Category: I really have no idea, so I've put it in Drama.
Rating: PG-13 to be safe as there are references to AIDS and other troubling subjects.
Summary: There really isn't a true summary, but I wrote a little one to attract readers, muwahaha!
Author's Notes: This was written for a sort of personal challenge. My sister drew an absolutely exquisite portrait of David Thewlis' Lupin, and though I was inspired, I didn't know what to write, so she challenged me to come up with something unlike anything she had never read before. Because her drawing looked so much like a faded photograph, I thought, "What if a little homeless girl found a photo of Lupin in the trash and thought it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen? What if she kept it and looked at it over the years and thought of him as a friend even though they'd never met?" This is what I came up with.
For my purposes, Grimmauld Place is easily accessible and has a pastry shop on the corner, so don't flame me for that or I'll happily let my pet dragon Lulu flame you back. This takes place after OotP and assumes that Sirius left Lupin the Black family manor in his will. Also, there are littered quotes of songs and the occasional paraphrasing of Kate's favorite book, Girl, Interrupted. Cookies and ten points to the house of your choice if you can pick them out. I may or may not continue this, and why Lupin was throwing away a photo of himself might be explained; it all depends on what kind of feedback I get, so if you want to read more, owl me, or just leave a little reply.
Thank Yous: For Kate, who inspired this piece with flawless precision and tireless dedication to her artwork. Angel, who always inspires me to become a better writer. When your first novel is published, I'd better get that autographed copy. Sarah, your kindness and humor always make even the worst of days brighter and bearable. And finally, last but never least, Carol, my demented muse and constant confidant. If you quit now, they win; I know you'll understand what I mean when you remember which characters share our birthdays. Blood relation or not, you're all my sisters. Fluffy bunnies and big hugs to all. Oh, and many thanks to those of you who're still reading. And now... on with the show!
Her name was Koran, and she was ten years old. As far as she knew, she had no surname, no birthday, and no living relatives. She had lived on the streets and back alleys of London since she was six years old, protected by the unspoken code of honor amongst the homeless which stated that children should be given whatever food could be found. She had shared a cardboard box with a man who called himself Prince Albert and reeked of oily vodka, and when he died, an elderly woman who was known only as The Angel of Mercy, Mercy for short, had taken her in, and an angel of mercy she was. Mercy spent her days scrounging for food while Koran slept under the watchful gaze of a group of speed-chess players in London Park, and her nights were spent with spindly arms wound around the girl to offer what little warmth she had. Koran had a purpose on this earth, or so Mercy told her, she was supposed to be one of God's children, and the meek would one day inherit the treasures of the earth. Koran often sat for hours as Mercy recited passages from the Bible, and she learned to bow her head at her infrequent meals as the Good Book said was proper; she also believed that the Good Book was missing quite a few pages. In her younger years, she had tried desperately to believe Mercy's words, but in the end there was no awakening, no omen sent from God that she would be saved, and so she had stopped believing.
Koran, unlike the vast majority of children who had grown up on the streets, could read. Not only could she read, but she read at a level that rivaled that of most high school freshmen, and she plundered through each trashcan she could reach into for the sacred treasures the others called books. At times she truly pitied those living in their safe, warm homes, the others, as street people called them, for they knew not the power that they held in their hands each day when they picked up the morning newspaper. She did not read the news, for the events written about seemed to have happened in another universe entirely. Instead, she read novels of fiction in the hopes of being transported to another place and time. Mercy always turned down her offers to read such books as she had a worn copy of the Bible. Koran thought she had no need for it; she had memorized it word for word. Still, she never pressed the ancient woman to read any of her precious novels, rather she allowed her to be content with her God, with a faith that she would never have. And she did not envy the old woman the strength of her convictions, for they were her gift as surely as skepticism was Koran's gift.
Seeing was believing, and what she had seen were the lifeless bodies of her parents after her father, drunk, out of work, and thinking that death for all was the best option, had driven their old Buick into the side of a train. She alone had survived, and she had hidden herself away in the woods until the inspectors had left hours later. She had also seen Prince Albert slowly wither and die of a disease spoken of in whispered tones, a disease so terrible that it was called only by letters rather than a true word. He had taken to drinking heavily toward the end in a vain attempt to hide his horrific pain from everyone, even himself, and in the end, he had succumbed to pneumonia, his feeble shoulders heaving with one last breath as he entreated Mercy to watch over the girl, watch over his baby Kora, the daughter he never had. Now, she watched as Mercy, whose ebony skin had once been plump and shining turned to a sallow shade of gray as she too deteriorated from her three years of giving all but the smallest of morsels of food to Koran.
