A Twined Thread
Title: A Twined Thread
Author: Stoicstella
Rating: PG
Pairing: Remus/Public Libraries (This is mostly Remus Gen. Tonks and Teddy are mentioned peripherally.)
Wordcount: 1,266
Warnings: Not much. There is a passing mention of unpleasant and possibly unethical treatments for lycanthropy, but nothing explicit.
Canon Compliant? Yes
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction, with a borrowed world and characters. Nobody is profiting from it.
Challenge: Written for a Meme I posted in April of 2007. aunty_marion requested “Five reasons Remus likes public libraries (apart from the obvious filled-with-books thing!).” Although this one didn’t want to be written in a list format, I daresay there are at least five reasons in there amongst what appears to be character development , if not outright plot. I do hope you enjoy it.
Summary: Remus became enamored of the public library, and in turn it never betrayed him; instead, it pulled his segmented life taut with a string of memories. This is a love story about a man and the idea of a place.
* No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread. ~ Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy *
After the bite, things changed. Remus didn’t exactly remember much before the bite, but the changes weren’t subtle. There were the treatments, of course, those expensive forays into the nearly fatal. Each appointment was marked on moon charts, and his mother’s research was the only constant conversation on tap. Then there was the tension, a newly created physical force in their family. The more desperate his mother became, the angrier his father would get; her anguish seemed to feed his guilt, until the very air was electrified with it. Though, Remus thought, worst of all, was the alienation. He felt certain, before the bite, he hadn’t been this lonely, separate, or lost.
Later, there would be Hogwarts, and there he would discover the sometimes beautiful sting of real human interaction, but before any of that, Remus learned to watch. Children have a unique invisibility when they are quiet. When Remus had honed his stillness, people never really saw him. He was waiting in a hard plastic chair, or loitering in the market aisle; he blended into the background, where one can truly see all the moving parts. As a child he was confused and impressed by the how and the why of people. He didn’t always understand them but he remained fascinated. Watching people in public places became almost an addiction and it persisted throughout his life. As an adult, he had more insight, but no less wonder. He still habitually arrived early for appointments or the train; he still cultivated whatever glimpses he could collect of stranger’s lives. He’d developed this perverse love of all the places people congregate, but none was more appealing than the public library.
There was a complex beauty to the social script of the place, possibly matched only by churches, where Remus had never truly felt comfortable. The library existed, much like a train-station, to provide a service, and the people were patrons; it had all the simplicity of supply and demand. It was more than that, though. Remus could walk down the street behind a man, could follow him through market, the station, even onto the train. In all these places this man would stay the same, his demeanor would hold. The doorway to the public library, though, had a power the train station did not. People passed through it, magic and muggle alike, and were changed by the exacting pressure of social expectation. He could see the moment their demeanor would shift, could watch them transform into library patrons. Remus had a love for these people, with their volumes turned down. He felt an almost undefinable affinity.
The reliableness of library-people was comforting, but it wasn’t the only reason Remus lingered at libraries. It was part of the reason but not the whole truth to why he arranged clandestine rendezvous there during the wars. He liked the structure of these places. There wasn’t a universal blueprint, of course. Every library was, on the surface, different. At the heart, though, there was something common there. There was the rule and order, sure, which had its own comforts, but what Remus loved best was the negative space. In life, as in art, the space around any object must be as important as that object. Libraries had a lot of positive feeling to their negative space. There were well lit alcoves for reading, surrounded by the half-lit mazes of shelves, hiding those dark corners between lamps; a man could get lost in a library. People, with their polite library personalities, let you get on with your business s in a library. People didn’t interrupt covert plans, by making small talk, in a library. Some of that inanity, one had to produce to get by in society, fell away. Libraries had an appealing structure, both physical and social.
It was those reasons, coupled with his ever present thirst for knowledge, which kept Remus coming back to libraries throughout his life. Unlike Hogwarts, unlike most places, there were so many more good feelings and memories than there were bad. Those books, those walls, those people, he trusted them, somehow. He may have discovered fairytales there, but he’d no longer been so disillusioned about his role by that time, anyway. He’d already met the Big Bad Wolf and all the doctors, priests, and shaman who’d tried to beat him back into the night. Besides, for every “Red Riding Hood” that reminded him of the badness of the beast, there was a “Lord of The Flies” that shed that same harsh light on humanity. He never felt betrayed by books. His library memories were a safe place to gaze back on. Those long hours of his adolescence, while his mother did her research, melted into the summer hols of his teens. That brief stint in his twenties, when he’d all but lived in the stacks, inexorably became weekend afternoons of his adulthood. That mildewed smell, of old paper and ink mixed with a touch of industry, wove through and around his memories, tying years and countries together, making the chronology of it more sensical, somehow. This place, that smell, they felt like home in a way no house, nor flat, nor dorm had ever been able to reproduce.
