto that thought ... that resounding answer of no ... until he could fit through these bars and fly away to Harry. He would savor those words no and innocent until their sound seemed alien and unfamiliar to him. He would sit there, on that ledge, for eternity until he either died or was set free.
He would escape this cell.
He would not die here.
He did not deserve to die here.
"Wake up, Remus," the wolf sneered, "The moon is out tonight."
Remus opened his eyes, and looked up at the moon. The moon that had bound all four of them together with so much suffering and love that at times it had been unbearable. He stared at the moon, as if it linked him to the children who once gazed at it through a break in the boards that hid the devilish world of werewolves and pain from the exterior of the Shrieking Shack and beyond. As if it linked him to James's proposal to Lily, when they both stood under that glowing light and confessed their love. As if it linked him to that night at Dolohov's when Sirius had come rushing in to save him. When James would die for him.
As if it linked him to that last breath of Lily's. When she fell onto the hard floor of her home. And died.
"Remus," the wolf sniggered hauntingly.
"You're wrong," Remus whispered, his cold breath becoming ice in front of him.
The wolf perked up, and raised his head, his ears twitching.
"Wrong about what, praytell?" he said, a hint of worry in his voice.
"You do fear something," Remus said, that slight smile breaking through his mask, "You fear that you will disappear. You fear that I won't be afraid of you any longer. You fear that I will kill you."
"You could never ..."
"Je ne mourrai pas," Remus whispered to himself, and looked back to the axe in the chopped wood. He stood, the blanket falling off of him, "Mais tu ... Tu mourras."
"Remus," the wolf laughed. Remus didn't respond. He just focused on that axe. And he walked towards it. Leaving the wolf to himself on the porch.
"Remus?" the wolf said.
Remus didn't answer.
"REMUS!" the wolf howled.
Sirius, hearing the dementors draw nearer, held onto those words for a longer time. Innocent. He was innocent.
Keep your eyes on that moon, a voice in his head said loud and clear, That is your freedom.
"Je ne mourrai pas," he said in a silent tone, only to himself, "Je ne mourrai pas."
Remus felt the axe handle in his hand as the slivers threatened to pierce his rough skin. He let the blade fall, falling farther and farther ... closer and closer to that wood that had sat there untouched for so long.
Chop.
The log snapped into two.
And the axe fell into the tree stump. The wolf still howled in his ears.
But he wouldn't look at the wolf. No. He did not fear it any longer.
Peter sat in the waters, staring through the gutter hole above his head. Looking at the moon again. It was a half moon. His friend Remus would be facing his dangers again soon enough.
What was it that Remus had always said? What was that phrase that he had held onto for so long? That he had whispered to the winds whenever he had felt any sort of anger or twinge of fright?
They were French words. Words that he surely couldn't remember the meaning of now as he sat in the sewers. But he knew they had a meaning.
Sirius fell asleep there on the ledge of the iron barred window. He would wake in the morning to another dark and cruel day. And after weeks and weeks of torture, he would find comfort in the body of his old friend Padfoot. And Padfoot would give him his salvation. He would prance around his cell, thinking of what he would say to Remus when he met him again. Thinking of what to tell Harry when Harry believed that he had killed James. Thinking of the days to come.
But those days were not that moment.
In that moment, he had no salvation. He had no thoughts of the future. He had the moon, and the memories.
"Je ne mourrai pas," were his last words before his head nodded to his chest, and his hand loosened its grip on the crease of his sleeve.
"Je ne mourrai pas."
"Je ne mourrai pas," Remus said, murderously, as he threw the axe to the ground and looked back to where the wolf sat.
But the wolf had gone.
"Je ne mourrai pas," Peter said, swallowing hard, "Je ne mourrai pas."
He would live through this. He had gotten this far. He couldn't give up now.
Remus let himself back into the now empty cabin. The wolf was still no where in sight.
He threw his shirt off, and walked into his front room. He fell onto his bed, his mask still in place. He had taken on the persona of a man. He had come into his own.
The monster had been killed.
His nightmares had been defeated.
And now he could dream of a better tomorrow. Now he could dream of possibilities and happiness to follow this dismal night.
He felt his head hit the pillow, stained with the blood of nightmares gone by. He covered his legs with his ratted blankets, and looked out the window to the moon. His eye creased, ever so slightly, as if he was daring it to shift from half to full.
Come on, he seemed to say, Let's see your worst.
