Letters to the Moon, (HP; Remus/Sirius, Remus/other, PG-13)
Title: Letters to the Moon
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters/Pairing: Remus-centric; past Remus/Sirius, some Remus/OFC
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: through PoA.
Word Count: 3,409
Summary: In which Remus sets a precedent for cradle robbing, and misses Sirius.
Disclaimer: characters are not mine.
Remus writes Sirius a letter everyday during the first year Sirius is incarcerated. He never sends a single one. One night, years later, in a fit of emotion, the first time he is not numb with pain in two years, reads through them one by one and drops each one on the fire when he finishes. He is done with Sirius Black, he swears that night. It is the end, and Sirius is no longer the sun. He has become the moon.
Remus no longer thinks of Sirius during the day. It used to be that his whole life was consumed by the inescapable presence that was Sirius, but now he stifles any thoughts of that which once was. He likes his life quiet, his tea with one cream and two sugars, his job in a muggle bookstore outside London. He convinces himself of this. He does not miss the life he once led. Still, he hangs the raincoat that was Sirius’s neatly on the peg at the end of every night. He prefers order, he says, he thinks, he knows, but he still has not mended the tear in the shoulder that signifies everything Sirius was.
London in the 80s- Remus hopes never to live through such a decade again. He bites off the corner of a chocolate bar neatly. It is two days after the full moon, and he is scheduled for work tonight. The owner is understanding of his need to go see his mother every three weeks, and never questions why Remus may come back from Yorkshire more scarred than he left for it. Remus is glad, almost. He loves the books, the smell of everything, the cafe in the back corner with the teenaged girl that works there and slips him free scones when he comes over to chat with her.
He especially loves the way that no one here wants to discuss the past with him, because no one knows.
By the sixth year Sirius is incarcerated, Remus has stopped returning to Diagon Alley, and refuses job offers from old schoolmates that would take him back into the wizarding world. He finds himself precariously close to losing his temper anytime any of the Marauders are mentioned. Thinking of their years together in school, their adventures, first together, then with increasing frequency, just him and Sirius, makes Remus ill. “I thought I knew him,” he murmurs, as he clenches his fist. “I thought I loved him,” he growls, knowing even now that there was no thought about it. He had loved him, and had thought Sirius had loved him too. But that is the past, and Remus no longer thinks about the past. Instead, he smiles at the girl who still passes him the scones, and suggests they go down to the pub after their shifts are over.
Two years later, when the girl has become just Emily, and has moved into his flat, Remus is surprised when she wants to come with him to Yorkshire.
“You can’t,” he says, wary of this twenty year old’s sudden need to be a much greater part of his life than scones during work and sandwiches after sex at three am.
“My mother isn’t well. She doesn’t take well to strangers,” he lies. His mother is dead, but the excuse is convenient, and he has learned from a young age not to say anything about becoming the wolf.
“Can’t you just skive off then? Just this once?” He doesn’t like the pleading in her tone. He has never heard it before, not once in the two years they have been together. It reminds him of Sirius, his own personal he who must not be named. Sirius was a dog, in the end, and would plead with his voice and his eyes until he got his way. But Emily is not Sirius, and Emily is a muggle, and Emily must not know anything about werewolves and wizards and the dreams he has when he sleeps off the full moon.
“Please? Can’t you? It’s important to me.” Her blue eyes water, and he is sorry, but he can’t, he can’t do this. Sirius used to ask him if he couldn’t stop the transformations, just take this month off, that would be super, we could take a trip to Bermuda then, wouldn’t that be lovely? It would be lovely, he thinks, but if he can’t change the course of his fate even for Sirius, dear lovely traitorous Sirius, then he can’t change for little Emily who knows him so well and yet not at all.
After he returns, it is two weeks before she will talk to him. He loves her, he knows, but cannot tell her the secrets she so desperately wants to know.
“Why is it so important all of a sudden?” he queries her, eyebrows raised. It has never been important in all the time he has known her, almost six years, and it is so strange to him for it to matter now. It isn’t as if anything important has happened, he thinks, and nothing has changed, so why does it matter?
