Title:
Elegy (The Slow Like Honey Remix) | ||
| When James died,
all of Wizarding Britain mourned him. He was the kind of man others say "Great
man, pity that the good always die young" to. They'd shed tears at
funerals and write long and unwitty eulogies because you never hated James
unless he hated you too. But when Remus died, you found him printed in
black and white on a newspaper-perhaps not even a Wizarding one-a mention
of a name, not even the age or life story or anything. Just something like
Remus John Lupin or just Remus J. Lupin.
But his friends, those who knew him, would grieve forever. They would think of him in their most secret thoughts, in deeper nights, shielded once, twice, hate-hidden, love-forlorn, trying to bring his brilliance back alive. Except, they've all died. *** *** Sitting in this room, surrounded by their life together, she was overwhelmed. There were books open on his desk, parchment and quill beside them as if he had just gone to get tea. Dark green robes, the one she'd bought him for Christmas last year, were hanging in the closet. A half-full glass of water sat on the nightstand, a smudged fingerprint on the side. All these things were waiting for him to come back to them, just like she was. She ran her hand over the patchwork quilt, faded from age and too many washings. So many nights they spent lying under it, limbs twisted together, talking, laughing, fighting, and making love. He always told the most fascinating stories - curse-breaking in Peru, teaching in China, even tending bar in Berlin. He could make even the most boring place in the world seem utterly fascinating. If she closed her eyes, she could see him there. Pillows piled against the headboard, wearing those faded blue pajamas she hated, his glasses sitting slightly crooked on his nose, and a book in his lap. His hands always smelled like books – ink, parchment, and worn leather. To her it was a comforting smell, like the library at Hogwarts or the study downstairs. It was like coming home. He was home to her. They were never each other's great loves. They were both smart enough to understand that that kind of love, searing and all consuming, came once in a lifetime. It was a love born of circumstance and friendship, of passion and need, and in the end, happiness. Against all odds, they'd made a life for themselves after the war that almost destroyed them both. After the final battle, when she was cradling Ron's broken body to her like a child's doll, he pulled her away, and made her go back to Grimmauld Place with Tonks. She hid in her room for weeks and didn't speak to anyone. Molly and Ginny were busy fussing over Harry and hiding their own grief, but he always brought her tea and gave her novels to lose herself in. He never pushed her; because he understood what it was like to lose the person you loved most in the world. She was sure he wasn't surprised when she showed up on his doorstep. Harry and Ginny had just gotten married and as big as Grimmauld Place was, there was no room for her there anymore. He just opened the door and led her to the small bedroom downstairs. It had been almost two years of living together before she kissed him. They were in the study and he was laughing, a deep, full laugh that washed over her slow and warm like sunlight. For some reason, leaning over and pressing her lips to his seemed like the most natural thing in the world at that moment. He didn't respond at first and she began to pull away, but suddenly his hand was in her hair and he was kissing her back, years of pent-up desperation pouring out. They made love right there on the couch, those hands she had admired so much moving over her, around her, inside her, and making her feel alive for the first time since Ron had died. After that, almost nothing changed, except for now she was sleeping upstairs with him in his wide brass bed covered in a dark blue quilt with the constellations splashed over it. There was no question of where he'd gotten it and if she was a different kind of woman, she might have asked him to take it off, but she knew that Sirius was part of him and loving him had made him who he was. The year he got sick, she was sure she was going to lose him. The lunar cycle had been very odd, a blue moon and two eclipses had made the transformations so taxing he could barely get out of bed. The Wolfsbane potion had been improved since he'd started taking it all those years ago, but it still wasn't modified enough to let the mind of the human keep control. So she dug out the potion journals that she'd been left by Severus and did the only thing she knew how to do. She turned the downstairs bedroom and bath into a potions lab. Within six months, she had a test batch and ignoring her protests, he was her first subject. After the first dose, he was violently ill and she wasn't sure he'd make it through the