Chapter 8-
"Right Here" - Staind
Too say Sirius was angrier then he had been before was under-exaggerating. He was so livid he struck at me in anyway he could- starting with Alyssa.
He started giving her a nickname. Love. I could hardly remember her real name because all he could ever say was Love. "Love, oh Love, that feels pleasant. Love, oh gods Love, do you have to be so rough-no! don't stop! Love, oh bite me, yeah that's the ticket I'm afraid and long white train has come oh GOD LOVE."
You're telling me. I heard it every night, though occasionally he changed the train metaphor to a broomstick or something even more disturbing. The worst of it though came when he was trying to be romantic to her.
"Love..." he had cried the night right before my latest werewolf transformation, when I was already feeling low. "Love...you're so beautiful in the moonlight; look, it's almost a full moon. Love, I want to do this right- I want to stay with you until dawn and after the moon goes to sleep. I don't care if I spend all of tomorrow trying to stay awake- just the sight of you right now makes it worth it all."
To say I didn't sleep either that night was also under-exaggerating. I didn't eat the next day, I didn't talk the next day; he didn't come to the Shrieking Shack that day, either.
The spring time madness had hit us; and the feeling of love spread like butterflies. And I hadn't seen a single one all month; but you could feel their presence.
On top of all this, Sirius had splurged on something for himself- or should I say, did something more selfish then normal. He bought himself a flying motorcycle. FLYING. I didn't understand how it wasn't illegal, considering the laws against bewitching muggle artifacts, but all I knew was it was the talk of the school. Sirius had hit the height of cool. Everyone talked about how amazing it would be to get a ride with him. I shook my head. If that's all they wanted from Sirius it was all they deserved.
On the back of a motorbike with your arms outstretched trying to take flight, leaving everything behind; but even at our swiftest speed we couldn't break from the concrete in the city where we still reside. And I've learned even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea like navy men, 'cause now we say goodnight from our own separate sides like brothers on a hotel bed…
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"I don't want to be without you." I found myself saying, as I kneeled down beside him and elevated his head so he wouldn't choke on his blood, spit, and teeth. He coughed again and I pushed him so he was lying on his side, facing me.
It seems my life is repetitious and yet surprising to me, at the same time. I've been here before but yet- I've never had to face something like this before, losing someone I love, for real.
"You have too." He said, reaching up to push the soft blonde locks of hair from my eyes, as I fought not to cry. I couldn't help it. I took up his hand, and he looked at me, begging for forgiveness as if I was a priest. "Remus, forgive me for doing it. I loved you." He said, harshly as he sputtered. I nodded at him, breaking my dams behind my eyes and in my mind. I started to cry and could only nod. "Remus, you've got to forgive yourself, too. It isn't your fault I'm laying here. It was my choice. Everything I ever did in life or anything that ever happened to me was because of my choices. Remember that. Cowards die a thousand deaths, but the valiant die but one."
"Julius Caesar." He grinned softly and I kissed his forehead, hating myself for just letting him go. But there was not a single thing that could save him. "I love you, too." He squeezed my hand so tight I couldn't breath- and I knew then it robbed him of all his strength.
And so passed my father, John Lupin. I screamed for help long afterwards, not for medical attention but for someone to guide me, like he did in his last few hours. But there was no one to respond. And there was nothing I could do but pick myself up and tell myself to apparate back to my house. But I couldn't do it- I didn't have an inch of focus left in me.
Focus, Remus John, I tried to tell myself. But my eyes were locked on my dad's. I ruffled through my pockets, still crying, to find two coins- any monetary denomination would do- but I was poor and nothing remained.
"Remus!" The voice called out, frantically. "Remus!" I was still paralyzed on the ground, wishing for everything- to have had a better home life, to have been more comfortable, to have not blamed him for so much, but most of all-I wished my mother hadn't killed him. "Remus, let's go- I've been calling for you for ten minutes! James' dad- Arnie. He's dead." I whipped around silently to face Sirius, drying my eyes on my sleeves. I reached a hand out to him and he went to heave me up but I shook my head and retracted back.
"No...Sirius, I need two knuts." He looked scathing, like he was disgusted- but he reached into his robes and handed me two galleons, miraculously. It was a miracle he hadn't lost them during the calamity.
"All I have." I nodded, and placed the coins over my father's eyes, wishing that I knew a prayer to say. I knew if there was a heaven and a God that my father probably wouldn't be welcomed in with open arms, so with nothing to say and all the regret in the world, I rose from beside his final resting place, and stood across from Sirius. "Who is that guy?" I moved in front of him, following his footsteps in the mud, wand out and sprinting into the moonlight. He caught up with me, and with deep breaths that I thought hid my emotions almost as much as I wanted them to, I spoke again.
"Just a man." I answered, slowing down my run as we approached the threshold of the Potter house. "A man named John Lupin."