“I’m pregnant.” she says, quietly. “It matters because I’m pregnant, and the things that weren’t important when it was just Remus-and-Emily suddenly seem important when it is Remus-and-Emily-and-baby.”
Oh, he thinks. Oh! He knows. Oh. He had never expected this, never considered this. He is twenty nine years old, and having a family, a baby, a wife, had never occurred to him until this moment. A wife? He should ask her to marry him, shouldn’t he? James and Lily were married, and then they had Harry. He had just never thought he would be married, never thought he would have children. The thought of a family of his own was frightening and intangible and made him miss Sirius with an ache so inexplicable that he could not comprehend why he was missing Sirius at a time like this, when he had to ask Emily to marry him and have his baby and be a family with someone if everything had been different, if Sirius had not- but Sirius did and there was no Sirius left to spend the rest of his life with and there was an Emily and a baby and oh. He had not said anything for too long.
“Oh,” he says, quietly. “Well then. Would you... Do you... Should we...” Remus finds he cannot make the words form, but she understands him anyway.
“I don’t know, Remus.” she sighs, wipes a stray bit of hair out of her eyes. The light reflects back red highlights in her brown waves, and he is reminded of Lily for a moment until she places her teacup back on the table and manages to spill over the sides.
“You’re right. We should just think of the baby first, and then deal with all that stuff,” he says, relieved despite himself. He is not ready to deal with everything all at once, everything he had never thought of except in passing and certainly never in relation to himself. It helps, just a little, that she obviously isn’t ready to deal with this levity either. He gets up, clears their cups, and puts on his raincoat to go in for his shift. She smiles tentatively as he kisses her forehead, and when he turns to leave, she puts up a hand to his shoulder and asks,
“Do you want me to fix this for you?”
And when he pauses and says, “No, it’s all right, I rather like it this way,” they both know he is not just talking about the tear in Sirius’s raincoat.
That night, Remus writes Sirius another letter, and burns it promptly the next morning. When Emily awakes, she says the burnt smell ruins her appetite, and nibbles at her toast until Remus suggests she take it in the other room. They are both grateful to be apart.
He is glad when Emily decides to visit her mother the next week and does not invite him. She is nearly three months along now, and he knows that he must tell her soon. He knows, and he does not know how to tell her. If he was Sirius, Sirius who was never good at keeping secrets, he could just blurt it all out in a rush and she would just smile and say, “okay.” Because that was the essence of Padfoot, the inability to keep anything from those he loved, and their acceptance of it. Remus thinks if Sirius had ever said anything again after he killed Peter, instead of just laughing, then the entire community would probably accept it, because that is what Sirius was. Only Sirius’s family could not be charmed, and Remus is half convinced that is only due to Sirius never bothering with them. Apathy goes both ways, after all.
Two days after Emily returns, she miscarries. She lies in bed for three days, ashen and drawn, dark circles under her eyes even though she has been sleeping for fourteen hours at a time. Remus spends most of the time in the kitchen, making constant cups of tea with three sugars and no milk that go unnoticed on the bedside table. She asks for it plain on the third night. He makes her tea without sugar, and places it on the bedside table while she showers. Remus gazes at the spot where the moon would be, traitorously glad he does not have to tell her now, and then draws the curtains. Emily goes back to work the next day. Remus writes Sirius another letter, and tucks it into a shoebox at the very back of the top shelf in the closet. He no longer takes anything he has birthed for granted.
Emily leaves two weeks later. She announces that she is moving to America over a breakfast of crumpets and tea. She has stopped taking her tea with sugar, she has left her job, and her hair which was once down to the small of her back is cropped into a neat bob. She has packed her suitcases and will not be coming back. They both know this, and Remus closes his eyes and sips his tea.
“All right,” he says, when “I’ll miss you” is what he means. After she leaves, he writes another letter and files it in the shoebox. He finds his first grey hair the next morning. I am only twenty nine, he thinks, as he stares in the mirror at the lines on his face and the grey hair on his head. He wonders where it all went wrong, how his life got so far away from what he had imagined for himself. He knows it all boils down to Sirius and secrets.
