[1960 -- 2067]
Remus John Lupin was born in Devon in 1960. His mother was the daughter of a local politician, while his father was the owner/operator of a fairly popular bookstore. They moved to London when Lupin was six years old as an attempt to find a cure for his lyncanthropy, which developed after a werewolf broke down their door one autumn night and bit a then-sleeping Remus.
Lupin's education began when he found himself accepted by Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, under the reputable headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Hailing from Gryffindor House, he excelled in many of his classes and was elected Prefect when he was fifteen.
Not much is known of him after his graduation, though it has been ascertained that he was a member of the reformed Order of the Phoenix and went into battle next to such famed figures as Harry Potter and Alastor ("Mad-Eye") Moody.
It has also been discovered that, after Dumbledore's death and the Order being overtaken by Mad-Eye, Lupin was ousted from the organization when a torrid affair he had with a seventeen-year-old Ginevra Weasley was brought into the public eye. That, it is said, was when he started his writing.
While most of Lupin's work seems to be fantasy or science fiction, a collection of realistic short stories he had bound together with a bit of twine was found underneath the bed of his flat in Nottingham, where he died. The anthology had several oddities, "Daybreak" and "Through the Depths of Hell" among them, but "A Pale Compromise" seemed to be the one piece that held everything together. There is still speculation on whether or not this tale is fact or fiction; and if it is fact, whether or not it was written about the same young woman Lupin claimed to have loved so dearly.
It started with tea, although tea as a beginning just makes things harder to explain. I was making tea -- morning tea, warm and the amber color of twilight -- when I thought of all the places I had never been. America, to start with. Egypt. Hungary. Japan. I've always liked to make lists of things that I have or haven't done, just to see how accomplished I should feel or how much more I need to do. I stirred my tea, still thinking of all those places and trying to ignore the fact that it was thirty-below outside.
I began to feel depressed, so set my sights a little lower. First, to within the country. Second, to within the area. Third, to within the town. I decided to stay with the town, as there were several places in my building I had not set foot in and never planned to. I sipped my tea and sat at the rotted table which made a pathetic sight in the middle of my kitchen and focused on the anatomy of the streets, of the shops and the restaurants and the cafes. Pubs. I laughed to myself, nearly choking to death at the thought. I had been into one pub in my entire life, back in school when I wasn't particularly wise. To be completely honest, I did not see myself as the type of person to visit a pub -- which is why I finished my tea, bundled up and went to one, I suppose. Besides, it's always interesting to see how things change after twenty-eight years away from them.
It was dark and dank, and filled with people who looked hopelessly lost in their troubles as they stared into tankards the size of their heads. There seemed to be an abnormal amount of bartenders; most of them seemed to simply stand and polish the top of the counter as they listened to the manic-depressives.
I purchased a rather large gin, found a booth and occupied myself with napkin-folding for a very long time. I was beginning to feel bored and helpless -- which seemed to be the point of the atmosphere, logically -- when I looked up from my paper artistry and saw her. To this day, I have no idea how long she had been staring at me, but the expression on her face was one of pure joy when my eyes met her face. She removed herself from the company of a burly-looking gentleman at the bar and flounced over to me in an electric blue dress that hung off her shoulders and swished around her knees.
"John," she said, sitting down across from me and wrapping one of her feet around my ankle, which knocked most of the breath from my lungs. "Bloody hell, I'd never have believed it if you hadn't looked right back at me..."
She sounded ecstatic, which made my heart race and my hands reach once more for the napkin. It became the victim of nervous twisting and crunching, a casualty of a war that had been going on for nearly five years. She made me feel that way every second that followed our very first kiss, holding each other for dear life in the midst of so many lifeless bodies.
"Molly," I managed to say. "Good Lord, you've grown up."
She had. From seventeen to nearly twenty-two had made quite a change in her dainty form, although her skin remained pale and slightly freckled, her hair was still red and her wide eyes were always the color of warm tea. A small, cool hand gently came to rest on mine, which was sweating profusely by this time.
She smiled sweetly, the same way she did in my memories, although the lines and shadows around her eyes made me grimace. She was always prone to late nights, the hapless student who had forgotten an essay or the carefree teenager who couldn't resist a celebration. But it was no longer teachers or peers she aimed to please...
"How are Stuart and Duncan?" I asked, staring the hell out of my glass of gin. "Well, I hope?"
She coughed a little and tried to sound immensely happy: "Oh, yes, they're both wonderful! Duncan's with his Gran at the moment -- she's been knitting everything from little shoes to hats with enormous pompoms for the boy -- and Stuart..." she faltered a bit, although I could feel the forced smile radiating from her face. "Stuart's in New Hampshire on business. I'm staying here because, you see..."
"It doesn't matter why you're here," I muttered, risking a glance at those amber twilight eyes. "just that you are."
We stared at each other for a moment, just as we used to, before she broke into a tired grin and exclaimed that I had always been unbearably sentimental. It was a lie -- she was the one who used to write me novel-length letters on nothing at all and still manage to make it known that she loved me more than anything else in the world. Even more than chocolate, which was a frequent quip she inserted whenever she felt like it.
She pressed her lips together, and vaguely recall doing the same. She was wearing copper-brown lipstick of some kind and it sparkled unnaturally, as though she had purposefully worn it to evoke painfully perfect memories. I wanted to kiss her, anyway.
I sighed. The hand she had placed atop mine suddenly tightened its grip, fingernails cut into the palm of my hand but I wasn't paying enough attention to notice the small tears of blood she made me cry.
"John," she whispered, looking more tired by the second. "Oh, John, where on earth did we go wrong?"
I didn't know how to answer. We both knew that we went wrong in the beginning, when she asked me if I would please give in and hold her. When I found her in my arms more and more often, when she kissed me and I kissed her, when I would sit and braid her hair before bedtime and she would press her lips to my cheek to say goodnight. Those times were wrong. Every second we spent together was wrong, and we should have known that someone would find out... But those times were the happiest in my life.
"Did we go wrong, really?" I asked.
She took a deep breath and whispered "Oh, God.", and before I knew it she had a firm grip on my shirt, then my neck, then her arms were wrapped around me and the table jabbed into my stomach as she pulled me closer.
"Oh, God." I said.
She kissed me as much as she deemed proper in a public place, and I tried to calm my heartbeat as I held her face between my blood-dotted hands. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, I tried the same although my breathing turned into a gasp less than halfway through.
"I love you," she said, placing a small kiss on the heel of my hand. "I love you, John. Even more than chocolate."
"I love you, too." I returned, kissing her forehead. "Even more than life."
She had a good cry and asked me, several times, where I lived. I wouldn't tell her, though it killed me to see her shaking and looking so alone. She cried again, I tried to be comforting without actually touching her and removed her high-heeled foot from my ankle.
"Please, keep me." she said, blurrily staring at me through her tears. "I won't live another five years without you."
"Try," I said, trying not to swallow what I needed to say and forget the words. "Molly, if... if you love me at all, you have to try."
Not much happened after that. We stayed at the booth until she stopped crying and had cleaned herself up a bit. She asked me to walk her back to her hotel, and I wanted to so badly... but I explained what would happen and she left without me, a final kiss lingering on my lips to remind me of everything she was. I downed the rest of my gin and ordered one after another until it'd been three hours and I was certain she hadn't waited outside to ambush me.
I've always liked to make lists of things I've had, or that I've wanted; just to see if I'm terribly material or very lucky. Now, though... Now, Molly sits at the top of both lists -- but I only feel miserable and stupid.
And I've sworn off tea.