Title: Pain Killer
Author: Padfootwolfboy
Disclaimer: I don't own Remus, nor the Wizarding world. I make no money off this.
Summary: Remus takes a little trip after that fateful Halloween night. It is not running away; it is moving on. Set around March of 1982.
Genre: Surprisingly angst-free. Drama.
Note: The title comes from the song "Pain Killer" by Turin Brakes. It semi-inspired this fic. Also, not beta'd. Just because I do not have anyone to beta for me. Please review.
Pain Killer
The scene before him fades in, much too similar to the movies in the cinema, and he opens his eyes wide. There are people, busy people, walking people, talking people, busy people mulling in front of him. They come in crowds and in singles and in pairs. Some are talking, some are silent, and they drag the same clattering noise of rolling luggage behind them. They move to the silent vibrant beat of everyday life, to the background noise of train schedule announcements, and to the soft muted feeling of early spring raindrops on their eyelids and dried lips.
It is fresh and new and alive and it is a feeling he has not felt for at least eight months. In front of him spans the brilliantly large and historic and literary classic London train station, full of people who do not know his name nor his background. People he will sit next to and behind and in front of while riding to a new and distant land and they will allow him to stare out the window peacefully without bombarding him with questions of chocolate frogs and games of exploding snap. What a beautiful freedom.
With that thought he steps forward, his face and jacket decently moist from standing in the light rain. He joins the throng of people—strangers he feels he loves more now then his own mum—and pushes his way into the station, ticket in hand.
It isn't running away, he tells himself while buying a newspaper to read during the trip. He hands the women some amount of coins and tells her to keep the change. It isn't running away, because there is nothing back home to run from. All those he professed to love are gone or locked away or haven't even celebrated a second birthday. Old mentors and old colleagues still have someone to embrace in celebration, and while he might be the third or fourth down the line, he has no one to hug while he waits for them to come to him. He was never one for inactivity anyway.
It is moving on. He is moving on; accepting the turn his life has taken with as much grace as he can still muster.
He would have left sooner, if not for funeral arrangements and old ties of loyalty to the guilty. It might have been called running then, if he had left before all loose ends were either tied or frayed. If he had left in the night, in the dark, to a moonless sky and broken heart with only a note declaring how he could no longer function with the losses he had suffered. It would have been running then, for he would be running from the grief and the tears and the emptiness.
All he is leaving behind now is dust and shadow and a box of old photographs of a time when people where smiling and happy and in love with a quickly scrawled note:
Please hold onto these things for me. Their value may one day be important to another. see that he gets them when the time comes.
RJL
The train whistle suddenly blows for Platform 3 and he does not know where the time went.
His seat is one that faces backwards. Childhood giddiness overtakes him and he feels a rush of adrenaline in his chest to know that he will be moving in a slightly disorienting way. It is silly to feel so and he knows it, but he smiles to himself anyways because he still is a child in many ways and just because after so much heartache, it feels good to be able to configure his lips in such a way.
The newspaper he bought is placed neatly over his lap and the pair of black Muggle sunglasses he wears is pushed to the crown of his head so that the words on the page actually look like words and not blurry squiggles of lines and meaning intertwined. He leans back to settle himself into the fairly comfy seat and closes his eyes to absorb the scent and feel and sound of finally breaking free from life.
The next time he opens his eyes it is dark. A light passes by at extraordinary speed. He knows they are in the Chunnel.
He closes his eyes again and dreams he is on a broom, flying into the onyx sky and passing all the stars. For the first time in his life, he is not afraid to be flying alone. He does not need a comforting voice and the reassuring pressure of a strong back to cling to and the smell of wet leather to feel safe. He feels safe on his own. He is flying.
He awakes only because the people around him are commenting excitedly about the countryside around them. Green rolling hills and cute shingled rooftops of little towns and sheep standing lowly as the train speeds past. He presses his face to the dirty glass, still messy with the face- and handprints of passengers before him, and whispers to the new land in its native language,
"Je t'aime." I love you.
And he does. He has never loved something at first sight so much.
The train comes to a rolling stop and he is one of the first to disembark. He leaves the newspaper he meant to read and never did for the next occupant of his seat to enjoy.
After collecting his two pieces of luggage, neither large or containing many articles, and walks mindlessly around the station, neither knowing where he plans to go nor feeling that he must make any rash decision anytime soon. He buys an apple with the money he exchanged earlier because an apple makes a good lunch in a new life. He walks into the bright French sunlight of Paris, the Eiffel Tower welcoming him to a land of indifference and strangers, and thinks to himself and smiles.
He is still flying. He is free.