(harry potter) the road to awe
Title: The Road To Awe
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Remus, Tonks
Timeline: OotP, just after the battle at the Ministry
Summary: Remus attempts to sort through what he's lost.
Notes: This was my first attempt at Harry Potter fanfiction, a story that I began last December following a second reading of Order of the Phoenix. After that particular reading, I found myself once again caught up in the life of Sirius Black and those who loved him. The writing of this story continued off and on for a number of months until just before the release of Deathly Hallows, the events of which, rendered the whole purpose of this fiction obsolete. Nevertheless, here is the story, in all its unbeta'd glory. Please keep in mind the fact that this story was written prior to knowledge of the events of Deathly Hallows. The story takes into account the fact that Andromeda Tonks was Sirius Black's favorite cousin, but ignores the fact that Tonks and Sirius had no contact prior to his imprisonment in Azkaban. The title is taken from a line from the film The Fountain, which I had seen and loved at the time I began writing: "Death is the road to awe."
The world moved as if spellbound--in slow, fluid motions. The rapid-fire beating of his heart and the frantic struggling of the boy in his arms felt out of place with the slow, graceful fall he saw before his eyes. A smile that felt so familiar, a hint of surprise, and then he was gone. The world fell in stride with his pounding heart, and he clung tighter to the young body thrashing against his own, more out of desperation than restraint.
"He is gone."
The words fumbled off his tongue, and even as he uttered them, he is desperate for them to be a lie. The boy tore away and bounded toward danger, but he could not help but let his eyes linger on the veil-- fluttering ever-so slightly, as if propelled by a draft of air. His eyes remained transfixed and for one fleeting moment, he thought that he might just walk through. His feet carried him to the edge of the dais, his arm outstretched, reaching for the trembling cloth. His hand stopped mere inches from the veil. Voices. Above the din of the battle being waged, he swore he could hear voices. And one of them was calling out his name. "Mooney."
The scene replayed over and over again in his dreams. Nightmares to vivid, too dire to be real. But the deep, rumbling emptiness that split his insides every time he awoke reminded him that it is real. It happened. He was--he is. Gone.
Remus' eyes fluttered open and were met by near-darkness. He felt a pain in his neck, and as he raised his head from the cradle of his arms, his eyes adjusted to his faintly-lit surroundings. Embers of a dying fire gave off just enough light for him to recognise where he was. The long wooden table before him had once been surrounded by a motley bunch, defying all conventions of a normal family. And yet, a family it had been. There were blood ties and school ties, friendships and love. For an instant, Remus' mind began to play tricks on him and scenes from his past played mercilessly in his head, full of faces who were no longer for this world, those who had been casualties of time and of evil. So many friends lost, families in ruin.
His eyes adjusted fully to the dim light of the room, and he felt almost comforted by the sombre lighting. It felt natural, appropriate. Right in a world gone wrong. A shadow loomed over him, and he cast a mournful glance over his shoulder at the intruder. At any other moment, he would have been greeted by a clumsy grin and have been happy to return the smile. But not tonight. Instead there was a frown, and where there usually stood a head of short hair in the brightest shades of pink was a head of thick, black hair that disappeared behind a pair of willowy shoulders. Remus turned his head back and did not speak a word.
"Thought I would find you here." Her voice was soft and monotonous.
"It's still headquarters for The Order, Nymphadora." He did not look up at her, nor did he flinch when she sat down beside him and took his hand.
The two sat in silence save for the crackle of the fire behind them. A loud rattle followed by low and muffled grumbling sliced through the quiet. Tonks threw an unsettled glance and the door leading to the cupboard she knew to be where Kreature the House Elf had made his nest. There was a chair from the table thrust under the door knob and from the loud popping noises accompanied by frustrated mumbling she heard coming from the other side of the door, she gathered that some sort of anti-disapparation charm had been placed on the little room. She threw a worried glance at Remus who sat as still as a statue staring at his hands.
"Remus," she began, but stopped when he withdrew his hand from hers and started to stand up from the table. Her shoulders sagged in defeat. "You forget," she said in a voice that was almost a whisper, "Sirius was my family, too."
Remus was halfway out the door, but her words gave him pause. He turned around and held her gaze for a moment before finally slipping into the darkness of the rest of the gloomy house.
---
A stormy night-the kind that begged to be spent by candle-light. A book lay open on the arm of a shabby chair, but the pages went unread. Rain beat heavily against the dark house and dripped into a puddle that had formed along the sill of a window left partially open. Two men sat across from one another, the heavy silence between them almost suffocating when coupled with the dampness brought in by the storm.
It had been mere hours since they last saw one another, but years since they had been alone. Neither one could forget the circumstances that had kept them apart for those long years, yet neither could push aside the presence of the past.
