LINER NOTES:
YAY! Lots of reviews . . . from . . . they all seem to be from one person. Oh well, that's good stuff! Let's all hear it for
Eleonora1, one of the coolest writers on fanfiction .net and one of the people to whom this story is dedicated, for her reviews
of three consecutive chapters! LOL, okay, I'll get on with the Liner Notes . . .
A/U WARNING: We're still in the A/U of Harry living with Remus and Remus actually being able to afford a flat and a car
(albeit a terribly old and Weasleyish car). We're not leaving it, people. Get used to the idea.
DISCLAIMER: Iliad, Neverwinter, and the unnamed crow (who is in fact a raven named Poe) all belong to me. Now . . .
takes a deep breath These things do not: The Harry Potter Universe (J.K. Rowling), velour paper for letters (Stephen King,
'Salem's Lot), sticky bathroom door (my sister's first apartment), The Iliad, The Odyssey (these belong to Homer . . . but
you probably already knew that), the name Neverwinter (stole it from a video game called Neverwinter Nights), andRemus'
nightstand (borrowed from Disney and Bruckheimer Films: it is from Pirates of the Caribbean).
ARCHIVING: See Ch. 1 please.
RATING: This is and will remain in a PG-13 category for awhile – at least until a few chapters after Remus and Natasha meet
(yes, that is on the horizon!).
RANDOM NOTES: I feel bad – most of this chapter is fluff and that is specifically directed at Yulara, who wanted to read
some of Remus' letters! (You'll get to read one he wrote in the next chapter, for those who care.)
REVIEWERS:
DARKMEW13: This chapter is remarkably low on humor factor (it's mostly fluff . . . ugh, how did I write something like
this?), but you can bet your bottom dollar that the reveal in three chapters is going to bring lots of laughs!
Yulara: My Remus is a serious yet fun-loving guy who just has to cut loose some of the time and let go (hence his kidlike
behavior a chapter and a half ago), but he is also a bachelor and so I am exaggerating a stereotype for laughs (I think most
bachelors out there will understand if I give Remus a sink full of dirty coffee mugs and an unmade bed and then blame it on his
singleness. If I was his significant other, he'd be as good as a bachelor because he is in fact based off me.)
Eleonora1: Phew! Okay, let's see what I can do. I was aiming for unbelievable with Remus' family – remember, we know
NOTHING about him from the books except a bit of his school life. Most of the kids are a bit spread apart, but remember
that there were seven kids between Rachael and Remus. The biggest age gap with no kids in it is the one between Remus and
Raena, which is 23 years (Raena is 13. You'll find out in another chapter why Remus' younger siblings don't seem to be at
Hogwarts and why there are such huge age differences). And is it Severus? No! It's Natasha. (And no, Natasha is not an
OC. You'll just have to wait and see who he is, just like anyone else. I'd torture you and say it's Albus or Percy, but you can
find their middle names in the books.)
DEDICATION: This story is dedicated to Eleonora1, ImmortalFlick, and my best friend Alicia, but this chapter is a slight
detour that wasn't really needed (I really ought to post it separately, but I won't) and it is dedicated to Yulara.
Sorry for the superlong notes! On to the story!
Remus carefully folded the letter along the creases, closing his eyes and reveling in the feel of deliberately creased velour
paper. He had no idea whether Natasha was rich or poor, had no inkling as to why he would use such elegant and expensive
paper for simple almost-daily notes, but he loved the idea. He sat on the edge of his bed, his bedside lamp carefully turned so
as to not disturb Harry on the other side of the quilt, and as he pulled his legs up onto the coverlet he unfolded the paper
again.
It was his third letter from Natasha, and the two had already progressed beyond professions and formalities. Every letter he
received asked after Harry and almost always wanted to know what was for dinner. Each word hinted at a wry sense of
humor hiding behind a nearly impenetrable mask. Remus felt sixteen years old again, sixteen and getting his first kiss or first
love letter or the first time he'd sneaked out to join someone in a walk next to the lake at Hogwarts. It was a giddy feeling, a
wish to memorize every curl of the paper and each one of the penstrokes in the characters that danced across the paper to
the tune of language. The feeling came with some small downsides – two nights ago Harry had slammed the bathroom door
rather too hard (it had to be slammed or it stuck and wouldn't close) and Remus, calm, unshakeable, always-steady Remus,
had jumped and gasped at the sudden intrusion into his quiet dishwashing time, and dropped a soapy glass on the floor, where
it shattered.
But beyond the slightly heightened dreaminess and the general feeling that there wasn't another shoe to drop – there simply
couldn't be – Remus' life went on as usual. True, he'd received some rather odd looks at the last Order meeting (he rather
suspected these were directed, however, to the fact that his hair was brushed and his clothing looked like he'd actually been
paying attention when he put it on) and Harry was constantly trying to get him out of the house for some reason ("Let's go to
a movie, roller skating, bowling . . . "), but overall nothing had changed.
Or so he tried to tell himself. The truth was that a thousand little tiny things had changed since he'd received that first letter.