"Je ne mourrai pas," he said once more before falling into a dream.
The dream was about him flying.
High above the clouds.
And James and Lily and Peter were all below him, jumping and laughing and shouting up to him.
He knew that if he went past the clouds, and past the sun and the moon and the stars ... that they would still be there, shouting for him, when he returned.
And for the first time in his life, Remus Lupin was alive.
(MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR. READ: First off, I want to thank everyone who has been so supportive to "Forever Alive" throughout almost a year now. This is, indeed, the last chapter. Yet it is not finished. The Epilogue will be updated onto this site Wednesday, July 7, 2004, at midnight Eastern Standard Time. Sorry for the delay, life's been hectic. I will be willing to answer any questions about "Forever Alive" that you would want to ask. Also, I am thinking about starting a much shorter and condensed fanfiction story after the conclusion of this one. It will not be as long, and will take about a week to write. I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a Snape fic? If anyone has any other ideas, please post them with your questions. Just leave your queries and ideas/suggestions in your review of this chapter. All questions will be answered in a special "Reply to the Reviewers," posted on the review board one hour before the Epilogue is posted. Thank you for your support, yet again, and I hope that you will enjoy this last chapter of the Marauders' saga.)
"Come on, Lupin!" James laughed as he ran down the hall. He was carrying his broomstick, "Put your money where your mouth is!"
Remus laughed nervously as he was tugged along by Peter.
"Come on! Hurry up! We're getting behind him! Let's go!" Peter prodded. Sirius laughed, and shoved the two younger runts forward.
"Oh, I could do better," Sirius mocked Remus, "Better than you, James. Well, let's just see how well you do."
James was still ahead of the four of them, and he paused for a moment as they rounded a corner. His face melted into what Sirius called the "Evans" look. Lily was here somewhere in the vicinity of the boys.
"Evans! Hey, Evans!" James shouted as his three friends caught up with him. Remus saw the beautiful red locks of hair as he came to a halt. Sirius bumped into him. Sirius had been taller than him at the time.
That would change in the years to come.
"Potter," she said, but she didn't sound too thrilled with the exclamation.
"Out to hex anyone today?" she asked, and James mussed his hair nervously.
"No, just out to show Remus how to ride a broom," he said, waving a hand in Lupin's direction, "That's all."
"Yeah, he reckons he can fly better than James here," Sirius chortled, and Remus turned a bright shade of red. Lily smiled, and her beautiful green eyes looked into the mousy brown ones of the little boy. His still blond hair was shoved into his eyes, and Lily gave him a smile. It was a nice smile. Not a flirting one, or one that reminded him of his mother's ... it was just a friendly smile.
He forgot all about the broom. The next thing he knew, James was showing off for Peter and Sirius in the courtyard with his flying tricks, and he and Lily were sitting outside on the banisters. They watched James give two loops high in the air, and then swarm down to the ground going as fast as a hawk.
"Why are you so quiet, Remus?" Lily asked. She was thirteen. A beautiful age to be. Still a little girl, but growing into a gentle and kind woman.
"I ... I don't know," Remus stammered, giving her a shy look, "I've never been one for talking, I guess."
Lily nodded, as if contemplating something, and then looked back up to the sky to where her future husband flew. Of course, she hadn't known this at the time. None of them had known what was to happen to them all. Peter dead. Sirius a traitor. James dead. And Lily ...
Those green eyes would burn out sooner than expected.
"Have you ever flown before?" Lily asked quietly, looking up to the man she would die with.
"No," Remus said truthfully.
"How come?"
"I ... I'm ... well, I'm ..."
"Scared?" Lily asked, looking at him again with those eyes. Remus nodded slowly, afraid even to admit it. Lily smiled again, and set her perfect pale hand on his rough shoulder.
"Are you scared of everything?" she asked, as if discovering a new animal.
"Yes, I guess. In a way. Isn't everyone, though?"
"Are you scared of me?" she asked.
"Somewhat."
"Are you scared of James?"
"I guess sometimes."
"How about Sirius?"
"When he gets angry."
"And you," she asked, "Are you scared of yourself?"
Remus felt his throat clench up. The wolf, just starting to form and take on a voice in his head, laughed from the bowels of his mind. He felt his breathing become shallow, and he looked back to the courtyard. Sirius was jumping around, hollering to the skies. Peter was wringing his hands together excitedly, as if he was picturing himself gloriously perched ontop of that broomstick high up in the clouds.
