From the playlist:
Aint No Sunshine - Bill Withers
The Parting Glass - Live from the Late Late Show - Hozier
momentary - choir version - Ólafur Arnalds, VOCES8
exile (feat. Bon Iver) - Taylor Swift
Ch. 64 - Exile
February 8th
The sun was setting.
He'd walked pretty far from everyone else, but the instinct would undoubtedly take over once the moon rose, and he'd want to go back to them.
Remus found himself a very distinct tree with a little hollow portion at its base to hide his rucksack in. Even though they'd taken most of his things away, he still didn't feel comfortable leaving the backpack with them. Thankfully, they'd left his wand, some of his rattier clothing, and the lumpy green scarf alone.
He hadn't had a nightmare in seven days.
The migraine was probably the worst it had ever been, and yet it still didn't distract him from the feeling that his joints would burst at any moment.
He tried not to think about the Wolfsbane.
His fingers moved to the fresh cut on his bottom lip. It had just started to heal - until Cassander punched him in the same spot again today.
He or one of his goons had put Remus through a beating every day since he'd arrived. Cassander insisted he had to be "broken in" if he really wanted to stay with the pack. He'd taken Remus's things as "tribute" that first day - the books, more than one pair of shoes, most of his clothes; the magical extension charm had allowed him to fit most of his belongings in that backpack. When Cassander saw those things, most of which had been paid for with James's gold, he decided that Remus must've thought he was too posh for them. He needed to beat any notions of self importance into submission, so that Remus knew he wasn't any better than the rest.
He propped his back up against the tree and shut his eyes. Everything was sore.
The forest was quiet.
The solitude was both a relief and a reminder.
The woods always made him think of James, even before he died. They made him miss his friends, and childhood, and how things used to seem before he learned how terrible the world could be outside the walls of a dormitory. The nights they'd all shared under the full moon had been some of the best of Remus's life; but now, those nights cast shadows on everything that would come after them. He hoped that, someday, he could look back on those times without the ache.
Except James and Peter would still be gone. Sirius's betrayal would never make sense. Remus would still feel responsible. And he suspected the ache would never go away.
James would be so disappointed with him…
…but Remus had never been able to afford James's brand of optimism. James was like Emmeline. He was always looking for ways to help Remus, sometimes to a fault. And how had Remus repaid him and Lily?
He failed them when they needed him most.
So Remus deserved those beatings, he told himself. He'd take as many as Cassander wanted to offer. And if he died one of these days, at least he'd get to see James again.
He wouldn't mind dying, he thought. But he was too cowardly to do it himself.
…Today was Emmeline's birthday.
She turned twenty-two.
And the ache was relentless.
He conjured images of her wonderful life without him to take his mind off everything sore: Emmeline in a white linen dress, running barefoot through tender green grass to sweep a curly-haired toddler into her arms. Laughing as she nuzzled the child to her bosom, her own hair unruly and free. Leading two children by the hand back to a house surrounded by fruit trees. A sturdy, kind looking fellow admiring her from the door frame as she sent the children inside to wash up for supper. Emmeline wrapping the same fellow in her arms and kissing him without a trace of dissatisfaction or regret on her brow.
Emmeline having those children she'd always assured him she didn't need to be happy; but Remus knew.
Emmeline ending up with a man that shined as much light on her as she did on him.
Birthday parties. Christmas cookies. A puppy.
A promotion. Head of the Department. The corner office.
Diagon Alley. Shopping at Flourish and Blotts. Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
Time without the children. Trips to the seaside.
Nights under the full moon without having to worry.
Grandchildren. Great grandchildren. A rocking chair.
A long, joyful, normal life.
She never needed him.
And yet, Remus could not help but despise the imaginary fellow from the door frame…
…for getting everything he wanted.
If only he wasn't sick. If only he wasn't sad. If only he was whole.
His imagination had always been far too vivid for his own good, and it did nothing to soothe him. It only worsened the ache. He hated himself for desiring that she do better, but not being able to stand picturing her doing it without him.
He should have never taken Emmeline back.
He should have never let her kiss him in the first place.
He should have never let the boys become animagi.
He should have never let them become the Marauders.
He should have never let anyone into his life.
