AN: Yo, dudes, I must say it cheered me up no end to read some reviews…I am not worthy…so, on with the show!
2
And the days pass, sometimes long, hot August days, and sometimes (often) blackened skies unreal for the season, but somehow right for the stormclouds that plague us. I see hideous shadows in rolling clouds, a fuzzy Dark Mark bathed in a bloody sunset, silhouettes of violent death. All through the smudged windows of number 12.
I live there now. I left the rotting bedsit where I lived two weeks ago, with a red eviction notice in my trembling hand, and threw out my wand – mounted that purple bus, and arrived, weakly, at Sirius' door. For after all, I always end up by his side. Twelve years in the wilderness were what made me into what I am now, a papery, burnt-out wretch. A different future from the promise of my youth, with my glistening Prefect badge and quiet ambition.
So, yes, I end up with Sirius once again – Marauders once again, trapped in a house tinged with darkness and feeling so keenly – though the words are left unsaid – those who have…gone away.
And so; this is my home. These black corridors, with screaming portraits and crumbling gargoyles, are my place of residence. They barely beat the freezing cold room I have left, where I found maggots nesting in an armchair. Nor the subway before that, huddled in a coat I still possess with my fingernails blue and my eyes glazed. Nor the flat before the war, where I faced my solitude each night with slow music and firewhisky. Hogwarts is my home. But now, now I am forced to a place where the evil I fight is in the structure of the building itself. And Sirius is there, a reminder of what we both have lost, and Tonks is often there too, like a ghost that I could not capture even when she was alive, and cannot capture now she is dead.
But it does not do to dwell too long on faded pictures. And long faded kisses. A kiss.
There is a room in the house, along the corridor from my room, panelled with wood bleached almost white by the sun. It protrudes from the house – a separate wing – and has windows on three sides. Huge, tall windows made of tiny diamonds (and a voice in my head says – like her smile, before she went ago, in life and death) and the lead between them is too old to keep them perfectly flat. They buckle this way and that, and reflect light in different directions. Like a fly's eye, I suppose.
Sometimes, when I look through the panes, in one direction I see rolling, unkempt gardens littered with statues of dead Blacks (oh, even in stone they seem something…unholy). And in the other I see the smoggy capitalism of London, pressing gaudily, brashly against the invisible glass. It all depends, as ever, on your point of view.
It is a library, evidently, although I never see Sirius there, reading. Always loyal to himself, is Padfoot. The spines of old, evil books are coated in dust that dulls the gold embossing and the expensive sheen of dragon leather. The floor, perhaps once upon a time past generations of Blacks could see their own faces. But no longer.
Now the thin floorboards stretch along the massive length of the library, and the light from the warped windows floods in haphazard beams across the room, catching the floating, swimming dust motes.
And right at the end, also smothered in a grey cloak of dust, is a piano.
I haven't played for over twenty years. I cannot remember whether it ever gave me pleasure. Certainly I did not miss it when I left Hogwarts and could not afford an instrument of my own.
There I go again, lying to myself.
It gave me great pleasure, once. I was too happy, it was a moment too perfect, and though my fingers were trembling I felt they would fly across the keyboard forever.
'Play some more. I think I shall die with the beauty of it. Remus, Remus. So beautiful.'
And it killed me to abandon any hopes of having even my own, battered upright, sounding a little flat, a little metallic. Anything would have done. Seeing this old instrument, standing in weak sunlight, makes my stupid eyes well up.
The keys, too, are mangled, the ivory coating is peeling away, the black notes are scratched and wonky. Though, I cannot help but play. And I have held her memory this long. And I hold the memory of a piece played in the gloom of a classroom years ago, and it flows out of me, instead of the tears that have forsaken me for fourteen years.
There are padded footsteps, like a cat, edging through the dust, out of the shadows at the other end of the library.
My fingers freeze. I will not play, I cannot be forced to perform merrily for her. It is too soon, although I can sense (damning myself, too) that I am being drawn silently to her. But this is only a ghost of a feeling at the edge of my being – and I must wrestle a little longer with my tired soul before I break my silence. She has not yet won my trust…the right to crack open my battered crow's chest and peer at my raw heart.
Good old Remus, he has so much knowledge, such great wisdom and kindness to impart.
No, no, no. My greatest gift is hidden from all but one, who took it to her grave. It transcends the exhibitions and flourishes of wand waving and bangs and puffs. But Merlin, it is magical. Do you condemn me for wanting to keep it hidden? If only for a while longer, as I search for some control, some way out of this trap I laid for myself when I walked into the kitchen.
AN: GOD knows why I decided to make Remus a classically trained pianist…I hope it doesn't oppose your idea of our dear Professor too much, it's not TOO out of character is it? I mean, he's all studious and tender etc…ah well, I hope you enjoyed etc. this isn't leading to a great long fic, I hope you realise; there is one part remaining in which it will become almost entirely clear (if you hadn't guessed already) who Remus has been hanging onto all these years (and I'm telling you, it's really not that original). Like I said…it's just a stream of consciousness, not designed as an epic chronicling their blossoming relationship, yaddayaddayadda. It's been done too many times for me to write without nicking other people's ideas.
Oh, and by the way, the piece Remus plays before Tonks interrupts him is 'Salut d'Amour' by Elgar. Which if you haven't heard, go do so now…it may not be Blink 182 but it made ME cry. Until next time, all my love xxx