"More than anything else," he muttered, and Lily's smile faded. There was no way that she could have understood or known of the beast lurking within. She didn't know that this tiny boy sitting next to her turned into a monster that grown men would have liked to kill. Or that he could kill grown men. Who knew. Maybe he had.
But there was understanding in her green eyes. She understood him.
"How come?" she asked again.
"I'm not a good ..." he wanted to say person. But he couldn't use that word. He wasn't fit for that word. He wasn't a person.
"I'm not what everyone sees," he whispered, and Lily set her silky hand underneath his chin, and directed his eyes to look at her. She had wisdom past her years.
"Remus, you want to know what I see?" she said, and Remus nodded weakly. Her smile didn't return, but her face glew with happiness and truth as she spoke to him.
"I see an amazing spirit. I see a boy who is good. Who is beautiful. I see someone who will grow to do great things. He just doesn't realize that yet," her hand fell back into her lap, and they both heard James land on the ground, "Don't ever forget that. You have a light in your eyes. Don't let it die."
Remus nodded obediently.
"Lupin! It's your turn!" Sirius said, shouting over to him as he walked across the grass, holding James' broom in his hands, "Come on! Let's see how well you ride!"
Remus jumped off of the banister, and walked to Sirius. His good friend, Sirius. How it pained him now to remember.
He reached for the broom, and Sirius didn't let go. Remus drew in nearer as Sirius leaned over him.
"Tonight, right?" he said, "You go tonight?"
"Yeah," Remus said quietly, "I do."
"You want me to come?"
"I'd kill you."
"I know," Sirius said, unfaltering.
Remus looked up at the boy who was struggling day and night to crack the code of the Animagus spells. He couldn't yet turn into a dog. Didn't he know the consequences of what he was proposing?
"No, Sirius, you ..."
"Do you want me to come, Remus."
Remus shook his head, "No. I don't."
And Sirius nodded. He understood.
Sirius had been willing to die for his friends. Even at a young age. Even at the tender year of thirteen he had been willing to sacrifice his well being.
So why had he turned?
This memory still haunted him.
"You want me to come?"
"I'd kill you."
"I know."
Sirius Black. He had shown Voldemort to the door of the Potters. He had killed James. He couldn't believe it.
That's what all the papers read.
That's what the world told him.
Sirius Black had killed James Potter.
It seemed like the world had not only stopped, but it had ended as well. The eyes of Alice Longbottom haunted Remus to that moment. They stood for all that had gone and had been replaced by a façade of a life. He had found himself last night, looking up to the moon, and remembering those days in the shack. Yearning to have one more go at it. One more night with the four of them. So young. So ...
Alive.
And then he had remembered a memory that hadn't meant much to him at the time. It was funny how one forgets the most significant things and cherishes the most intricate details. It had been a night in fifth year, a few months after they had gotten used to their newly found powers. Moony and Padfoot had been wrestling on the ground. And Prongs had been watching from above his tall neck. Wormtail was squeaking around, shouting up at the larger dogs.
It was that small memory that sparked tears in the creases of Remus's eyes. He hadn't cried for Sirius. But he did now.
What had they not done to fulfill his life? Why had he done such a thing to James? Why the hell had he turned into what he had?
When the morning had come that day, Remus had left the cabin with no intentions of going to the Wizengamot Trials of the afternoon. He was on another mission. He needed to let it out. It was pounding in his head. All of it.
He turned the corner of the corridor of the school, and into a familiar classroom. Unfamiliar children sat in the same seats that his friends and him had sat in. The friends that had died such horrible deaths.
And the one man that he thought he had known.
How coud he have been so blinded by friendship and love and trust?
He didn't even notice the old woman at the front of the classroom pause from her lecture, and give him that all too familiar look over her glasses. She sighed, checked her watch, and then turned to the children set in front of her.
"Class dismissed for the day," she said, and the students grabbed their books and things and ran for the door, past the poker faced man in torn robes. He didn't even notice them.
"Mister Lupin, I presume," Professor McGonagall said, setting her wand down upon the desk, "Fancy seeing you here."
Remus jumped, and stepped farther into the room. He had a look of anxiety in his eyes and complexion. He wrung his hands together; an old habit that Professor McGonagall hadn't seen him do for years.
"Professor," he said, coming closer, "I need a few minutes of your time, if you have it. I don't know when your next class is ..."
