Chapter Three: Occultus

Alex picked her wand up from the wooden drawer and twirled it around a few times between her fingers. Fresh sunlight was streaming into the room, leaving a streak of brightness on her neatly made bed. The days she had spent in lingering monotony had slowly and slightly alleviated her passionate dread of hospitals and transformed it into a dull and muted regret. But that by no means dampened her anticipation of leaving the falsely bright room.

Placing the wand back down again, she sighed exasperatedly as her brownish eyes turned toward the vase that sat atop the nightstand. It was a rather ugly bottle green vase filled with six white roses- one for each day she had spent at St. Mungo's. Roses- and, actually, flowers in general- seemed tremendously cliché to Alex; she had never quite understood their appeal. They seemed too sugarcoated to be enjoyable, too unrealistically sweet and pretty for anybody to sympathize with a flower. They smelled nice, were supposedly romantic, and were vivid and beautiful colors; it seemed there was no down side to a flower. But Alex knew that everything had a dark side, so why should flowers be any different? Apparently Remus hadn't expected her to analyze something as simple as a flower in such a way, for when he brought them to her and saw the cynical look on her face, he had inquired if she was allergic to flowers.

"Well, you're looking as filthy as ever," came a friendly voice from the doorway of the room. Several other patients looked up and smiled as they saw the familiar visitor bumble in wearing his usual set of shabby, tattered robes.

"Charming," Alex murmured sarcastically, but she knew what he meant. Remus had offered to go to her house and fetch her some clean clothes (she stridently and persistently refused to wear the hospital gowns and had gotten into several shouting matches with the nurses) instead of the same old torn, mud-stained ones from a week ago. But she had refused, questioning how she could just hand over her key to any old body and trust them to return loyally with the key and fresh clothes.

"All set to go?" Remus asked as he came over to her bedside.

"Sure, once I finish packing," Alex replied. She picked up her wand and tucked it into her back pocket before turning around to face him with an amused smirk on her face. "There. All set."

"Aren't you going to take your roses?"

"Oh fine, but don't get all sentimental on me," Alex retorted, snatching up the vase of flowers. Rolling her eyes, she changed the subject. "So may I ask once again why you have offered to escort me back to my place?"

Remus let out a soft laugh. "I come here to visit you everyday, and everyday you ask me why. You come off as slightly paranoid, you know," he responded with a smile.

"I am not. I'm just cautious- and rightly so. The world is full of criminals, especially in the neighborhood you found me in. Everyone there is a lowlife," Alex shot back in her defense.

"Glad you think so much of me- and of yourself, for that matter. You were there too, you know," Remus pointed out.

"So? What if I am a lowlife?" Alex proposed, crossing her arms over her stomach.
"I don't want you to think that. I had a friend who thought he was a lowlife, and in truth he was just the opposite."

"And where is this friend now? Off somewhere benefiting from your wise advice?" Alex drew out the word 'wise' sardonically.

"Actually, he passed away last spring." Remus looked away toward the warm light streaming in the window, a distant look in his eyes as if he were seeing some other place and time altogether.

"I'm sorry," she apologized quietly, realizing she had overstepped the line. "Well… shall we go?"

Remus shook himself out of his reverie and nodded.

x-----x-----x-----x-----x

"And… this is where you live?" Remus stared around, appalled at the dingy building they were entering. Its windows were clouded over with grime, the brown walls faded and peeling. He glanced back outside at the flickering neon sign that read 'Mot l' (the 'e' had burnt out) and cringed.

"For now," Alex shrugged, leading him down a decrepit hallway and to a beat-up door with a black metal number 7 stuck to the front. She stuck the key in the lock and turned it, making a grinding noise as the door swung open to reveal a small room. Alex pulled out her wand and waved it once, causing the lights to brighten the dismal room. A single bed was pushed up against the far wall by the window; near that was a dilapidated dresser, round table, and two uncomfortable looking chairs.

"What does that mean?" Remus asked as he peered around, faintly reminded of how number twelve, Grimmauld Place had looked before they had cleaned it up.

"It means I don't permanently live here. It's a motel, for goodness' sake. I move around a lot… traipse from motel to hotel to bench in the park… you know, the nomadic lifestyle," Alex explained.

"So you don't have an actual home?" Remus accidentally bumped into the table and nearly knocked it over, realizing that one of the legs was too short. He caught it quickly, steadying the round table and turning back to Alex, who was digging through a drawer of clothes.

"I used to," she replied, picking up a baggy green sweatshirt and tossing it onto the bed. "When I was a kid, I mean. My parents and I had a nice little house just outside London until I was nine. Then we moved to Bulgaria, and when I was eleven, Durmstrang Academy became my home. When I was eighteen, I sold the house in Bulgaria and started roaming around Europe. Spent some time in France and Scotland, but mostly England because English is my first language."

"Ah, I thought I heard a hint of Bulgarian in your accent." Remus looked around awkwardly. "So why don't you settle down and get a job and a house?"

