A/N: This is a peice orriginally written for the rtchallange on live journal.Because of that I was going to try to wait until Febuary the first to post it, however,I just don't have that much patience.So, here it is a little less than a week early.This is technically my first attempt at R/T fluffso I'mnot quite certain about how it turned out. I'm completely open to both posotive comments and critisism alike. You can even flame me if you want to, (I promise I won't mind). That beingsaid,hope you enjoy!
Of Robert Frost and Other Mad Men
I shall be telling this with a sigh
somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
-The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost
"The most misunderstood poem of the twentieth century"
That was what his mother had always said; shaking her head with a sigh, each time her Father read Robert Frost's "The Road not Taken" out loud.
Of course his father, being a wizard and hardly a student of Muggle literature, always contended that the meaning was really quite clear to him, and even if he was some how wrong, (Which he insisted he never was), it was still nice to read anyway.
Then, his mother would argue that he wasn't going to get anything at all out of it unless he read it in the right context. (Even though she never quite got around to telling him exactly what the "Right context" was). Now, over twenty years latter, Remus Lupin was still trying to figure the bloody thing out.
It never even truly registered to him that it was a bit mad to still be obsessing over a child hood argument between one's parents. In his mind, it was not even an obsession. More like a curiosity. A sort of hobby that he partook in. After all, what was more normal than spending a Saturday afternoon sitting on the couch in the parlor of number 12 Grimmuald place analyzing Muggle poetry?
"You pouring over that poem thing again Moony?"
Sirius had stepped out from the kitchen carrying a bottle of Ogden's best.
"Hmm." Remus muttered the affirmative setting down the book to jot a word down on a piece of parchment he had set out on his lap.
"Sirius, is there an alternate meaning for the word 'Trodden'?"
"How should I know? All a bunch of gibberish to me."
Remus simply shook his head smiling slightly and returned to the aforementioned gibberish, though at this point it really was useless. He knew very well that he was to get no peace now.
When Sirius was bored, and there was no Snape or Kreatcher around to bully, Remus by default, always became the target for his taunts. So it had been in their Hogwarts days, so it was now.
Remus didn't mind. It was nice to know that some things simply did not change.
"You know what you need mate?" Sirius asked pensively after several minutes of silence.
"Don't even think it Sirius."
"What? It's not impossible Remus. There are plenty of birds out there desperate for a good bloke."
They had been through all of this before. Remus's out right refusal to be involved in any romantic relationship always gave Sirius a great amount of amusement
"I suppose you could even find one desperate enough to tolerate a disdainful lunar habit?"
"Sure! In case you haven't noticed mate, lycanthropy is in. Danger, excitement, and all that rot. Women love it!"
"And you know this, how?"
"Well, I haven't always been cooped up in this mad old house. Picked up quite a bit while I was on the road."
Sirius smiled in quite a self satisfied way that reminded Remus all too much of the teenage boy at Hogwarts when he was planning a particularly clever prank.
"From what I've heard, if you would-oh, bloody hell."
An indiscernible shriek was heard from the front corridor.
"HALF-BLOOD! FREAK! SHAPE-SHIFTER! SHAME OF MY FAMILY TREE!"
"That'll be Tonks then," Sirius sighed loudly over the screams of his mother's portrait.
"Help me shut mum up would you Remus?"
Reluctantly Remus set down his father's book ("Great Muggle Poets and What Wizards Could Learn From Them"), and followed Sirius into battle.
They entered the corridor to find Tonks dripping wet, hot pink, shoulder length hair matted onto her head, swearing loudly above Mrs.Black's exclamations, and hopping madly on one foot, while cradling the other in her hand.
"HOLY MOTHER OF MERLIN!"
"BLOOD -TRAITORS! MUTANTS! HOW DARE YOU BESMIRCH THE NOBLE HOUSE OF BLACK WITH YOUR STAIN?"
"BLOODY, DAMNED TROLL FOOT UMBRELLA STAND!"
Finally, and with great effort, Sirius and Remus managed to close the curtains over the shrieking portrait and usher Tonks, still nursing her injured foot, into the back living area.
"I sware that damned thing moves on its own! Why the hell don't you just get rid of it?"
"Nice to see you too Tonks. Though it would have been better if you'd come through the back door, like I told you to the last time this happened,"
"Yes Mum."
Sirius Dope slapped the back of Tonk's head, and she in turn lightly elbowed his stomach.
"I didn't know you were coming by today Tonks," Remus said as he began to move back to his couch.
"They turned off the heat in my flat. So I came here to get a hot shower and, maybe a place to sleep tonight?"
She turned a pair of hopeful puppy dog eyes toward Sirius, who sighed with mock reluctance.
"All right, All right, I'll go make up the old guest bed. Though it doesn't look like you'll be needing that shower."
"Well it's pouring out there isn't it?"
"So I suppose the rain is somehow my fault as well?"
Remus smiled at Sirius and Tonks' ensuing banter, and quietly returned to his book.
Tonks provided a rather useful opportunity for Remus.
Besides being youthful, and rather charming company, (as well as, though admitting it made him feel quite lecherous, very lovely to look at), she came with the added bonus of being Sirius's cousin.
This generally meant that, when she visited Grimmuald Place, she and Sirius were able to entertain each other well enough that Remus was, for the most part, free to pursue other endeavors. Endeavors that at the moment included finding the hidden meaning with in the line 'In leaves no step had trodden black'.
"What's that you're reading Remus?"
"Muggle poetry," he answered vaguely, trying to keep his mind focused on the task at hand. Perhaps the double meaning lay in the word "Black"?
"He's been at that thing for over an hour," Sirius said. "Apparently Kreatcher's not the only one in this house that's gone 'round the twist."