He hasn’t always kept secrets, he thinks, surely there must have been a time before when there wasn’t a secret to keep? But for as long as he can remember, Remus has had a secret to keep. First it was the wolf, then James whispering in his ear over breakfast, “I think I’m in love with her,” then Sirius and his long, long limbs, tangled in sheets, then Peter saying, “I’m just not brave enough to be in Gryffindor, I don’t think.” The list goes on and on. Even when one secret was found out, there were only more to replace it. They knew he was a wolf, and became animagi for him, and he will keep their secret, he will keep it until his grave, he thinks. It’s not hard now, not with them gone to their graves or worse. It is all wrapped up with the secret that is his past, and Remus refuses to give this secret up. And so he loses Emily, just like he lost dear sweet traitorous Sirius before her. Only, Emily wasn’t keeping secrets too. He places the photograph of her inside the shoebox with his letters, puts on his raincoat, and goes to work.
In the tenth year since Lily and James died, he goes to New York to visit Emily. She has written him several letters, just to say hello, and he thinks it would be nice to see her, this part of his past that does not hurt. It is cold there, crisp November air, and he likes the way the last few leaves cling to the trees in Central Park. He wraps his scarf tighter around his neck and walks on.
“Still wearing that coat, I see,” she smiles down at him as she brings him his tea. “Two sugars and one cream still?” he nods as she sets it down in front of him. She sips her coffee, when did she start drinking coffee? he wonders, and then asks.
“Everyone drinks coffee here,” she laughs, and then suggests he try it sometime. He says perhaps he might, but they both know he won’t. Remus likes order too much. But it is nice here, in the chilly air and bustling city streets. Emily’s voice has softened, from age perhaps, and taken on a hint of an American accent. It suits her, he thinks, and so does the honey blonde colour her hair has been dyed. She seems happier here, and that makes Remus glad. Emily should be happy, even if he cannot.
She shows him the bookstore where she works. She is going to school now, something she thought she’d never do in England, but this is America, she says with a laugh. Everyone gets a degree here.
“I didn’t even take my A-levels, and here I am,” she smiles. “I’m going to University, and getting my degree, and I might even get a PhD someday. Can you imagine?” she says, twirling around so that her scarf flies out and so does her hair underneath her watchcap. He says he can, that it must be lovely for her, and she will be lovely at it. He thinks he almost means it, but it is blinded by remembrances of Sirius, the day he was off to Auror school.
“Can you imagine Moony? I’m off to save the world!” he enthused, bright eyes made even brighter by pure joy. “I’m going to make it safe for all the little Moonys that ever were. But not for Snivelluses. We don’t need them.” Sirius had grinned at the disapproving look that had come across Remus’s face, as he’d known it would. “Well, I suppose I can save the little Snivelluses too. But only for you,” he had said, and wrapped an arm around Remus’s neck.
How easy the memories still come back, he thinks, and does not realize he says it aloud. Emily laughs, so cheerful here, and says, but the past is still past, Remus. He knows this, but he cannot help leaving her two days earlier than planned and heading out to the desert. It takes the last of the money Sirius had given him before he went into hiding, money shoved into his hands with a hurried “here, just in case Moony,” but Remus does not care. If the past is past, then Remus goes to the Grand Canyon to finally lay it to rest. Sirius had always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, talked of building a hut at the bottom of it and just living there for a year, with only Remus and the river for company. Remus writes a letter, and when no one is looking, throws it over the edge into the abyss beyond.
He flies back to England the next day.
Hagrid writes in June of that year, asking for pictures of Lily and James for Harry. That’s right, he thinks, Harry would be eleven now, at Hogwarts. He has tried so hard to block out every memory of the past, that he has forgotten about Harry, who probably would very much like to know about what Remus cannot bring himself to say. In lieu of a letter or an explanation, he carefully makes copies of his photographs and sends them off the next day. Remus thought he had put the past to rest. It is troublesome to him that the past keeps coming back to haunt him. He fingers the tear in the raincoat and then makes himself another cup of tea.