She stopped in the middle of pulling out a faded pair of jeans and folded them up in her hands thoughtfully. "I'm just not the settle-down type, I guess. I do have somewhat of a job, though. I do some experimental spellwork for the Bulgarian government… freelance stuff, so I'm not grounded there. I go back every few months, do some stuff with new spells, get a generous paycheck, and then I'm on my feet for a few more months. So, where do you live?"

"At the moment, on Grimmauld Street. By where I found you. But it's a small house, you probably didn't see it." Remus looked slightly uneasy, and Alex couldn't help but eye him with interest at his vague and slightly mysterious reply. But before she could begin to fathom what was going on in his head, he asked her, "Haven't you ever wanted to just stay in one place?"

Alex sighed inwardly, somehow having previously felt the inevitable return to this most unpleasant topic. Carefully averting her eyes from Remus, she gathered up the clothes she had pulled from her drawers. "There's a bathroom just down the hall; I'm going to go change into some clean clothes. You can stay here in my charming little abode if you wish, I'll be back in a few minutes."

And with that, she hurried into the hallway and in the direction of the bathroom. When she had locked herself into the tiny room, she gave a sigh and gazed into the mirror. It had a crack running down the middle of it, distorting her reflection. It had always been distorted, whether she liked it or not.

As she peeled off her dirty clothes and pulled on some clean ones, an image filled her mind. It was a quaint little brick house with a large, grassy backyard. And she was there, a little girl, beside her parents… and her friends… and people that had once cared about her.

She pulled her wand out of the pocket of her destroyed jeans and replaced it in the clean pair of pants she had just pulled on. When she was done changing, she splashed cool water up onto her face and wiped it dry on a gray towel. Then she glanced up in the mirror, into her glistening eyes and pale face… she could feel her hands trembling slightly on the sink and clenched them tighter on the edges.

And the new image in her mind was of Remus. He had been unconditionally nice to her, something that hadn't occurred since she was young, and it reminded her of her childhood, and her parents, and the life she had left behind. It reminded her of all the things that had gone wrong, and all the things that could have been. And she had to press a hand to her face to stop her eyes from dampening her cheeks.

Feeling insufferably weak, she blinked several times and forced the familiar scowl back onto her face. Crumpling her dirty clothes into a wad in her hands, she made her way back toward her room, knowing how she would put a stop to this sudden and excruciating feeling of weakness and frailty.

"Still here?" she commented casually as she saw Remus gazing around her room. She chucked her wad of clothes into the corner of the room and crossed her arms, now thick with the weight of the unbecomingly baggy sweatshirt. "Well, it's been- interesting, I suppose- knowing you. Perhaps we'll meet again sometime."

"Are you kicking me out?" Remus asked straightforwardly.

"And if I am?"

"Well then I suppose I'd simply have to ask why," he continued curiously.

"Haven't we already established my issues with trusting people?" Stupid, Alex. Stupid He's not going to buy that. I do trust him, God help me I actually trust somebody for once, and he KNOWS I trust him, he has to know. If he doesn't he's blind and pathetically ignorant, unless he's actually buying this façade.

"Why do you have such problems with trusting people?" he queried softly, taking one step closer to where Alex stood.

"'Everyone is a moon and has a dark side that he never shows to anybody'."

"Mark Twain."

Alex hesitated, taken aback by his knowledge of the quote by the Muggle author. Remus saw her face and let out a soft, grim laugh and muttered, "One of his most interesting quotes."

"Yes, and one of the most truthful. Everyone has a dark side, Remus, a side that does things… untrustworthy. I have little faith in humankind." Her tone was unlike the one she normally used around Remus: sarcastic and lofty. Now she spoke in a low, icy voice reminiscent of frozen daggers slicing through the air.

"Is there something you're not telling me?"

Alex felt her heart skip a beat at the thought of being found out. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

She watched inquisitively as Remus hesitated, his eyes gone distant with memory once again. "Yes," he murmured at last, heaving a deep sigh. "I have terrible luck when it comes to women."

Alex was shocked into silence for a moment. What on earth was he talking about? Here she thought he was going to reveal his dark side, tell her some secret of his past, or perhaps even tell her to piss off and mind her own business, and he chose to tell her about his love life? "What are you talking about?" she spat finally.

"Well, I've never had a true girlfriend. Of course, things were always on and off at school, as you probably understand. But really, I never could find the right person. And then one day in the morning, I found this woman lying unconscious on the street in front of my house," he began to explain, faltering slightly over his speech.

Alex frowned and raised an eyebrow, wondering where in the world this was going.
"So I took her to the hospital, and when she woke up, she was gratuitously rude to me. Yet there was something about her that drew me to her, and I took an instant liking to her, despite her snide attitude. I tried to gain her trust by visiting her everyday and bringing roses, which it turns out wasn't the best idea."