He'd begun paying attention to what he was wearing instead of simply throwing on anything that matched and didn't have too
many holes. He'd stopped jokingly griping over chores, which had finally been sorted out. He was willingly – almost
automatically – washing his cups in the sink instead of waiting for them to pile up. He'd started going to bed at a decent hour
instead of staying up until all hours. He no longer toyed with his food before he ate it (and he'd started putting on weight so
that he looked more like a human being than a scarecrow). And he'd lived every two days with a feeling of excitement – two
days was the amount of time it took between sending a letter and receiving a reply. He'd already measured it. Which was
why he was now sitting, somewhat agitated, on his bed. Then he heard it. The tapping of claws at the window.
Remus jumped up – he scattered the three old letters as he did so – hurried through the quilt, and opened the window. A
glossy black crow – with one white feather at the tip of her right wing in a manner that suggested some kind of "defect" in her
genes – stepped through the open portal and let out a sort of croon of contentment. Remus held out his hand, and she climbed
up onto it – he didn't know why he'd labeled it already as a she – and rode demurely back to the bed. Remus sat down and
then carefully untied the letter tied to her leg. She fluttered her wings, and Remus gave her the last bite of the steak sandwich
he had sitting on his nightstand. She crooned again in thanks, and flew to the perch normally inhabited by Remus' owl, Iliad.
(Harry had expressed amazement at the fact that Remus owned an owl, but it wasn't too hard to understand – his mother's
owl, Odyssey, had had two owlets and Remus had adopted one of them, continuing the Homer-named tradition that Gabby
had started.) Remus eagerly unrolled the paper, which magically straightened itself and then folded into three sections. He
unfolded this new letter carefully over top of the three he'd picked back up off the floor, and read.
-
Dear Rémy,
It was good to hear from you on Tuesday – today, actually, although it will not be Tuesday by the time you receive this.
Setting lesson plans for almost a thousand students is a real headache, and reading your letter – and now responding to it – is
certainly a welcome break.
You asked me what I thought of "rock" music. I don't usually listen to it, but certain groups or songs can be quite good if I
happen to be in a noisy mood. I usually prefer opera (again, a rarity, though more a more frequent rarity than a wish to listen
to Elvis Presley or some such Muggle performer) or classical music, but quite frequently I listen to nothing at all. I find that
music tends to break my concentration – not a good thing when correcting papers or some such unpleasant but unavoidable
task. I try to avoid bars and clubs and such places, although I frequented them when I was a good deal younger and
admittedly stupider than I am now. I can understand, though, why some people would enjoy them. I rather fancy my habit of
sitting in complete silence and isolation for six hours at a time doing nothing but writing would be off-putting to some.
I do play the piano, how did you know? Or perhaps I could answer that for myself – the fact that I was able to follow you
quite easily when you were discussing writing keyboard music was most likely what gave me away. My parents insisted that a
"well-bred boy" should always know how to play the piano, and I took lessons for ten years. Some time after I turned twenty
it became a bit of a hobby, and I do still play occasionally if only to keep in practice.
How is Harry? You mentioned in your last letter that he was being quite restless. Being almost sixteen does that, I think. It
would certainly explain why my after-lunch class and before-dinner class are always the most annoying. There can't possibly
be anything worse than trying to correct papers with handwriting so atrocious it can't be read – unless, perhaps, it would be
trying to correct those papers while thirty students squirm and whistle and occasionally even throw things at each other, and
trying to keep order.
I have to get back to these lesson plans before I decide I'm simply not going to finish them today. I hope to hear from you
again soon –
Natasha
P.S. This is my crow, Neverwinter. Your owl seemed a bit beat out by the time he got here, so I thought perhaps he'd better
stay for a day or two until he's rested up.
-
Remus folded this new letter and placed it on top of the others, smiling at the mental image of his (mostly, he amended)
unknown correspondent in a roomful of flying paper airplanes. He'd already discerned that Natasha was a teacher, though
what he taught and where Remus had no idea – he thought it might be Beauxbatons – he was mostly certain that Natasha was
a French name. It probably was Beauxbatons, actually – Remus could have paid his entire year's rent on the flat with a single
paycheck from Beauxbatons. That would explain the crow (crows were, after all, far more expensive to keep than owls and
Remus was fairly sure that Natasha had mentioned having two of the great black birds at one point) and the expensive paper.
Strange, he thought, that he had made so many judgments about this man without ever meeting him. In his second letter
Natasha had said that he didn't want a picture of Remus – he would rather make his decisions about an unknown based upon
character, rather than be swayed by a pretty face. This idea had thrilled Remus to no end – it was a maxim which he often
tried to put into practice, but his own looks – nice, but with an air as though he'd been a doll thrown on a thrift-shop shelf –
had put so many people off that he'd given up trying to be accepted by that rule. It was that belief, however, that made him
able to stand people like Mundungus Fletcher, who otherwise would certainly have ranked low on Remus' "people-to-know"
list. He'd tried to form a mental picture of Natasha based on what he knew, but it was a hard and uphill battle – he thought
that Natasha must have dark hair and very large eyes, and long, slender hands (this he had just garnered from the fact that his
writing partner played piano). He was probably quite thin, slightly built like Remus himself – but at that point Remus' mental
image collapsed. He'd never been able to get much farther than that and when he did it never seemed to fit. Remus slipped
the letters into the false bottom in his nightstand drawer, pulled the lamp cord, and rolled over, brooding, staring into the
darkness.