A year later, to the day, Dumbledore owls. Sirius has been imprisoned for almost twelve years, Remus thinks distractedly. The last time he had heard from Dumbledore was at Lily and James’s funeral. Remus had returned from Romania, an order mission that he had told no one about, to find that James was dead, Peter too, and Sirius was off to Azkaban laughing. He had known he would not be able to see James or Sirius upon his return, for both were going into hiding, but he had not anticipated this- this madness. He thinks he is going mad, for his entire life has changed in an instant. After the funeral, he sells the flat that was his and Sirius’s, and burns Sirius’s possessions. The last thing to throw on the fire is the raincoat, but Remus cannot bear to part with it, despite Sirius’s betrayal. Remus keeps this one memento of his past and starts writing letters to Sirius the next day.
Remus thinks about what Dumbledore is offering. Remus thinks about what he would leave behind. Remus thinks about the repercussions of returning to the scene of the past. Remus thinks, and then Remus is done thinking and is writing a letter that says, “yes, I would be delighted to.” He puts in his notice at the bookstore, and on his way home, puts the raincoat in the dumpster. He moves back to Diagon Alley the next week, to reacquaint himself with the world he thought he had left behind.
Six weeks later, he reads the paper and spits out his cup of tea when he reads that Sirius has escaped. He may have let the past go, but there it is, staring out at him from the cover of the Daily Prophet. Remus pours himself another cup of tea and tells himself that this changes nothing. Nothing has changed. Sirius still has destroyed everything Remus once loved. There is no sense in taking off after Sirius, demanding explanations for his behavior, because Remus has already come to the logical conclusion. Sirius had betrayed them, Sirius was working for Voldemort, and Sirius did not love them enough. There is no need to hear it from him and give Sirius the chance to use his peculiar charm and persuade Remus to forgive and forget. But there is no forgiving, Remus thinks, and he has done his best to forget the entirety of Sirius, and not just this particular trespass.
He packs his case, the one Sirius gave him their last Christmas at Hogwarts. The letters are peeling, Professor R. J. Lupin, and he had laughed when Sirius had given it to him. Padfoot had been unusually serious when he presented the case in the empty dormitory.
“Do you like it? I know you aren’t, but it suits, don’t you think?” Sirius’s eyes had darted around Moony’s face, and then down to the case. “I can get you something else, if you don’t...” And Remus had realized.
“Oh,” he said. “No, I like it very much,” he said. He smiled a wry smile and brushed a lock of hair out of Sirius’s eyes.
But that was the past, and the past is still past, Remus thinks. Sly kisses in the dormitory after lights were out and morning cups of tea in their shared flat and Sirius’s blue raincoat are all gone, gone with the wind, gone with the tide, gone with the change of the seasons and Sirius’s betrayal. Remus buys a new raincoat with the last of his money and carefully darns the tears that were left by the previous owner. It is not what he is used to, it is not blue, but it is neat and orderly and everything is ready for Remus’s new life without Sirius. He boards the Hogwarts Express on September first, ready for his new life. He falls asleep on the train, and for the first time since meeting Sirius, Remus does not dream of him after the full moon. Remus has finally laid the past to rest. He smiles, and turns over in his sleep.
It is the end, and Sirius is no longer the moon.
A/N (02.03.07): So. This is my first bit of completed fanfic. Emphasis on complete, and it's probably my favorite bit of completed work so far. It sort of sprung into being from endless listenings to Tori Amos's cover of "Famous Blue Raincoat" in a lonely apartment with no internet and loads of unpacked boxes. If you look closely, you'll see some of the elements in the song in the fic. It's a very Remus looking back on the Marauders during the war sort of song. Also, I am convinced Remus drank a lot of tea. British people love tea. I should know.
Emily. Um. Yeah. Dude wasn't a Eunuch. People start work young in England (I'm guessing Emily did some work-experince or a Saturday job at the bookshop before she took her O-levels and left school and stayed on there full-time,) and have babies young, and oh my god my cousin who is my age was totally pregnant at the time I wrote this. That was probably why Emily sort of came into being and became the character she did. She and my younger cousin are both getting married this year. BRITISH PEOPLE MAKE ME FEEL OLD.
I have always thought that Remus would totally go work in the muggle world during the "lost years." Dude's lost everything, and at least with muggles it's easier to work around the "furry little problem" since there are excuses and part time jobs and yeah. Someday I will write a fic with bartender!Remus, who hates it when the full moon falls on a weekend because he has to give up the good tips.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters/Pairing: Remus-centric; past Remus/Sirius, some Remus/OFC
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: through PoA.