Rain water continued to drip upon the window sill, and one of the silent figures turned his head toward the new moon barely visible in the storm-ravaged night's sky. When his eyes lingered back to the man seated across from him, he was gone. But so was the drip-drop of the rain. He felt a hand on his shoulder, the weight of it strange, but the feelings that it igniting all too familiar and inexplicably comforting. He raised his own hand to cover the bony one on his shoulder, still gaunt from years spent locked away for crimes he did not commit. He felt the brush of unkempt hair sweep past the sides of his face seconds before the warmth of a kiss descended upon the top of his head. As he leaned his head back until it was resting gently against a thin, but warm body, one word broke the silence. "Mooney."
Outside, the night had passed, and the first signs of dawn peered into the room through shreds in the thick, velvet curtains that hung from the windows. A large horse-like creature with the head of an eagle sat like a sphinx on the remnants of what was once a bed fit for a queen. Remus' joints felt stiff after spending so much of the night in various positions of unrest, his eyes only closing long enough to be haunted briefly by scenes from his past. He pulled himself up off the floor and stretched his lanky figure. The creature on the bed stirred slightly, and Remus approached him slowly, his long arm outstretched. His hand was met by the nuzzle of a large beak, and he reached out to stroke the feathers of the enormous head with his other hand.
"G'morning, Buckbeak." His voice was hoarse and unfamiliar to his ears.
Buckbeak made a sort of cooing noise and lay his head down at his hooves in a mournful way that made Remus think he understood everything.
The old house shifted suddenly, creaking like an ancient rocking chair, and he was reminded of another house with a reputation for strange and unsettling noises. He shook his head slightly, as if it would somehow stop the excavation of the depths of his mind that called forth memories and faces he would, for the moment, sooner forget. Stifling a yawn, he opened the bedroom door, slipped into the hallway, and made for the stairs. He was halfway to the kitchen when he noticed a small beam of light in the otherwise still-darkened house. His heart beat quickened for a fraction of a second as he recognised the room as having been the one Sirius had inhabited upon his return to number twelve Grimuald Place. He reached out his hand and pushed open the large, creaking door.
The room was dark, save for a recently kindled fire. The figure of a young woman stood before the flames of the fireplace, looking down at what appeared to be a tattered photograph. Aware of Remus’ entrance, she dropped the hand holding the photograph to her side and began to speak.
“Sirius was one of my mother’s favourite people. She always praised him for having enough sense to run away from the madness of the House of Black. They used to have a laugh at having been shunned from the family.”
As she spoke, Remus slowly made his way across the room to her side.
“I rarely saw any of my mother’s family. You can imagine how my aunts were not so keen to associate themselves with my blood-traitor mother. Had it not been for Sirius, I would have imagined the Blacks to be very black indeed.” Tonks paused for a moment and glanced at the face of Remus beside her. The light of the flames illuminated the shadows of his world-wearied face. He returned her gaze but said nothing.
“He would come round often for tea, and the resulting afternoons would usually be spent with me suppressing tears of laughter. He was so spirited then. He would do almost anything just to make me smile.”
She hesitated and held up the torn photograph at which she had previously been gazing upon. Three young faces blinked and smiled back at her. The young men in the photograph could not have been more than seventeen. Two of them stood with their arms slung chummily around one another’s shoulders, while the third, bespeckled boy stared amusedly at the torn edge of the photograph and then back at his cohorts.
She thrust it toward Remus, who took it in his own unsteady hand. "You are the last one," she whispered, glancing knowingly into his eyes. She raised her hand and cradled his hollow, unshaven cheek for a brief moment, then placed a small kiss where her hand had been. A little colour slowly began to filter back into his face as he watched her leave the room.
Alone again, Remus looked down at the enchanted photograph in his hands. The adolescent version of himself waved, but his hand was quickly knocked aside by a young Sirius Black who was still holding close to the young Remus’ shoulders. Remus eyed each of the young boys with silent longing. The memory of when that photo had been taken was still fresh, and he could see clearly in his mind’s eye James, Sirius, Peter, and himself on the afternoon after their last day at Hogwarts. They had all felt so much hope and anticipation for their lives to come, unaware then of how closely death had been hovering over them.
He gripped the picture with such force that his fingers nearly went through it, his eyes resting on the still-grinning face of James Potter. “I promise,” he said aloud through gritted teeth, “I swear to you, I will look out for Harry. If I have to barter with Death to exchange his soul for mine, I will do it.”
Remus glanced at each and every one of the young faces in the photograph, to the torn space where he knew Peter had been, and felt a rush of anger overtake his senses. A dark fate had sealed its icy grip on his friends. One had sold himself into murder and betrayal. The other two had met their end at the tip of a wand.
Remus closed his eyes. He would wait for his chance to come face to face with the dark forces that carried away his friends, and if he was lucky, meet their same fate.
- December 7, 2006 (July 11, 2007)