Normally Alex would have snorted in concurrence, but she was too lost in his story to make any kind of response.

"I even invited myself into her room just to see if she would ever warm up to me, and to see if I could muster enough courage to tell her how I felt. But just when it seemed she was beginning to tolerate me, she pushed me away. Now, I don't know if my luck with women is necessarily a dark side, but it certainly seems to reject anybody I begin to care for. Do you happen to have any insight as to why I'm such a miserable failure at this?"
Alex stared at him, unbidden warmth welling up inside of her. She attempted to retain her indifferent demeanor, but it seemed impossible now.

"If it's any consolation, it wasn't your fault; it was hers," she replied, trying not to look at him.

"Well, do you think I have any chance with her at this point?" Remus's face was sincerely sad and hopeful at the same time. His eyes bore into hers… how badly she wanted to look away. How badly she wanted to just say 'no' and get on with her life, or whatever she was living. But the word caught in her throat, and a strange sense of hope filled her unlike she had felt in many years. Maybe… but no, she lived a roaming life of secrecy, a life that included nobody else. She was a wanderer, alone, unable to share her own dark side with anyone.

But maybe… just maybe…

Though her conscience told her that it was the wrong move, she nodded her head jerkily. "Yes. I think you do."

x-----x-----x-----x-----x

The autumn day was warm and inviting, the sun poking out from fluffy white clouds and reminding the world of the season that had passed not long ago. Alex sipped her coffee slowly as she watched the ball of luminescence descend into the west, looming precariously above the horizon. Remus absentmindedly stirred his own drink with a thin straw, gazing around the near-empty coffee shop. His eyes darted down to his wrist and he frowned.

"So where are you going tonight? Another meeting?" Alex questioned slyly, lowering her cup.

"What makes you say that?" Remus replied automatically, his eyebrows raised.
"You keep looking down at your watch. Every time you do that, you always excuse yourself and vanish off to one of your mystery meetings," Alex responded with a knowing smirk.

"Well, now that you mention it, yes. I do have a meeting tonight." Remus shifted uncomfortably in his seat, continuing to stir his already cold coffee slowly as he carefully averted his eyes.

Alex let out a soft laugh. "And you wonder why I have trust issues."

Remus looked momentarily startled. "What?"

"You've been over to my nice little fleabag motel room, know what I do for a living, not to mention you've been calling me 'Alex' for the past two weeks and I haven't gotten to call you 'Lupy.' But at the same time, I don't know what these secret meetings are that you always attend, I've never seen you working, and I've never been to your house- don't even know where it is, for that matter. You're a mystery, Remus," she told him, raising her cup of coffee again and taking a sip. "But a mystery I intend to solve."

The latter sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. "Alex, you told me that you work for the Bulgarian government. So surely you can understand a job that involves secrecy?"

Alex nodded, her mind connecting the sentiment with more than just her spellwork for the Bulgarian government every now and then. It started her thinking about how long she had spent at her current residence: a little over three weeks. That meant that a month would soon be gone, along with another full moon…

Clearing her throat, she looked up at the man before her and cringed inwardly at what she was about to do. "I'll be gone soon."

"I beg your pardon?" Remus stopped stirring his drink and paid full attention to the woman sitting across from him.

"I've told you that I don't stick around in one place for too long…" she began, looking away so as not to see the hurt that would soon fill his eyes. "It's been nearly a month, and it's about time for my nomadic life to be up and moving again. I've had a lot of fun with you, Remus, but… I'm going to have to be leaving soon. It's just the kind of life I lead- no attachments, nothing keeping me grounded, not worrying about trust issues with anyone."

And then she made the mistake of looking up.

Remus was staring at her with furrowed eyebrows, not comprehending her need to go so soon; and how could he? After all, he did not know the real reason for her inevitable departure. He did not know the secret identity that lay buried within her. His eyes, as she had expected, were filled with pain, wondering what he had done to drive her away… she wanted to tell him that he hadn't done anything, but that would lead to questions, and she could not tell him why she had to go.

"Alex, you don't have to leave," he tried to reason with her.

"Yes, I do," she replied softly.

"Why?"

His pained question reminded her of a small child wondering why his parents were leaving him alone on a foreign doorstep. "I- I can't tell you," she stammered, keeping herself occupied by taking another sip of her coffee, which now tasted of tar in her tainted mouth.

"You can't tell me?" His wounded tone swiftly became skeptical and accusatory. "Does this have anything to do with my meetings?"

Alex wanted to punch him in the face. She had a feeling that she could easily take him down. But at the same time, her heart was wrenching in her chest, and the two emotions played out in the crescendo of her strained voice. "No, Remus, this doesn't have anything to do with the meetings. It doesn't have anything to do with you! I hoped that I could make this goodbye a pleasant one, that we could leave on good terms. I guess I was wrong." With that, she picked herself up off the chair and hurried out of the coffee shop, leaving a perplexed and troubled Remus behind her.