Word Count: 3,409
Summary: In which Remus sets a precedent for cradle robbing, and misses Sirius.
Disclaimer: characters are not mine.
Remus writes Sirius a letter everyday during the first year Sirius is incarcerated. He never sends a single one. One night, years later, in a fit of emotion, the first time he is not numb with pain in two years, reads through them one by one and drops each one on the fire when he finishes. He is done with Sirius Black, he swears that night. It is the end, and Sirius is no longer the sun. He has become the moon.
Remus no longer thinks of Sirius during the day. It used to be that his whole life was consumed by the inescapable presence that was Sirius, but now he stifles any thoughts of that which once was. He likes his life quiet, his tea with one cream and two sugars, his job in a muggle bookstore outside London. He convinces himself of this. He does not miss the life he once led. Still, he hangs the raincoat that was Sirius’s neatly on the peg at the end of every night. He prefers order, he says, he thinks, he knows, but he still has not mended the tear in the shoulder that signifies everything Sirius was.
London in the 80s- Remus hopes never to live through such a decade again. He bites off the corner of a chocolate bar neatly. It is two days after the full moon, and he is scheduled for work tonight. The owner is understanding of his need to go see his mother every three weeks, and never questions why Remus may come back from Yorkshire more scarred than he left for it. Remus is glad, almost. He loves the books, the smell of everything, the cafe in the back corner with the teenaged girl that works there and slips him free scones when he comes over to chat with her.
He especially loves the way that no one here wants to discuss the past with him, because no one knows.
By the sixth year Sirius is incarcerated, Remus has stopped returning to Diagon Alley, and refuses job offers from old schoolmates that would take him back into the wizarding world. He finds himself precariously close to losing his temper anytime any of the Marauders are mentioned. Thinking of their years together in school, their adventures, first together, then with increasing frequency, just him and Sirius, makes Remus ill. “I thought I knew him,” he murmurs, as he clenches his fist. “I thought I loved him,” he growls, knowing even now that there was no thought about it. He had loved him, and had thought Sirius had loved him too. But that is the past, and Remus no longer thinks about the past. Instead, he smiles at the girl who still passes him the scones, and suggests they go down to the pub after their shifts are over.
Two years later, when the girl has become just Emily, and has moved into his flat, Remus is surprised when she wants to come with him to Yorkshire.
“You can’t,” he says, wary of this twenty year old’s sudden need to be a much greater part of his life than scones during work and sandwiches after sex at three am.
“My mother isn’t well. She doesn’t take well to strangers,” he lies. His mother is dead, but the excuse is convenient, and he has learned from a young age not to say anything about becoming the wolf.
“Can’t you just skive off then? Just this once?” He doesn’t like the pleading in her tone. He has never heard it before, not once in the two years they have been together. It reminds him of Sirius, his own personal he who must not be named. Sirius was a dog, in the end, and would plead with his voice and his eyes until he got his way. But Emily is not Sirius, and Emily is a muggle, and Emily must not know anything about werewolves and wizards and the dreams he has when he sleeps off the full moon.
“Please? Can’t you? It’s important to me.” Her blue eyes water, and he is sorry, but he can’t, he can’t do this. Sirius used to ask him if he couldn’t stop the transformations, just take this month off, that would be super, we could take a trip to Bermuda then, wouldn’t that be lovely? It would be lovely, he thinks, but if he can’t change the course of his fate even for Sirius, dear lovely traitorous Sirius, then he can’t change for little Emily who knows him so well and yet not at all.
After he returns, it is two weeks before she will talk to him. He loves her, he knows, but cannot tell her the secrets she so desperately wants to know.
“Why is it so important all of a sudden?” he queries her, eyebrows raised. It has never been important in all the time he has known her, almost six years, and it is so strange to him for it to matter now. It isn’t as if anything important has happened, he thinks, and nothing has changed, so why does it matter?
“I’m pregnant.” she says, quietly. “It matters because I’m pregnant, and the things that weren’t important when it was just Remus-and-Emily suddenly seem important when it is Remus-and-Emily-and-baby.”
