Title: Veiled Loss

Author: The Angelic Vampire

Rating: PG-13

Main Character: Remus Lupin.

Summary: To Remus, there is only one constant in this life – the veiled Lady of Death.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Warnings: Mention of death.

Spoilers: Allusions to events in Book 5 and if you squint Book 6

Dedication: To Misagoddess, because her reviews never fail to place a smile on my face. This one is in your honour Misagoddess.


While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil.

John Taylor.


It is a piece of cloth to most but he has seen her power. He knows she separates life from death. He knows how effortlessly she draws people in, wrapping herself around them like a fine cloak earned by old age or foolish exploits. But to Remus, never are those who deserve it most enveloped in her final embrace.

She took and takes, but never once gives something in return. The Veil holds her bodies unyielding, and her secrets even more so. As far as he knows, there is no return journey from the path that she hides. She guards her passageway well.

In her morbid serenity she continues to claim lives of wizards and muggles alike. No spell or charm sways her from her duty and no potion grants the curse of true immortal life, the destruction of the philosopher's stone is proof of that. Remus has come to realize that the Veil is the one constant in this life. Once born, all of mankind is marked to cross her threshold.

Occasionally, he can hear whispers from behind it, luring him closer and closer still.

Often, he's found himself a foot away from the velvet, silken and linen sheets. A tantalizing breath away from no breath at all and it terrifies him because he longs for it so much.

Where there is smoke, fire reigns; where whispers thrive, lost ones dwell.

It would be so easy, just one seemingly insignificant step. And whenever he is close to that most wretched, beautiful thing – the want for those faces, for that love lost, is so unbearably strong.

It's only ever-changing pink hair and emerald eyes, wrapped with the responsibility he feels for both of them that keeps him here. It's only the whispers of what was and the promise of what could be that forces him to take pause and make him stay.

The whispers are inviting but perhaps, just maybe, he needs to learn to live anew before he makes the choice of embracing her all-encompassing hold.

He knows his time will come.

He can wait for a while yet, though the want within him grows with each glance he bestows upon her majestic presence. Be it soon or years from now, he will join his lost ones behind that veil.

And perhaps then, he will finally be permitted to be at rest.

The End.