"It's soon," his old teacher said, very confused, "Is there something wrong, Mister Lupin?"
During his time here at Hogwarts, Remus had felt cared for by one teacher. The teacher he had almost killed in his dormitory room one night. The teacher who had told Dumbledore that she would risk her well being to accompany him once a month.
"I ... I need someone to talk to," Remus said truthfully, "I know you're busy, but I really need to ... just talk. That's it."
Professor McGonagall had never seen him like this. So angered. So upset. She took her wand in her hand, and with worried eyes, nodded sympathetically.
"All right, Mister Lupin," she said, as the first student came filing into her classroom. She motioned towards her office door, and then turned to the student, "Amelia, you are in charge of the class until I return. I expect you to be on your best behavior."
Amelia nodded, and the professor followed her old student into the back room.
"Do you feel guilt?" Professor McGonagall asked him quietly as he took a seat in the chair across from her. He looked like the student again, ready to be taught a lesson by just another teacher of Hogwarts.
"I don't know what I feel," Remus said. This was the first time he had spoken of such things. The first time he left his guard and let his secrets out. He couldn't even talk of these things with James ...
James.
"Losing a loved one is the hardest obstacle one faces," she said understandingly, "I have lost many in my lifetime. As will you in years to come."
"Years to come," Remus huffed, "Professor, how many more years?"
"What?" she asked.
"How many more years do I have to endure this hell?" he begged of her, "All of it, banging against the inside of my skull! Professor, I was taught to stare death in the face and laugh. I was taught to face my monsters. To kill them. To do whatever I could to see their end. And I've tried! I've tried to keep a straight face! I've tried not to listen to him!"
"Remus ... who ..."
"But he's there! Pounding me into the ground. He knows I'll die before he does! And then what? Then I'm just a demon! I'm a monster! I was the one they pointed their finger at first! I was the one that James thought it was. I can imagine them, all standing around, going 'You know, that Lupin is unstable! We've known him for some odd years, and he's done nothing but try to maul us to pieces! To try to get us killed! He acts as if he has a good head on his shoulders! But no! He doesn't! He's just what Klien thought he was ...'"
"Mister Lupin, you're not making any sense ..."
"Someone told me once that I had a light. That under everything, I had a light. And she told me not to let it die. She told me that! And I listened! And I tried to continue to listen as the years wore on. But Professor, I have seen so much death! How can one live among death!? How can I continue to listen to Lily's voice about not dying when she IS dead!? When James ... When James' best friend kills him in cold blood? How can I believe in my world? How can I keep that light shining?"
"Mister Lupin ..."
"And Alice," Remus said, standing up, his poker face falling off in a matter of moments, "She stared at me. She stared right at me. Right through me! She didn't even feel Neville in her arms! She's alive, but inside ... inside she's gone. They're all dead. How long will it be until I'm dead?"
"I ..."
"I have tried, Professor! I have tried to be the smart one! I was always the smart one! The one who knew right from wrong! The one who would tell them not to do something or keep them out of trouble! That was always me!" Remus cried, his hands becoming fists, "But when they needed me the most, what did I do? I told them off, and slammed the door behind me. I didn't even look back! I didn't even ... look ... at that murderer ... and ... he was right there. I could have killed him. I could have stopped him."
"You were always the smart one," Professor McGonagall said, interrupting him while she had the chance, "But you were never the strong one."
With this remark, Remus looked to his old teacher, broken. All formalities that remained disappeared. His mask fell to the ground and shattered. And the professor watched as the headstrong man Remus had worked so hard to become fell away and revealed that little boy who had not disappeared after all. The little boy who had been so frightened of himself that he could trust no one. Not even his own judgement.
And Remus cried.
He fell to the ground, head in hands, knees to arms, and cried.
The room was quiet for a moment as Professor McGonagall looked to her student, no trace of sympathy or understanding on her face. She was appalled.
"I don't know what to do," Remus said, his raspy voice breaking the silence, "I don't know what to do anymore."
"You're alive," she said tersely, "You should count that as a blessing."
"I don't want to be alive," Remus said darkly, and Professor McGonagall slammed her hand down on the desk.
"Look at yourself!" she barked, "Look at what you are resorting to! What do you think James would say if he could see you now! What if he was standing there in that corner, looking at you bawl like a little first year?"
Remus didn't answer. If only James was standing there.