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I want to give my father something he never had; a son, so I'll begin right from the beginning where he had one, then the son he had didn't want him, and now he wanted him back more then ever.
I didn't have the best family life, by any means. My parents were young when they got married- my father didn't have time to really be a 'man' and my mother didn't know how to be a mother. I like to believe when they first got married they loved each other- or at least, I pray that they did. I was only six when I had become a werewolf.
My dad, only twenty-eight at the time and still so young, was addicted to the dice. He gambled everything and with anyone. My mother had started her own business back then, at only twenty-six. She ran lodging in London, down in the old warehouse area where mostly the magical crowd could come and stay and be unbothered by the muggles. They made decent money, until my father gambled it away. Out of all the things I've watched my parents argue about, the story of my turning has remained the same from both of them- it makes me wonder sometimes then if they can still love each other despite the events that occurred this night, and every night afterwards.
My mother, angry that my father made careless bets with people all over the city, finally said to him if he was going to waste their hard earned money, at least do it in her pub/inn with her customers, so in some way it may actually come back to the family. My father decided it was a fair compromise, and that's how it started on that Christmas Eve.
John Lupin was up a couple galleons that night, and he was in a gloating mood. My mom slapped down another pint in front of him, and as he drank it, in walked a pack of strangers. A pack was the correct word for them.
The leader sat down in front of my father, and grinned horribly, as so described. My mother says it was almost as if he had spotted a wild turkey. My father says it was almost as if he planned on hurting the thing that would weaken him the most. To his day- I wonder what that was. John Lupin's pride, John Lupin's family, or John Lupin himself.
"How lucky are you?" The stranger asked, before demanding a double scotch. He handed my father dice and he rolled. The stranger took the drink from my mother's hands before she had time to even ask if he wanted a room. "Looks like you're not lucky enough; you're buying my first drink of the night."
My mother's eyes had narrowed. "Do you need a ro-"
"Don't think so." He burped and his pack laughed. "We like to roam during the night." He answered. "I will take another double though."
"Are you going to pay for this one?" She walked away to fix the man a drink. When she left, the stranger leaned across the table to whisper to my father. "Now that that bitch is gone, what's say you and I do some real gambling?"
"That bitch is my wife." My father answered. The pack of men laughed; by now they had dispensed themselves into seats around the table, waiting for some type of action. The stranger took off his sunglasses and revealed the darkest, golden eyes my father had ever seen, he said. 'Like pioneers striking gold' he'd compare. Though they were a rich color, my father said the man himself was pale and lacked color, and something about the way he smiled made my parents uneasy.
"Sorry, sir. What say you?" He replied.
"I'm game." My father answered. My mother came back, placed the scotch down, and then pulled my father from the table, angrily and into the back room.
I was there, sitting on the floor playing with Lincoln logs, trying to think of the most efficient way to build a house. When my mother stepped in, wearing her pointy red 'work' shoes, she scattered my whole project. She pushed them farther aside, her way of telling me to move.
"Use the trick dice. I want that man and his friends out."
"Debra- it's the business. We handle sketchy characters all the time." My dad replied. My mom stamped her foot in fury, cracking one of my logs in half and narrowly missing my fingers. I pushed myself farther away from them and into the corner, to eavesdrop, interested even at such a young age.
"No John! I handle them all the time!" She said. "I deal with them my way- and now I'm asking for an alternative!" She took his hand and pressed the dice into his hands, anxiously. "There's something I know is sincerely wrong with this man." She then suddenly bent down and swooped me into her arms, though I was a tall boy for my age. "And I'm scared." She answered herself.
"Okay." My father said finally. My mother set me down without a word, and that was it. They went out into the pub and I tried to devise a new plan to build a house. Be like my mother. Use what I knew worked and improved on that already…
"Okay." My father said again, to a new person. The stranger nodded at him as he had found his way back to the table.
"Okay."
Not okay. A few seconds later, the stranger picked up my father by his collar, and in a very old fashioned, threatening way screamed into his face, turning flush now from his anger.
"You try to cheat me, do you?!" He threw my father back down and rose into a towering stance, as if he was inflating from the feet up. My mother burst out from the bar, screaming her head off, and I came running out, not so much terrified as interested. The stranger turned to my mother and with a firm smack across her face knocked her to the ground. "And I suppose this was your idea? Don't like our business then?!" She groaned and from the floor I saw her shoo me away and I made to move but the stranger stepped in front of me- something about his eyes, not the color, not the size- but the desire in them. In that second he wanted me, I don't know how, but the strange man with the grey matted hair really liked his children. "What- the whole family in on it too?!" He said, reaching a surprisingly gently hand towards me.
"No, Remus, don't!" She shouted.
"Remus?" He had the most unusual, sickening bark of a laugh. "How ironic." was the reply. He let go of me and in silence his pack left the room into the streets, pulling their hoods up as they stepped into the snow.