Oh, he thinks. Oh! He knows. Oh. He had never expected this, never considered this. He is twenty nine years old, and having a family, a baby, a wife, had never occurred to him until this moment. A wife? He should ask her to marry him, shouldn’t he? James and Lily were married, and then they had Harry. He had just never thought he would be married, never thought he would have children. The thought of a family of his own was frightening and intangible and made him miss Sirius with an ache so inexplicable that he could not comprehend why he was missing Sirius at a time like this, when he had to ask Emily to marry him and have his baby and be a family with someone if everything had been different, if Sirius had not- but Sirius did and there was no Sirius left to spend the rest of his life with and there was an Emily and a baby and oh. He had not said anything for too long.
“Oh,” he says, quietly. “Well then. Would you... Do you... Should we...” Remus finds he cannot make the words form, but she understands him anyway.
“I don’t know, Remus.” she sighs, wipes a stray bit of hair out of her eyes. The light reflects back red highlights in her brown waves, and he is reminded of Lily for a moment until she places her teacup back on the table and manages to spill over the sides.
“You’re right. We should just think of the baby first, and then deal with all that stuff,” he says, relieved despite himself. He is not ready to deal with everything all at once, everything he had never thought of except in passing and certainly never in relation to himself. It helps, just a little, that she obviously isn’t ready to deal with this levity either. He gets up, clears their cups, and puts on his raincoat to go in for his shift. She smiles tentatively as he kisses her forehead, and when he turns to leave, she puts up a hand to his shoulder and asks,
“Do you want me to fix this for you?”
And when he pauses and says, “No, it’s all right, I rather like it this way,” they both know he is not just talking about the tear in Sirius’s raincoat.
That night, Remus writes Sirius another letter, and burns it promptly the next morning. When Emily awakes, she says the burnt smell ruins her appetite, and nibbles at her toast until Remus suggests she take it in the other room. They are both grateful to be apart.
He is glad when Emily decides to visit her mother the next week and does not invite him. She is nearly three months along now, and he knows that he must tell her soon. He knows, and he does not know how to tell her. If he was Sirius, Sirius who was never good at keeping secrets, he could just blurt it all out in a rush and she would just smile and say, “okay.” Because that was the essence of Padfoot, the inability to keep anything from those he loved, and their acceptance of it. Remus thinks if Sirius had ever said anything again after he killed Peter, instead of just laughing, then the entire community would probably accept it, because that is what Sirius was. Only Sirius’s family could not be charmed, and Remus is half convinced that is only due to Sirius never bothering with them. Apathy goes both ways, after all.
Two days after Emily returns, she miscarries. She lies in bed for three days, ashen and drawn, dark circles under her eyes even though she has been sleeping for fourteen hours at a time. Remus spends most of the time in the kitchen, making constant cups of tea with three sugars and no milk that go unnoticed on the bedside table. She asks for it plain on the third night. He makes her tea without sugar, and places it on the bedside table while she showers. Remus gazes at the spot where the moon would be, traitorously glad he does not have to tell her now, and then draws the curtains. Emily goes back to work the next day. Remus writes Sirius another letter, and tucks it into a shoebox at the very back of the top shelf in the closet. He no longer takes anything he has birthed for granted.
Emily leaves two weeks later. She announces that she is moving to America over a breakfast of crumpets and tea. She has stopped taking her tea with sugar, she has left her job, and her hair which was once down to the small of her back is cropped into a neat bob. She has packed her suitcases and will not be coming back. They both know this, and Remus closes his eyes and sips his tea.
“All right,” he says, when “I’ll miss you” is what he means. After she leaves, he writes another letter and files it in the shoebox. He finds his first grey hair the next morning. I am only twenty nine, he thinks, as he stares in the mirror at the lines on his face and the grey hair on his head. He wonders where it all went wrong, how his life got so far away from what he had imagined for himself. He knows it all boils down to Sirius and secrets.
