A/N: Just an angsty little one (three)-shot that came to my head literally five minutes ago. Let me know if there are any grammatical errors or anything. I double-checked, but I still probably missed things. Reviews are fantastic and better than all the cookies in the world, so...
By the by, this is all in Hermione's POV.
An Exercise in Futility
Third Year
I can't believe I didn't see it before, when it's been so painfully obvious the whole time. The man's illness is on a schedule- a mysterious disappearance and an excuse of "ill," around the time of the full moon every month, like clockwork. His face is lined with long, grey scars. His hair is the colour of sand, with shocks of grey, whether from the physical toll of lycanthropy or just simple stress I don't know.
"You've been sitting by the window for ages, Hermione," Harry frowns, craning his neck to look at me from his spot on the common room floor.
"Checkmate, Harry," Ron says, before turning to me with a raised eyebrow and asking rather bluntly, "Yeah, what's up with you?"
"Nothing. I'm just distracted is all."
Chilly air blows in through the open window, rustling the crimson curtains. The moon glows white and full against the navy night sky and stars dot the landscape, glistening brightly. I can see the dark outlines of towering trees and mountains lining the distant horizons. I swear I hear a howl permeate the night, carried along by a gust of wind.
How can something so beautiful cause so much pain?
Post-Battle
Teddy Lupin lies in his crib, swathed in layer upon layer of blankets. Harry lies on the couch in the Burrow's living room, his glasses askew and his scraggly black hair sticking up at bizarre angles. Ron is dead to the world, his lanky body draped awkwardly in an armchair, his limbs tangled in a blanket. I kiss him on the forehead, lightly so as not to rouse him, though I could probably smack him upside the head with a frying pan and he wouldn't wake.
As silently as I can, I slip out the front door of the Burrow, disappearing into the night like a ghost. Frigid gusts of midnight air whip my hair and robes into a frenzy, but it's not enough to push me back inside. The night is black as charcoal, not a single star in sight. The light of the moon is all that exists to illuminate the ruins of my world, shining like a beacon of overwhelming hope and unspeakable sorrow. For the first time, I notice the craters dimpling the surface, grey against pristine white. Like Professor Lupin's scars, the trails of grey etched into his face, marking him as what he is.
Was.
For the umpteenth time, I train my ears to block out all outside noise. The blowing of the icy wind, the chirps of crickets. I perform the routine I perfected in third year and repeated ever since, even though I know it will tear me to ribbons.
Desperately, I try to hear the howl of my ex-Professor, disrupting the quiet beauty of the night and ringing through the freezing air like a gunshot. It never worked third through sixth year, or during the long, lonesome nights of the horcrux hunt. But this time, as I perform the most painful exercise in futility in all of my eighteen years, the pain is so deep it feels like a knife, buried to the hilt in my chest.
I wasn't expecting to hear anything. But what kills me is knowing that I never will.
Nineteen Years Later
One day, when he was ten and I was…older than I thought I'd ever live to be, but older than I care to admit, Teddy Lupin asked me a question that made me realise not only his astuteness, but the unfathomable depth of my own grief.
"Why do you always cry when the full moon is out?"
It was true. It was a ritual for me. An agonising, pointless, excruciatingly painful one. Every month, on the night of the full moon, I would sit in front a window with my eyes trained on the mesmerising full moon. Sometimes with my hands pressed against the cool glass of the windowpanes, sometimes with my knees tucked to my chest. Always alone, with silent tears running in hot rivulets down my face.
Always with my ears open, waiting for the anguished howl that never pierced them.