"After all he did," Professor McGonagall said, "After all that he did to try and save you. To protect you, this is how you repay his memory. By crying. By giving up!"
"I'm not giving up ..."
"Mister Lupin, you still haven't defeated him," she interrupted him, "You still haven't killed that monster."
"I can't!" Remus said, standing up, "There is no cure! I'm a werewolf, Professor I always will be a werewolf!"
"The monster was never the wolf, Mister Lupin!" she shouted. Remus jumped back, now afraid. He had never seen her like this, "The monster was your fear."
He didn't understand. Professor McGonagall sighed, and patted her bun to make sure it was still in place. They both could hear the children outside, ready for their Transfiguration class.
"That is the monster that has consumed you, Mister Lupin," she said, "And that is the monster that is consuming you now. Yes, James is dead. That will not change. He won't be coming back to save you from yourself again. Now you must do that for yourself. You have to find the man inside, and realize that you are alive. That you are not in Azkaban. That you're name isn't on that bloody wall with so many people that are not as lucky as you to be standing there, able to breathe."
Remus looked to her as she gathered her books and things. She came from behind her desk, and looked up into the eyes of the man now taller than her. He had stopped crying, and the mask was placed back on. Never to be removed again.
"They will never truly die, Remus," she said in a softer tone, placing a hand on his shoulder. It was old and cracked, unlike the hand of Lily's that had laid itself there years ago, "Their memory, and their lessons, but most importantly their love ... those things remain forever alive in our hearts."
"Forever alive," Remus mumbled, now dumb to the world. Now unable to see anything but the dancing faces of four boys in front of his eyes. So young.
"Yes," Professor McGonagall said, patting his arm for support, and then walking to the door.
When Remus looked up, she was gone.
It rained that night. It rained hard. Remus sat on his porch, staring at the rusting axe in the wood. He hadn't touched it for months. The last time he had chopped wood had been the day of Harry's birth. Harry.
He wondered how Harry was.
"That old hag," the wolf scoffed, yawning and setting himself at Remus's feet, "Thinking she knows us. But we both know she doesn't."
It was raining. He could see it outside the iron bars of the window. It hit the stone and bricks with so much force. Making little puddles and tidepools in the cracks and crevices. Sirius stared at them, with fascination. That rain was free. Those stones and bricks were free. So close to him, and yet a lifetime away from where he sat on the ledge of the window.
The dementors had taken another break, had decided to go torture some other victim. Sirius was left to think. Left to stare at the cold stone and the cold sky and the cold thunderclouds above.
Remus.
He had thought it to be Remus. How could he have even suspected him?
And now Remus. The last Marauder. Alone out there somewhere.
"He'll die," he said aloud to himself, "He doesn't have us. That thing will kill him."
Kill him.
For the past two weeks, he had played those images around and around in his head. The glowing rubble of the Godric's Hollow street. The dead face of James. The hair of Lily. And the sewer opening up to the hells below.
The one thing that kept his madness at bay was Frank's question.
"Were you responsible for the deaths of James and Lily Potter."
He had heard it in his head. It had been from far away. But it had rang in his head for days. And for days he had contemplated his answer. He had repeated it to himself as he paced his cell, counting every brick. Timing every moment that went by.
"Yes," he would whisper to himself.
When the dementors were close to him, he would see that scene in his flat play out again. Him begging Lily and James to listen to him. Him pleading with them to get Peter.
They had trusted him.
They were now dead.
Sirius bit his lip as he looked out to the clouds above him. The moon. He couldn't see the moon tonight. He wondered if Remus could.
"You didn't kill them," he whispered now, "You didn't turn them in. You tried to be their friend. You tried to save them. And you would have given your life for them."
After a week had passed of the "Yes"'s being whispered between the lapses of insanity and the memories of his childhood home and the deaths of James and Elise and Lily and his friends, the answer had changed.
He saw Peter's face, before the explosion. A complete look of content. He had outsmarted his genius friends. He had finally come out on top. He was finally soaring through the sky instead of James.
And that look helped the clouds in Sirius's own mind part. A moment of clear thinking had come to him.
He was innocent.
It had been a cold night a few evenings ago that he had sat here, on this ledge, and looked up to the half moon. And it was then that he had answered correctly.
"No." he muttered, "No."
Sirius's chest hurt from the tattoos that they had engraved into his skin. His clothes were torn. His hair was matted with his own blood. His eye ached. But his spirit was not broken.
It never would be.