night. He was burning with fever and she knew she needed to keep him awake, so she asked about James and Lily, even though she knew the stories already. But this one was different. "When James died, all of Wizarding Britain mourned him. He was the kind of man others said 'Great man, pity that the good always die young' about," he said, his voice worn raw. "They'd shed tears at funerals and write long and unwitty eulogies because you never hated James unless he hated you too. He was just that way, you know? "I stood beside his grave and thought, 'But when I die, you'll find me printed in black and white on the back page of a newspaper - perhaps not even a Wizarding one. Just a mention of a name, not even the age or life story or anything. Just something like Remus John Lupin or just Remus J. Lupin died today.' Isn't that sad?" She clung to him then, whispering that that would never happen to him because his friends, those who knew him, would grieve forever. They would think of him in their most secret thoughts, in deeper nights, shielded once, twice, hate-hidden, love-forlorn, trying to bring his brilliance back alive. He laughed at that and said, "That's one of the things I love about you Hermione, that hidden inside the scholar is a very bad poet." At some point in the night, she dropped off and when she woke up, he was sitting up in bed looking better than he had since before the war, a foolish grin on his face. "Darling, you look terrible. What were you doing last night?" It worked. After doses on each on the four nights leading up to the full moon, Remus transformed and was able to gain control of the wolf. He was able to run free in the woods surrounding the house knowing that he wouldn't harm himself or anyone else. The morning after, when he told her it was the best moon he'd spent since he'd run with Padfoot, she burst into tears. That alone was worth every hour she'd spent bent over a putrid smelling cauldron. Once she sold the patent for the potion, money was never an issue again. They spent springtime in Paris, the fall in Rome and she fulfilled her wish to swim in every ocean on the planet, Remus watching from the beach. In New York, they bought rare first editions of their favorite books and kissed like teenagers on a bench in Central Park, and made love on their balcony in Jamaica. His sandy hair had gone completely gray and she could see strands of silver in her own, but none of that seemed to matter as long as they had each other. She built a greenhouse behind the house and experimented with all different types of healing potions and he wrote articles on every subject, from defense spells to the benefit of integration of Muggle items into Wizard society. Life was comfortable and relatively struggle free. Which was why she should have seen it coming. She'd been to the market in town and the weather was too nice to Apparate straight back, so she walked, knowing Remus would still be in the study reading, exactly as she'd left him a few hours earlier. The door was still closed and after she put the groceries in the kitchen, she knocked softly. When he didn't answer, she pushed the door open and saw him lying on the couch, his book propped on his chest. That's when she noticed he wasn't breathing. Her wand was out before she got across the room and she was casting every revival spell she could think of, but it was too late. The doctors at St. Mungo's told her his heart had just given out. He'd lived longer than most werewolves and they told her she should be happy that he'd gotten so much time to begin with. She nodded numbly, knowing he wouldn't want her to lash out the doctors with their bland rhetoric. Ginny came to stay with her and help her make the arrangements for the funeral. He deserved a burial; she remembered his words from that night. There were so many people who should have been there, except they were all dead or scattered to the four winds. In the end, only she, Ginny, and Harry watched his casket sink into the ground in the consecrated cemetery in Hogsmeade. She'd arranged to have him put next to Sirius' memorial. It was what he would have wanted and before Harry could follow, she Apparated back to their house. The box was sitting in her lap, the mahogany finish glowing in the dying light of the day. In all the years they'd been together, it was the only thing he'd kept private from her. She put the tiny gold key in and gently lifted the lid. There were pictures on top, some of them so old they were yellowing near the edges. An eleven year old Remus standing on Platform 9 3/4, waving excitedly to the camera. Four teenage boys sitting in the Gryffindor common room, making faces and giving each other rabbit ears. Sirius, sitting against a tree near the lake, Remus' head in his lap and occasionally running his fingers through gold-brown hair. James getting wedding cake