"You're one to talk." Remus said, not lifting his eyes from the book.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh do us a favor, and go make yourself useful Sirius."
Tonks lightly pushed Sirius toward the stairwell corridor.
"I wouldn't be so rude to your poor cousin Tonks." Sirius said lightly with a surreptitious grin on his face. "If your not careful I just might be inclined to give you the bed with our special sheets, curteousy of my dear Mum."
With that last word of warning, Sirius made his retreat up the stairs.
"Honestly, how do you live with him?" Tonks asked as she flopped down next to Remus on the couch. Remus simply shrugged from behind his book.
"He has his moments."
Meanwhile, he was wasting time on the third stanza. He would simply have to move on,
'I Kept the First for Another Day'. Well that simply led him back to the beginning again. He spent several moments looking over the first half of the poem once more in frustration before he realized that Tonks had begun reading over his shoulder.
"Tonks, what are yo-?"
"Ah, the Road Not Taken. 'Most misunderstood poem of the twentieth century that."
He stared at her for a moment as though she had just claimed that, yes, the earth was indeed flat
"My Dad." She said somewhat apologetically. "He loved Muggle literature. Always said he would've been a writer if Hogwarts hadn't gotten to him first."
Remus looked back at her and smiled. He had never truly appreciated that Tonks came from a partially Muggle back round as well.
"My mother was an English teacher at a secondary school," He felt inclined to share. "She used to say the same thing about this poem when I was young. Now, I'm just trying to work out what she meant by it."
"They do have books that explain this sort of thing you know?"
"Yes but where would the fun be in that?"
It wasn't as though the thought hadn't occurred to him. There were books at Flourish and Blotts that analyzed these types of poems in depth. But that seemed like cheating somehow.
"Just as long as you know your going about it the wrong way." Tonks said with an air of feigned superiority.
"How do you mean?" Remus asked
"Well, first off, don't you think you're over analyzing a bit?"
He saw her gaze over the papers laid out across his lap with lengthy explainations and stanzas of the poem messily crossed out in long strokes of ink.
"Perhaps."
"And besides that, the whole point of the poem isn't in the beginning, it's in the end."
Remus let his gaze travel to the last stanza and barely noticed when Tonks slid closer to him on the couch.
"Allright then, so I should begin at the end?"
"Yep!" Tonks said as she adjusted her position leaning over to slip off her boots, lightly skimming Remus's leg with her hand in the process.
" So… 'I shall be telling this with a sigh, ages and ages hence,'" Remus muttered as he took the quill in his hand and began to write the line down on the parchment splayed out in front of him.
However, before he could finish copying the word 'Shall', Tonks stopped his quill by laying her hand on top of his own.
'Strange', Remus thought to himself. She had never touched his hand before that he could remember.
"Don't write, just sit and think about it for a moment." She said moving closer so that their thighs were now touching. "What does it mean?"
Remus thought for a moment.
"Well, ages and ages hence implies that the narrator is, recounting his story to a younger audience,"
"Right," Tonks said. He could vaguely feel a bare, and wet foot moving up and down against his ankle.
"Then…'Two Roads Diverged in Wood and I—', there the poem breaks and then repeats again."
"Right, and?" She shifted a bit. Remus thought he felt her foot slide further up his calf but told himself not to take too much note of it. It was just his hidden, yet apparently present, lecherous nature taking hold again.
"And…?" He thought for a moment
"Think for a moment." Tonks encouraged. Remus did think. In fact he was so lost in thought that he did not realize when Tonks sidled closer to him so that she was leaning completely against him.
"That line feels as if…"
"What does it feel like Remus?" She asked softly, he barely noticed that her voice sounded very close.
'And I-' What could it mean? There was no reason for Frost to repeat himself, unless…
"Hesitation!" Remus came to the sudden conclusion. Of course! Why hadn't he seen it before? He didn't hear the high squeal of surprise as he leapt quickly from the couch.
"The narrator of the poem, is telling the story years later to someone else, but he's hesitating in that re-telling."
Remus began to pace feeling a sudden flood of inspiration.
"Why though? Why does he hesitate?"
He looked to Tonks, hoping that she would be able to push him further in the right direction.
Instead, when he turned to the couch, he found an irritated looking pink haired witch, sprawled out clumsily on the carpet, staring back at him. Apparently he'd been so caught up in his new found understanding that he failed to realize that Tonks had fallen off the sofa.
"Well," She said, primly, pulling herself up to her feet. "If you haven't worked that out by now, I'm certainly not going to be the one to tell you."
And, with a glare at Remus which suggested that he had just done something incredibly rude, she marched out of the sitting room and through the double doors which lead to the kitchen.
Before Remus could even begin to make sense of this strange behavior, he heard a loud barking laugh from the doorway.
"Sirius? How long have you been there?"
"Long enough to watch you make a total idiot out of yourself," Sirius said still grinning as he made his way into the room.
"What does that mean?" Remus was now completely confused.
"Well, if you haven't worked that out by now," Sirius said imitating Tonks' Yorkshire accent. "I'm certainly not going to be the one to tell you."
And with another short laugh, he followed Tonks into the kitchen, leaving Remus alone in the sitting room.
What was that? Surely Sirius couldn't have been implying that Tonks…that Tonks and Remus could possibly…? No. Why would a lovely, young, vivacious, girl like Tonks willingly pursue a dried up old werewolf? The idea was laughable.
Still…she had been awfully close to him on the couch. And it was clear from all of their interactions that she, at the very least did not find him repulsive…
Remus sighed and threw his book of poems onto the sofa in defeat. There was only one logical conclusion to all of this:
Robert Frost, like everyone else inside Number 12 Grimmuald place, was completely, and utterly, mad.