"We'll be back!" One of them shouted.
"SHUT UP!" roared the stranger. He turned to face my father and mother before he followed them down the street. He left his hood down and the snow stuck in his hair, and some how it brought out the rage in his eyes. "Greyback. Remember my name, and the promise I'm making you right now- it's not over."
It wasn't. I don't want to go into what happened the next night; it's a whole different story for a whole other day. It was more about me then my father, really.
I told all of this to Lily tonight, as we sat together in the Potter's basement as Sirius and James sat on the couch, fast asleep though they both wanted to stay up and wait for Minnie. Lily and I could only imagine how drained they were and for their sake, we spoke in as hushed voices as we could.
"You said early you wish your mother didn't kill your father. What do you mean- what else happened tonight, Remus?" I have a dramatically ironic laugh.
"You say it as if what did happen wasn't enough." I stated, shrugging. "But I mean what I say Lily. My mom had a way of dealing with things; by making deals. She was promised something good in return tonight and she did it- got what she needed. She's a rich woman again, Lily- and turning her small pub into a dark bar only means more green…and silver. Not in the Slytherin way." I added, unceremoniously. "It means she doesn't have to depend on anyone ever again."
"That's stupid." Lily says, flatly. "Technically she has to depend on them!" She replied, shaking her head angrily.
"I know but…it's different, apparently, at least to her. But I…" for the first time the entire night, I started to choke up. I buried my face in my hands and Lily, sitting there, didn't move. I barely heard her breathing to begin with. "I don't see her reasoning either."
"Don't look for a reasoning then." She said softly. I nodded in the dark, and then above us, I heard the door slam. I jerked up, and rose, walking over to James and Sirius, shaking James first. He didn't even ask, only woke up and started up the stairs to his mother.
I went to wake Sirius and found him shedding tears, quietly. He didn't seem ashamed, either. I nodded at him, and then sat back down in my corner chair, far hidden in the dark. I felt very out of place at James' that night- with the family tragedy and with my self. I hated how different everything seemed to me, lately.
"Let's get out of here." Sirius said, simply- sitting up and glancing around at Lily. She shook her head, as if saying those silly boys, and snuck upstairs to be with James. My eyes connected with Sirius. "I'm serious."
"I know." I replied back. "Where would we go?"
"Anywhere. It doesn't matter, does it? I'd hate to think there are stipulations to where we can go at midnight, especially when the sky is ours."
"The sky?" I questioned. He took out his keys and magically conjured up two helmets from the air. He tossed me one and I fumbled it uncoordinatedly.
"It's the limit." He answered. I nodded in agreement and followed him out the back door and into the street. He climbed on, kick started it, and adjusted his helmet. I wrung my hands. He raised an eyebrow at me, inquisitively, and then shook his head before stopping the engine and approaching me. "So wise but so naïve. What else haven't you done before?" He asked, semi-rhetorically. He demonstrated swinging his leg over the bike. I did the same and he sat in front of me, leaning forward to grip the handle bars. I had no idea where to place my sweaty hands. "Don't be shy, Remus. Use the beltloops." He said, finally, before he started again.
"Easy for you to say, Love." I snapped back. He made no answer. I laced my fingers through his loops and sighed deeply. "Just do it."
"Don't close you eyes." He said, tenderly before driving slowly down the street. I automatically shut them. "I'm going to pick it up a bit so we can get in the air; from there it's just like a broomride, Remus, with funny engine noises." I said nothing. He did as he said and I locked my eyes tighter. I felt as if I was sliding off, tumbling back into the chaotic world as I knew it. Finally when we reached the speed to ascend into the air, I went from holding the back of Sirius' pants to reaching around front in fear. He shouted with laughter.
I didn't scream, but I didn't blink, either. I was so opposed to opening my eyes that I was starting to get a headache from the pressure. After a few minutes in the air, he declared he found someplace he wanted to stop. "Do you mind?" I shook my head no frantically and he made a much less steeper decline to the ground.
"Where are we?" I asked him, noticing the very upper-class urban setting.
"No where." He replied, casually, but it was too throw away to be Sirius. He drove slowly down the street (thank god) and we paused in front of an elaborate house squashed in between two fairly modern abodes. This one, though, was almost a mansion. Sirius stared at it for a long time. "How much do you think a house like that goes for?" He asked, strangely.
"I don't know…probably a hundred thousand galleons. Why?" I asked, suddenly. "Thinking about buying it?"
"Hardly." He replied. He bowed at it, like calling a truce with an inanimate object, and then nodded at the bar down the street. "A drink, I think." He said, finally.
"Nothing that nice on the outside can be perfect within. It just doesn't happen like that."
"Oh trust me-" he answered "I know."
AN: Thank you SO much to my reviewers! I really do love to hear what you have to say and it makes me smile to think that someone out there actually reads the stuff I write instead of attempting to pass my classes! - love, Lena