smashed in his face with a laughing Lily in the background. One of Sirius lying in bed and smiling shyly, sheets twisted around his legs and the sun pouring in, making the white sheets glow behind his dark hair. Another of her sitting on their back porch, the sunset giving her an orange-red halo. Blinking back tears, she sent them aside and dug deeper into the box. In a small velvet pouch, she found Sirius' signet ring. The crest of the Ancient and Noble House of Black was done in black and blue stamped in pure silver and it felt unbearably heavy. But now she knew what the odd scar in the palm of his hand was from, the one he never wanted to explain. She rifled through postcards, a ticket from a Clash concert in 1979, Harry's birth announcement, clippings from the Daily Prophet, a note she'd left on the refrigerator, and a million other things that had been important enough for him to keep, until she came to an envelope at the bottom. Setting the box aside, she held it her lap, fingers tracing over her name written is his familiar, looping script. A part of her didn't want to open it, didn't want to acknowledge the fact that this was the final step and he was never going to walk through the door and drape his cardigan over the back of the chair. He would never laugh or make tea, never kiss her on the back of the neck or run his hands over her ribs and tickle her until she screamed for mercy. With a snap, she broke the seal. A Gringotts vault key fell into her lap and she began to flip through the pages of parchment. She briefly scanned the legal documents and at the back she found what she was looking for – a letter. The date at the top was three weeks ago. Hermione, At the risk of sounding cliche, if you're reading this letter then I must be dead. God, there's an odd sentence to write. Not to mention a bit depressing, actually. Right now, I can hear you in the kitchen making dinner. From the crashing and the swearing, you're probably trying for Shepherd's Pie, but we'll end up eating cold take-away from last night because you will have lost your temper and chucked the whole lot in the bin. Which is fine, since I've never been all that fond of Shepherd's Pie. Let's get the business out of the way first. The papers that you likely skipped over are the deed to the house here and the flat in London. I had them put in both of our names before I tested the Wolfsbane potion, just in case. There's also a key to my vault at Gringotts. Not much in there except some books and some spare Galleons, but you might want to empty it anyway. I have no idea what possessed me to write this today. I was always crap at Divination, but something told me to do this while I had the time because it would be important at some point. And I don't want my last words to you to be "Pass the curry." or something similar. I have been supremely lucky in my life. I have loved and been loved by the two most amazing people I've ever known. When Sirius died, I thought I'd gotten my chance at love, but Fate works in mysterious ways. You grew up far too fast. When other girls were going on dates and fretting over what to wear to the next dance, you were fighting a war. Don't get me wrong, I know that if you had to do it over again, you wouldn't change your decision and I respect that. In some ways, Sirius, James, and I didn't grow up fast enough. When we left Hogwarts we were scarcely prepared for what a world at war was like and it cost us all dearly. Not that you didn't pay in your pound of flesh. I know how much Ron meant to you and that you still feel guilty for not dying with him. He gave his life for what he believed in and for whom he loved, just like Sirius did. Complete nutters, the both of them, but you can't choose who you love. And I do love you. Don't ever forget that. You were never a substitute for him. I'm not going to stroke your ego by telling you how amazing and brilliant you are, because you already know all those things. And you are far stronger than you give yourself credit for and I hope you remember that. You won't fall apart after I'm gone. I know that's what you're thinking, so you can stop it right now. Your heart will heal and you will laugh again, I promise. In fact, that's my last request. Toss me out with the rubbish, donate my body to St. Mungo's, I don't care, but do not spend the rest of your life mourning the things you lost. Go and spend time spoiling Harry and Ginny's children rotten and send them back home, go back to India, teach at Hogwarts if you want, but live and be happy. That's all I want. I just heard dishes smashing, which means you're about to call me to the kitchen. So, in closing – I love you. Don't lock your heart away when I'm gone. With Love Always, P.S. Don't think you can fool me. If you become a mope, I'll send Peeves to haunt you.
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