It didn't stem from his concern for others. The ache was driven by his own desires. His friends had always criticized him for being self deprecating, but deep down, he knew they were wrong. Any altruism he projected was a measure of self protection. Everything wonderful that ever happened to him only led to loss and betrayal, and this stupid, stupid ache. Had any of it been worth this affliction? It felt so immense, every good thing seemed paltry in comparison.
He'd finally found something more painful and more distracting than the soreness when all of the sudden, a brilliant light materialized in his periphery.
It burned so bright that he noticed it even when his eyelids were closed. Startled, he scrambled onto his hands and knees…
…and came face-to-face with a glowing, misty wolf.
He held his breath, waiting for the moment Emmeline's enraged cries might blare through the silver light of the Patronus. He almost wished they would. Even in her fury, the dulcet sound of her voice would have been the most euphoric torture…
But the wolf only stared at him sorrowfully.
The first time she ever conjured it, they'd been in the middle of a battle. He'd never told her how honored he felt the moment he realized the wolf belonged to her. The implications of it were too overwhelming and too shameful for him to articulate. James and Lily shared the deer. He and Emmeline shared the wolves.
No; it didn't feel quite that equitable. James and Lily were equals. Emmeline had seen fit to incline her life and her destiny to his lowly, melancholy existence. Despite what he was, she'd interlaced herself with him so completely and so unconditionally that her own soul could not help but manifest as a reflection of himself in that way.
Or maybe, he had been a mere reflection of her radiance all along.
Every sore muscle in his body screamed for him to disapparate; to seize her in his arms and hold her. He tensed them up as stiff as he could, so hard that they began to cramp. More agonizing than that was the fact that he couldn't act on the impulse. Emmeline couldn't see it now, but he was doing this for her, so he had to remain strong. He had to. For her.
He reached towards the wolf, but it dissipated within his grasp.
He stared at the spot it had been in, and began to feel bitter and resentful. All of this was already hard enough without her having to remind him what he was missing. Didn't she understand? Hadn't he been clear enough in the letter? This was for her. All of it, for her.
Without really thinking, he reached for his wand. It seemed he would have to tell her once and for all to let him go. If she needed to hear it from his mouth, so be it. He could endure the pain of having to say it.
He got up on his knees and held his wand out in front of him.
"Expecto Patronum…"
Nothing.
His eyebrows came together in frustrated confusion as he turned the wand in his fingers. There had to be one happy memory…
"Exp-...Expecto…Patronum…"
Nothing.
He'd just lamented every happy moment. They were somewhere in the recesses, underneath the layers of grief and toil.
They were.
They had to be.
They…
They were.
But they weren't the same.
Picturing his friends at Hogwarts only made him think of their graves, or the prison cell from his nightmares.
Picturing Harry only made him recall the empty crib in the ravaged nursery.
Picturing Emmeline only made him imagine her sitting alone on her birthday.
"Expecto-...Exp-…" he stuttered.
Nothing. Nothing.
Remus let his wand drop and hugged his knees to his chest as he began to cry.
Alone.
He would have to get used to alone.
Alone would be better, when all was said and done.
Someone told him once that a werewolf could only truly love the moon - always yearning for something too far away to touch.
And all at once, Remus was inundated with revelation like he would drown in it.
It wasn't just a phrase. It was a parable.
Maybe it was meant to be that way.
He should have never allowed himself to get so close to love. Not that of his friends. Not Emmeline. Not a soul.
He should have admired it from afar, and let that be enough for him.
He knew it all along, and yet he'd never known it at all.
Foolish, selfish boy.
He'd craved more; more than simply pining for a distant reflection of something he would never savor. He wished he'd possessed the foresight to let that satisfy him. It would have been so much easier to reckon with that strain of loneliness than the kind he felt now. At least then, he would have never developed a taste for it.
The cold glow of the moon hadn't quenched him; he wanted to go straight to the source. Like Icarus in his hubris, he'd tried to touch the sun.
And like Icarus, his wings had failed him just the same. This was his plummet back to earth.
The sun had set, and he felt her impostor at his back, creeping closer with each minute. He'd forgotten to get undressed. He didn't care. None of it mattered.
It felt as though he'd reached the finale of one Greek tragedy, only to be standing at the precipice of another.
His life would be a series of them.
And so came the moral:
As his body began to bend to the will of the spheres, he was lucid enough to understand that he'd never been meant for the sunlight.
He'd only ever have the moon.