Peter's face always came in and out of dreams. And after Peter had melted away into the darkness of his memories, another face would come. The face of a little boy.
Laughing at his pet dog.
"Doggy!" he had squealed once, hours before the house had been torched.
Sirius could still feel the little boy in his arms at the hospital, looking up to him in complete trust and love. He would hold him again someday. He would protect him and teach him all about his father and what his father did. He swore himself that oath.
Sirius smiled to himself in this dark cold dismal dungeon. Not all was lost. He was a father. He had a child out there, alive and safe.
"Harry," he whispered, looking to the moon once again as it peered from behind the clouds and rain. It was not full yet, "Harry Potter."
Harry Potter, Peter thought to himself, shivering. He fell down, losing his footing on the side of the Muggle sewers. He had to make it out of here. He had to run away from that horrible scene he had created. He would start a new life. He would begin again.
And hide from the world that wanted to kill him.
Harry Potter was still alive. But Harry would know nothing of him. He would know nothing of the three men who had stood alongside his father and mother. And if he did know of them, he would be taught to hate the werewolf who had abandoned them and the murderer who had betrayed them. And poor Peter Pettigrew. He was a good man. He went chasing after Sirius Black. He wanted to be the hero he never could be. After his unwavering loyalty to the Potters, he had given his life for them. He had faced the evil Black and had died for it.
That is how it would go down in the history books. He had read the Daily Prophet for the past two weeks. And he knew this now. He knew what the world thought.
Yet the Dark Lord's followers knew the real story. They knew that Peter had been praised for his efforts, being a double spy for the Order. And now they all would be out, looking for that man. As far as they knew, he was dead. He had killed himself in that explosion.
He lay in the sewer water, not moving a muscle. He had fallen and didn't have enough energy to get up.
What had he done.
What had he done.
"Remus," the wolf sneered, drawing closer, "You were the monster all along. What do you think of that."
"That isn't what she said," Remus said in a dull tone.
"That's exactly what she said. The fear. I know that I'm certainly not the fear. I have no fear."
Sirius remembered a time when James and Remus and him had been all together in the Shrieking Shack. The dawn had just come, and Remus had just changed back from a wolf to a boy. Peter had been on the lookout for Pomfrey. And Sirius and James smiled at Remus.
"We did it again," James said in that lively tone. One that Sirius thought would never fade out of his memories. But even now, that voice was growing dimmer. The face of his friend was disappearing and mixing with faces of strangers.
"You mean you did it," Sirius said, sitting exhausted on the ground, "Remus Lupin, congrats."
Remus had smiled. Not the faint smile that his friend usually wore. A true smile. One without restrictions.
"Prongs! Come here for a minute, would you?" Peter's voice shouted from the tunnel. James got to his feet, and ducked under the floorboards.
"You did it," Sirius said, nodding towards Remus, "You stayed with us all night."
Remus returned the nod, and sighed, tired from the excursions of his battle.
"One day," Sirius remembered himself saying, "One day, you'll get the best of him. You'll kill him. And then, you really will have done it."
Remus nodded again.
"The real Lupin lives here," Sirius said, touching Remus's fast beating heart with his palm, "Never forget that."
Wormtail continued through the tunnels of sewage. Farther and farther from the crime scene. Closer to a destination not yet agreed upon.
Remus stirred in his sleep as he sat in his chair on the porch. He had pulled a blanket around his body, and trying to drone the wolf out. He remembered a time now, more clearer than the others. Much more clearer than the others.
Sirius had pointed to his heart one night, when Remus was doubting all. After Remus doubted even his own sanity. He had beaten the wolf, but the creature was still lurking in the corners of his mind.
"The real Lupin lives here."
It was raining above, Peter realized as he stepped underneath a gutter. The drainage fell onto his head, and he whimpered. His clothes were torn. His knees were scabbed. His hair was matted with feces and other wastes. He smelled of a sewer rat.
That's what he was. A rat.
Sirius shifted on his ledge, and continued to stare at the moon. He was innocent. This would give him back his sanity. He would hold onto that thought ... that resounding answer of no ... until he could fit through these bars and fly away to Harry. He would savor those words no and innocent until their sound seemed alien and unfamiliar to him. He would sit there, on that ledge, for eternity until he either died or was set free.
He would escape this cell.
He would not die here.
He did not deserve to die here.
"Wake up, Remus," the wolf sneered, "The moon is out tonight."