He hasn’t always kept secrets, he thinks, surely there must have been a time before when there wasn’t a secret to keep? But for as long as he can remember, Remus has had a secret to keep. First it was the wolf, then James whispering in his ear over breakfast, “I think I’m in love with her,” then Sirius and his long, long limbs, tangled in sheets, then Peter saying, “I’m just not brave enough to be in Gryffindor, I don’t think.” The list goes on and on. Even when one secret was found out, there were only more to replace it. They knew he was a wolf, and became animagi for him, and he will keep their secret, he will keep it until his grave, he thinks. It’s not hard now, not with them gone to their graves or worse. It is all wrapped up with the secret that is his past, and Remus refuses to give this secret up. And so he loses Emily, just like he lost dear sweet traitorous Sirius before her. Only, Emily wasn’t keeping secrets too. He places the photograph of her inside the shoebox with his letters, puts on his raincoat, and goes to work.
In the tenth year since Lily and James died, he goes to New York to visit Emily. She has written him several letters, just to say hello, and he thinks it would be nice to see her, this part of his past that does not hurt. It is cold there, crisp November air, and he likes the way the last few leaves cling to the trees in Central Park. He wraps his scarf tighter around his neck and walks on.
“Still wearing that coat, I see,” she smiles down at him as she brings him his tea. “Two sugars and one cream still?” he nods as she sets it down in front of him. She sips her coffee, when did she start drinking coffee? he wonders, and then asks.
“Everyone drinks coffee here,” she laughs, and then suggests he try it sometime. He says perhaps he might, but they both know he won’t. Remus likes order too much. But it is nice here, in the chilly air and bustling city streets. Emily’s voice has softened, from age perhaps, and taken on a hint of an American accent. It suits her, he thinks, and so does the honey blonde colour her hair has been dyed. She seems happier here, and that makes Remus glad. Emily should be happy, even if he cannot.
She shows him the bookstore where she works. She is going to school now, something she thought she’d never do in England, but this is America, she says with a laugh. Everyone gets a degree here.
“I didn’t even take my A-levels, and here I am,” she smiles. “I’m going to University, and getting my degree, and I might even get a PhD someday. Can you imagine?” she says, twirling around so that her scarf flies out and so does her hair underneath her watchcap. He says he can, that it must be lovely for her, and she will be lovely at it. He thinks he almost means it, but it is blinded by remembrances of Sirius, the day he was off to Auror school.
“Can you imagine Moony? I’m off to save the world!” he enthused, bright eyes made even brighter by pure joy. “I’m going to make it safe for all the little Moonys that ever were. But not for Snivelluses. We don’t need them.” Sirius had grinned at the disapproving look that had come across Remus’s face, as he’d known it would. “Well, I suppose I can save the little Snivelluses too. But only for you,” he had said, and wrapped an arm around Remus’s neck.
How easy the memories still come back, he thinks, and does not realize he says it aloud. Emily laughs, so cheerful here, and says, but the past is still past, Remus. He knows this, but he cannot help leaving her two days earlier than planned and heading out to the desert. It takes the last of the money Sirius had given him before he went into hiding, money shoved into his hands with a hurried “here, just in case Moony,” but Remus does not care. If the past is past, then Remus goes to the Grand Canyon to finally lay it to rest. Sirius had always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, talked of building a hut at the bottom of it and just living there for a year, with only Remus and the river for company. Remus writes a letter, and when no one is looking, throws it over the edge into the abyss beyond.
He flies back to England the next day.
Hagrid writes in June of that year, asking for pictures of Lily and James for Harry. That’s right, he thinks, Harry would be eleven now, at Hogwarts. He has tried so hard to block out every memory of the past, that he has forgotten about Harry, who probably would very much like to know about what Remus cannot bring himself to say. In lieu of a letter or an explanation, he carefully makes copies of his photographs and sends them off the next day. Remus thought he had put the past to rest. It is troublesome to him that the past keeps coming back to haunt him. He fingers the tear in the raincoat and then makes himself another cup of tea.