It was almost like a disease, Koran often thought. Kindness was a disease. Had her father not been so blindly trusting, he would not have invested his money with a crook, and therefore would not have wanted to end the suffering of his family and himself. Had Prince Albert eaten more, he would have lived longer. Did Mercy not start eating more, she would join the others in death, and Koran, malnourished but fed, would be left to survive on the streets as she never had: alone. But she was not alone now, and as Mercy planted herself in the doorway of a pastry shop and begged for any scraps the shopkeeper would offer, she climbed onto a stack of old crates and lifted the lid of a dented metal trashcan. The shop was near a residential area, so there was a good chance that she would find a book or perhaps leftover food the others thought themselves too good to eat. It was a good neighborhood to find treasures in, and the previous week she had found a child's comb, light aqua with a red-haired mermaid on it, with two of the teeth broken off. She wondered if the girl's mother had spent so much time combing her daughter's hair so that it was shining and lustrous that the comb had simply given out, just as Prince Albert's body had given out from ill and frequent use. She had kept the comb, and sometimes she liked to look at it and wonder what it would be like to be in the girl's place, to have a real home and someone to call Mum, and yet she did not regret her life with Mercy, who said that living on the street would give her character and strength. She never regretted Prince Albert, who had taught her cheerful songs, and she never regretted Mercy, who was endlessly kind; Mercy, who was the reason she was searching through the trash now. The old woman would turn sixty-eight in two days, and Koran wanted to find some sort of gift for her, though not even the crown jewels were good enough for the dark-skinned goddess.
She almost dismissed the can when she at first found nothing but a few wrappers from chocolate bars and an empty bottle of whiskey, but below the common rubbish, she found a true prize in the form of an old suit coat, which had been patched many times and finally discarded when it had become too threadbare to provide any real warmth. The coat was rather symbolic of how she felt, patched and with no real use in a wealthy neighborhood. She glanced at the street sign and pondered the name: Grimmauld Place. She pulled the coat from the trashcan and dusted it off before burying her face in it as she did with each article of clothing she found, for she often thought she could smell the emotions of the previous owners and therefore know them. The worn fabric smelled faintly of chocolate, but mostly it smelled of melancholy and a healthy measure of fear. Slipping the coat on, she rolled up the sleeves that hanged inches below her outstretched fingers and sank her hands into the pockets. It was then that she found the real treasure, a crumbled bit of paper that felt like a photograph. She hopped down from the crates and carefully drew the photograph from the coat pocket, placing it flat on the top of one of the wooden crates. As she always did with photographs she found, she teased herself by not looking at the image immediately and ran her hands over the creased paper to straighten it. She liked to imagine what the person in the photograph would look like beforehand, and this time she envisioned gentleness and autumn colors, warmth and thoughtfulness.
Finally, she turned the photograph over and stared down at the face before her. It was not a handsome face, but a quietly dignified one which held the promise of kind smiles and intelligent conversation. She had been accurate in her vision of autumn colors, for the man's hair was the color of soil lightened by the sun and flecked with gray that sharply contrasted the warmer gold of his skin. The eyes were an odd mixture of amber and gray, and in their depths she saw the same patience she had seen in Prince Albert's eyes as he waited for his disease to consume him.
His most striking features, however, were the map of scars across his face. They did not distract from beauty as he had none, rather they lent him a haunting appearance, like that of a warrior returned from a battle in a far away place few had ever seen or heard of. You know me, the man seemed to be saying, and somehow she knew that the man in the photograph had once owned the coat she was wearing. He must have found that photo somewhere and been so disgusted by his own appearance that he discarded it along with spent food wrappers and empty bottles, or perhaps he felt no disgust and could not stand to pity himself. Why anyone would throw away something so precious was beyond Koran, and she carefully folded the photograph and returned it to the coat pocket for safe keeping, but only after one last glance. She found it almost heartening that his eyes were cast slightly upward, as though he could commune with the fictional God and angels. Do they hear you? She prayed to no one and nothing that he was heard, if only by himself. Tucking the photograph safely in the pocket, she buried the chocolate wrappers and bottle underneath stained and torn newspapers as though she thought to shield the man's rubbish from intruders, though for what reason she knew not. No one else would understand him as she did, it would be their secret that there was no divine intervention, that no one would come to save them. She and the man alone would know the truth, which was that day by day, spoons dipped in and took something sacred from them. Not the common soup spoons, but perhaps the large dented ones used to scoop coffee; they dug in, prodded, and stole things gone off, gone by: life.