"Too Short A Time As Lambs In Spring"
RATING: "T", for slash and angst. Some spoilers for "Half-Blood Prince"
DISCLAIMER: This story is fictional – that's F-I-C-T-I-O-N. It never happened, and is not real. It is the product of my own imagination. It contains descriptions of male slash (that's male/male homosexual relations). If you do not like this type of content, or if you find homosexuality or its practice offensive, please click the "Back" button or close your Internet browser NOW, and do not read any further. All characters and copyrights are owned by J.K Rowling and Warner Brothers™ (AOL Time Warner), but this story is owned by me and is all my own work.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The poem which Remus recites is taken from "Summer Sequence" from the stage musical, "Blood Brothers", written by Willy Russell. All rights to this excerpt belong to the aforementioned Mr Russell, and has been used here without permission.
DEDICATION: To the darling Beryl on Ward 3. Although cancer has ensured that she is not much longer for our world, she still manages to make my day every shift I work with her. Keep smiling for me, and stop flirting with all the male radiotherapy staff!
It was Harry Potter's sixteenth birthday, and The Burrow had not seemed so full or lively for months. And what a sight it was to see the birthday boy, and his two best friends, playing out on the back lawn. Harry and Ron were swooping around on their broomsticks and practicing the Wrongski Feint. Unfortunately, the target for each dive always seemed to be immediately above wherever Hermione's head happened to be at the time. The sounds of the boys' laughter and the girl's pretend shrieks of annoyance (although it was obvious that she was enjoying things just as much as the other two) filled the air.
Arthur Weasley was trying to cook on a muggle barbeque. This was all very well; however he was failing – and spectacularly so, at that – to produce any sort of fire capable of cooking anything that would be safely edible. On his two hundred and thirty-sixth attempt to light the barbeque coals using matches, he finally succeeded in igniting a small, feeble flame – three hours after he started. Charlie, Fred and George were standing near the barbeque pyre drinking firewhisky (Molly kept on giving them thunderous looks, as if to say that although they were of age and she couldn't exactly stop them enjoying such beverages, she certainly did not approve of it whatsoever) whilst Bill stood slightly away from them, seemingly attached at the lips to his new fiancée, Fleur. Ginny, of course, was holding court; laughing, joking and hoping that nobody was noticing how much food she was surreptitiously eating on the sly, or the filthy looks she was firing at her future sister-in-law.
Caught up in the joviality of the day's events, one could easily overlook that there was another guest at the party. Not wanting him to be alone since Sirius had died, Arthur and Molly had invited Remus Lupin to come and stay at the Burrow. At this moment in time, he was curled up on a bench a small distance away, huddled up in a blanket, watching the shenanigans in front of him. Although a full week had passed since the full moon, he was still… unwell. It seemed to be taking a lot longer to recover than usual; but then again, it was his first transformation since the events in the Department of Mysteries.
This had not gone unnoticed by the Head of the Weasley Household. Molly Weasley walked over to the bench and sat next to him, holding out a plate full of food she had been passing around as an excuse to approach the suffering werewolf.
"Do you want any food, dear?" she asked Remus, knowing fully well that the plate of sausages in her hands would be immediately (yet politely) turned down.
"No thanks, I don't want anything just yet. I'm saving my appetite for the burgers!" he joked. Molly gave a thin smile, and tried to steer the conversation away from Remus's transformation.
"Merlin! Would those two boys leave poor Hermione alone?"
"Oh, come off it, Molly. She doesn't mind! Can't you tell?"
"I suppose. Harry's enjoying himself."
"Yeah. He's allowing himself to forget for a little while. Even if it's only for an afternoon."
A heavy pause hung in the air as Remus shuddered. It could have been the approach of the cold sweats that he was prone to developing when he was "ill", but Molly decided otherwise. Remus needed to talk about Sirius. She knew it… it was the stubborn old werewolf who just refused to admit it.
"You still think about him, don't you?" she probed.
"Every day."
"You miss him. More than you'll ever let on to anyone else." A statement, rather than a question.
"Well, that's for me to know, and everyone else to wonder about!" Remus grinned weakly in another attempt at feeble humour, although one would have to be blind not to be able to see how the pain thinking about it mercilessly dulled his usually bright eyes.
"But I'm not everyone else, though, am I?" asked Molly, gently. Realising that the Weasley matriarch was not going to give up without him talking about Sirius, and the aftermath of the events that he just wanted to forget ever happened, Remus gave a heavy sigh.
"Not a minute goes by, Molly. Not a minute goes by that I don't think about him, or about what could have happened if he hadn't died that night…"
As Remus trailed away into silence, Molly found herself following his gaze out across the party scene before them, finally coming to rest on the three children playing with their broomsticks. She sighed.
"They look so… innocent. It's hard to believe that we were ever so innocent. They haven't got a clue of what's ahead of them, have they, Remus?"
The werewolf looked thoughtful for a few moments, and suddenly spoke. "It's funny, really. They remind me so much of an old poem I heard once."
"They do?" Remus nodded, and started to recite quietly.
"But who'll dare tell the lambs in spring what fate the later seasons bring? Who'll tell the girl in the middle of the pair the price she'll pay, for just being there? But leave them alone, let them go and play! They care not for what's at the end of the day – for what is, and was, and what might have been… for life has no ending when you're sweet sixteen."
"Sometimes I'm glad that they don't know."
"I'm glad we didn't know, Sirius and I." said Remus, forlornly. "I wouldn't have fallen so head over heels. I wouldn't have given myself so completely to him if I'd known the price that we'd have had to pay." And Molly found that she could only nod in an empathy that she had no way of being capable of truly feeling. She was about to add that she thought that she knew what he meant, but noticed that Remus had fallen asleep; even their brief conversation had exhausted him. It was as if he couldn't be bothered to try and fight off the post-transformation sickness.
She had never realised it before, but for the first time it struck her just how old Remus looked – not his middle-aging thirty-seven years at all, but… older, somehow. It could have been the grey flecks invading his reddish flaxen hair, or the shadows across his once piercing golden eyes, that made him look so weary of it all… so ancient and frail. 'But Remus… none of us would ever fall in love if we knew what the future would bring' she thought, her eyes starting to dampen. She looked out over the party at Arthur, and her children, and Hermione, and finally her eyes settled on Harry. 'What price we will have to pay, I wonder. What price will we have to pay, for just being there?'