A year later, to the day, Dumbledore owls. Sirius has been imprisoned for almost twelve years, Remus thinks distractedly. The last time he had heard from Dumbledore was at Lily and James’s funeral. Remus had returned from Romania, an order mission that he had told no one about, to find that James was dead, Peter too, and Sirius was off to Azkaban laughing. He had known he would not be able to see James or Sirius upon his return, for both were going into hiding, but he had not anticipated this- this madness. He thinks he is going mad, for his entire life has changed in an instant. After the funeral, he sells the flat that was his and Sirius’s, and burns Sirius’s possessions. The last thing to throw on the fire is the raincoat, but Remus cannot bear to part with it, despite Sirius’s betrayal. Remus keeps this one memento of his past and starts writing letters to Sirius the next day.
Remus thinks about what Dumbledore is offering. Remus thinks about what he would leave behind. Remus thinks about the repercussions of returning to the scene of the past. Remus thinks, and then Remus is done thinking and is writing a letter that says, “yes, I would be delighted to.” He puts in his notice at the bookstore, and on his way home, puts the raincoat in the dumpster. He moves back to Diagon Alley the next week, to reacquaint himself with the world he thought he had left behind.
Six weeks later, he reads the paper and spits out his cup of tea when he reads that Sirius has escaped. He may have let the past go, but there it is, staring out at him from the cover of the Daily Prophet. Remus pours himself another cup of tea and tells himself that this changes nothing. Nothing has changed. Sirius still has destroyed everything Remus once loved. There is no sense in taking off after Sirius, demanding explanations for his behavior, because Remus has already come to the logical conclusion. Sirius had betrayed them, Sirius was working for Voldemort, and Sirius did not love them enough. There is no need to hear it from him and give Sirius the chance to use his peculiar charm and persuade Remus to forgive and forget. But there is no forgiving, Remus thinks, and he has done his best to forget the entirety of Sirius, and not just this particular trespass.
He packs his case, the one Sirius gave him their last Christmas at Hogwarts. The letters are peeling, Professor R. J. Lupin, and he had laughed when Sirius had given it to him. Padfoot had been unusually serious when he presented the case in the empty dormitory.
“Do you like it? I know you aren’t, but it suits, don’t you think?” Sirius’s eyes had darted around Moony’s face, and then down to the case. “I can get you something else, if you don’t...” And Remus had realized.
“Oh,” he said. “No, I like it very much,” he said. He smiled a wry smile and brushed a lock of hair out of Sirius’s eyes.
But that was the past, and the past is still past, Remus thinks. Sly kisses in the dormitory after lights were out and morning cups of tea in their shared flat and Sirius’s blue raincoat are all gone, gone with the wind, gone with the tide, gone with the change of the seasons and Sirius’s betrayal. Remus buys a new raincoat with the last of his money and carefully darns the tears that were left by the previous owner. It is not what he is used to, it is not blue, but it is neat and orderly and everything is ready for Remus’s new life without Sirius. He boards the Hogwarts Express on September first, ready for his new life. He falls asleep on the train, and for the first time since meeting Sirius, Remus does not dream of him after the full moon. Remus has finally laid the past to rest. He smiles, and turns over in his sleep.
It is the end, and Sirius is no longer the moon.
A/N (02.03.07): So. This is my first bit of completed fanfic. Emphasis on complete, and it's probably my favorite bit of completed work so far. It sort of sprung into being from endless listenings to Tori Amos's cover of "Famous Blue Raincoat" in a lonely apartment with no internet and loads of unpacked boxes. If you look closely, you'll see some of the elements in the song in the fic. It's a very Remus looking back on the Marauders during the war sort of song. Also, I am convinced Remus drank a lot of tea. British people love tea. I should know.
Emily. Um. Yeah. Dude wasn't a Eunuch. People start work young in England (I'm guessing Emily did some work-experince or a Saturday job at the bookshop before she took her O-levels and left school and stayed on there full-time,) and have babies young, and oh my god my cousin who is my age was totally pregnant at the time I wrote this. That was probably why Emily sort of came into being and became the character she did. She and my younger cousin are both getting married this year. BRITISH PEOPLE MAKE ME FEEL OLD.
I have always thought that Remus would totally go work in the muggle world during the "lost years." Dude's lost everything, and at least with muggles it's easier to work around the "furry little problem" since there are excuses and part time jobs and yeah. Someday I will write a fic with bartender!Remus, who hates it when the full moon falls on a weekend because he has to give up the good tips.