Remus J. Lupin is sitting in an armchair by the almost non-existent fire at precisely eight forty-five one evening, enjoying poetry, warmth and silence, when a certain Sirius Black shatters the abovementioned quiet by leaping spectacularly and painfully onto a neighbouring chair.
"You might want to be a bit careful," says Remus innocently unnecessarily, after Sirius has unburdened himself of the proper swear words for the occasion.
"Thanks," mumbles Sirius, surreptitiously rubbing his rear end. "What in blazes- Merlin, don't tell me you're reading some advanced Potions rubbish, Moony, I swear, it's the middle of break-!"
"No, I'm not!" Remus carefully sets the book aside and stretches. "I've had a fantastic journey into a poet's mind..." His eyes have gone dreamy again in that lov- soppy way, thinks Sirius, affectionately contemptuous.
"So what is it? Who's this great poet?"
"Oh well..." Remus shrugs with the air of a connoisseur. "It's not Shakespeare - that's a Muggle writer, he's brilliant - or - what's his name - Edmund Blunden, I'll show you some of his stuff later, it's really good - or Poe or any of the really good Muggle authors. It's unknown poets - I think it was a sort of competition and then they got picked out or something. It was hidden somewhere in the back of the library - really dusty. Anonymous authors, I mean. But it's pretty good, I think. Have a look." He passes a sceptical Sirius the book and settles himself back.
The last few flickering flames of the fire hide Remus' face as he leans back in the armchair, only a sliver of cheekbone and warm skin showing. He watches as Sirius settles back to read, flinging one careless leg over the arm of the chair and tilting his head, frowning occasionally. Remus watches him read, watches him occasionally move his lips and sound out a word or a phrase, watches his smile quirk upwards briefly when he encounters something that piques him, watches the firelight reflected in his eyes, the planes of shadows on his face, the way his black hair swallowed up the dim light. In a strange form of synaesthesia Remus feels his fingertips wander along Sirius' jaw line, and then kicks himself mentally for acting like a fool. His eyes, however, are rebelling, focusing on random, irrelevant objects like Sirius' nose, his lips, the collarbone revealed by the angle of the shirt, the third knuckle of his left hand, the sweep of his hair on his forehead -
And if this isn't enough, an insistent voice in the middle of his brain is now engaged, despite his despairing consciousness, in earnestly explaining something to Sirius (look at the way he pulls at his lower lip!). Remus gives up completely and listens in horrified fascination to his inner voice. It tells Sirius's subconscious that Remus hasn't read one line - scrap that, one word - of this poem without associating it with Sirius; that every now and then he'd stop to read one line again (and again) because it reminded him irresistibly of Sirius; that the reason he took so long to finish it was because he had just spent five minutes staring into the fire wondering whom the poet knew that resembled Sirius so much. Then his inner voice goes on gleefully to expound upon Remus' apparent fascination with this particular poem that reminds him so much of Sirius and asks Remus' conscious whether or not it has noticed the exponential increase in the amount of time Remus' eyes have spent lingering on unlikely places, like Sirius' fringe, or his eyelashes, or the line of his shirt on his shoulder, or-
"Not bad, Moony. I like this." Sirius looks up at him, his gaze dark and only a little amused, more assessing, more curious. "Yeah. Not bad." He hands the book back to Remus.
"Well," says Remus, regretfully, "I'd like to take a copy of this, but it's due - well, now, since the library's closing soon…"
It's when he's crossing to the portrait hole that Sirius calls after him. "Where'd you say you found it?"
"Second last shelf, I think," Remus calls back.
Five steps later, he remembers he never actually told Sirius where he'd found it.
An unseen hand picks dusty books off the second last shelf of the library.
At five the next morning, Remus rolls over and squints an eye open. There is a sheet of parchment on the floor.
(contents of random parchment on floor near bed of Remus J. Lupin)
There is a god.
He is no certain power,
No gold-clothed master of shrines,
No pure scourge of evil,
No omniscient overlord.
His is a capricious reign,
An upturn of a smile away
From thunderous chaos;
A devilishly feigned look
Of innocence;
A glinting glance, inscrutable,
From beneath half-lids.
He will not accept your offerings
With decorous grace, or with dignity.
He demands them, with unimaginable
Arrogance, self-certainty, a beautiful
Petulance.
Imagine he has foes.
(Would you question why,
When the world lays itself at his feet,
He deigns to answer to the hate of some?
If you would question-
Seek the answer
Yourself. His answers are
Haphazard, but deeply truthful-
Whether he knows this or not.)
So
Imagine he has foes.
His wrath is true - pure-
The hatred unfeigned-
His curses malicious-
The grudge deep as a scar.
But know-
It takes a one, a truly formidable one,
To earn the anger.
And what of love?
Do not gods love,
And love
Fully and divinely?
But his love is impure- if so it can be called -
He is not one to love with forgiveness,
To love with disappointment,
To love with firm belief.
He loves with passions,
With defiance,
With jealousy,
With covetousness.
Yes.
His love is a blaze
Of summer-morning glory,
Long limbs stretched
To catch every ounce of a
Lazy sunshine.
Or perhaps his affections are
Best expressed in silences,
Eloquent pauses,
Long walks in fallen leaves,
His rare delicacy in non-speech.
If not, say then a bitter cold wind,
Its ineffectual sweeps against
Frosted glass,
The warmth of a body that makes
Snow colder, and fire warmer.
And like a god,
Like a beautiful, impossible god,
Like a spectacular display of fireworks,
Like the moon, full and heavy in a night sky,
He is untouchable,
Unreachable,
To be worshipped, loved, feared, desired,
From afar -
- Because this god has the insolence to be human.
My dear Moony,
HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!
- with regards from your Padfoot.