Remus opened his eyes, and looked up at the moon. The moon that had bound all four of them together with so much suffering and love that at times it had been unbearable. He stared at the moon, as if it linked him to the children who once gazed at it through a break in the boards that hid the devilish world of werewolves and pain from the exterior of the Shrieking Shack and beyond. As if it linked him to James's proposal to Lily, when they both stood under that glowing light and confessed their love. As if it linked him to that night at Dolohov's when Sirius had come rushing in to save him. When James would die for him.
As if it linked him to that last breath of Lily's. When she fell onto the hard floor of her home. And died.
"Remus," the wolf sniggered hauntingly.
"You're wrong," Remus whispered, his cold breath becoming ice in front of him.
The wolf perked up, and raised his head, his ears twitching.
"Wrong about what, praytell?" he said, a hint of worry in his voice.
"You do fear something," Remus said, that slight smile breaking through his mask, "You fear that you will disappear. You fear that I won't be afraid of you any longer. You fear that I will kill you."
"You could never ..."
"Je ne mourrai pas," Remus whispered to himself, and looked back to the axe in the chopped wood. He stood, the blanket falling off of him, "Mais tu ... Tu mourras."
"Remus," the wolf laughed. Remus didn't respond. He just focused on that axe. And he walked towards it. Leaving the wolf to himself on the porch.
"Remus?" the wolf said.
Remus didn't answer.
"REMUS!" the wolf howled.
Sirius, hearing the dementors draw nearer, held onto those words for a longer time. Innocent. He was innocent.
Keep your eyes on that moon, a voice in his head said loud and clear, That is your freedom.
"Je ne mourrai pas," he said in a silent tone, only to himself, "Je ne mourrai pas."
Remus felt the axe handle in his hand as the slivers threatened to pierce his rough skin. He let the blade fall, falling farther and farther ... closer and closer to that wood that had sat there untouched for so long.
Chop.
The log snapped into two.
And the axe fell into the tree stump. The wolf still howled in his ears.
But he wouldn't look at the wolf. No. He did not fear it any longer.
Peter sat in the waters, staring through the gutter hole above his head. Looking at the moon again. It was a half moon. His friend Remus would be facing his dangers again soon enough.
What was it that Remus had always said? What was that phrase that he had held onto for so long? That he had whispered to the winds whenever he had felt any sort of anger or twinge of fright?
They were French words. Words that he surely couldn't remember the meaning of now as he sat in the sewers. But he knew they had a meaning.
Sirius fell asleep there on the ledge of the iron barred window. He would wake in the morning to another dark and cruel day. And after weeks and weeks of torture, he would find comfort in the body of his old friend Padfoot. And Padfoot would give him his salvation. He would prance around his cell, thinking of what he would say to Remus when he met him again. Thinking of what to tell Harry when Harry believed that he had killed James. Thinking of the days to come.
But those days were not that moment.
In that moment, he had no salvation. He had no thoughts of the future. He had the moon, and the memories.
"Je ne mourrai pas," were his last words before his head nodded to his chest, and his hand loosened its grip on the crease of his sleeve.
"Je ne mourrai pas."
"Je ne mourrai pas," Remus said, murderously, as he threw the axe to the ground and looked back to where the wolf sat.
But the wolf had gone.
"Je ne mourrai pas," Peter said, swallowing hard, "Je ne mourrai pas."
He would live through this. He had gotten this far. He couldn't give up now.
Remus let himself back into the now empty cabin. The wolf was still no where in sight.
He threw his shirt off, and walked into his front room. He fell onto his bed, his mask still in place. He had taken on the persona of a man. He had come into his own.
The monster had been killed.
His nightmares had been defeated.
And now he could dream of a better tomorrow. Now he could dream of possibilities and happiness to follow this dismal night.
He felt his head hit the pillow, stained with the blood of nightmares gone by. He covered his legs with his ratted blankets, and looked out the window to the moon. His eye creased, ever so slightly, as if he was daring it to shift from half to full.
Come on, he seemed to say, Let's see your worst.
"Je ne mourrai pas," he said once more before falling into a dream.
The dream was about him flying.
High above the clouds.
And James and Lily and Peter were all below him, jumping and laughing and shouting up to him.
He knew that if he went past the clouds, and past the sun and the moon and the stars ... that they would still be there, shouting for him, when he returned.
And for the first time in his life, Remus Lupin was alive.