The bite had not been the best yardstick for measuring his life, as it turned out. Even though, he’d believed it always would be, for so long. Memories before the bite were often fragmented and tinged with rose colored emotions that Remus could no longer connect with, and after the bite things had changed, like a window that had been shuttered, forever giving off less light. However, he could no longer cling to the belief that that one moment had divided his life-before from his life-after. It could never be that simple, because things didn’t change once and stagnate; things continued to change.
After the bite there was alienation… until Hogwarts. After Hogwarts came loneliness… then the war. After the war there was solitude… and then another war. He married and for a time after that there was comfort. He had a son, after which he felt joy. There were so many befores and afters in his life. There were far too many pieces to simply split it into two, and those memories of the library pulled them all taut, like a thread running through them.
He still visits public libraries. Even though, as the war picks up steam, it is probably unwise. There are far fewer strategy sessions, no need for meeting with allies in alcoves. Watching people isn’t quite the same, either. The world is hunkering down, and even the muggles have tighter, more strained public faces. The library feels quieter now than Remus has ever remembered it, but he still feels centered there.
Remus imagines the library can thread the rest of the way through his life, a truer yardstick by far. He imagines sitting here, after the war, watching the way people slowly come back to life and loosen at the hinges. He imagines Teddy growing, learning to read, and to imagine. Maybe they will avoid the fairytales in favor of something they don’t know first-hand, or maybe Remus will be bold, because he hopes Teddy will never meet the Big Bad Wolf. He imagines the next after. Today the world is half-tilted toward utter disaster, but the world has done that before. After the war things will change, and Remus is getting used to the idea of Afters. He imagines he will spend the next one in a library with his son.
He hopes to hand off this twined thread.
Author: Stoicstella
Rating: PG
Pairing: Remus/Public Libraries (This is mostly Remus Gen. Tonks and Teddy are mentioned peripherally.)
Wordcount: 1,266
Warnings: Not much. There is a passing mention of unpleasant and possibly unethical treatments for lycanthropy, but nothing explicit.
Canon Compliant? Yes
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction, with a borrowed world and characters. Nobody is profiting from it.
Challenge: Written for a Meme I posted in April of 2007. aunty_marion requested “Five reasons Remus likes public libraries (apart from the obvious filled-with-books thing!).” Although this one didn’t want to be written in a list format, I daresay there are at least five reasons in there amongst what appears to be character development , if not outright plot. I do hope you enjoy it.
Summary: Remus became enamored of the public library, and in turn it never betrayed him; instead, it pulled his segmented life taut with a string of memories. This is a love story about a man and the idea of a place.
* No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread. ~ Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy *
After the bite, things changed. Remus didn’t exactly remember much before the bite, but the changes weren’t subtle. There were the treatments, of course, those expensive forays into the nearly fatal. Each appointment was marked on moon charts, and his mother’s research was the only constant conversation on tap. Then there was the tension, a newly created physical force in their family. The more desperate his mother became, the angrier his father would get; her anguish seemed to feed his guilt, until the very air was electrified with it. Though, Remus thought, worst of all, was the alienation. He felt certain, before the bite, he hadn’t been this lonely, separate, or lost.
Later, there would be Hogwarts, and there he would discover the sometimes beautiful sting of real human interaction, but before any of that, Remus learned to watch. Children have a unique invisibility when they are quiet. When Remus had honed his stillness, people never really saw him. He was waiting in a hard plastic chair, or loitering in the market aisle; he blended into the background, where one can truly see all the moving parts. As a child he was confused and impressed by the how and the why of people. He didn’t always understand them but he remained fascinated. Watching people in public places became almost an addiction and it persisted throughout his life. As an adult, he had more insight, but no less wonder. He still habitually arrived early for appointments or the train; he still cultivated whatever glimpses he could collect of stranger’s lives. He’d developed this perverse love of all the places people congregate, but none was more appealing than the public library.
There was a complex beauty to the social script of the place, possibly matched only by churches, where Remus had never truly felt comfortable. The library existed, much like a train-station, to provide a service, and the people were patrons; it had all the simplicity of supply and demand. It was more than that, though. Remus could walk down the street behind a man, could follow him through market, the station, even onto the train. In all these places this man would stay the same, his demeanor would hold. The doorway to the public library, though, had a power the train station did not. People passed through it, magic and muggle alike, and were changed by the exacting pressure of social expectation. He could see the moment their demeanor would shift, could watch them transform into library patrons. Remus had a love for these people, with their volumes turned down. He felt an almost undefinable affinity.
The reliableness of library-people was comforting, but it wasn’t the only reason Remus lingered at libraries. It was part of the reason but not the whole truth to why he arranged clandestine rendezvous there during the wars. He liked the structure of these places. There wasn’t a universal blueprint, of course. Every library was, on the surface, different. At the heart, though, there was something common there. There was the rule and order, sure, which had its own comforts, but what Remus loved best was the negative space. In life, as in art, the space around any object must be as important as that object. Libraries had a lot of positive feeling to their negative space. There were well lit alcoves for reading, surrounded by the half-lit mazes of shelves, hiding those dark corners between lamps; a man could get lost in a library. People, with their polite library personalities, let you get on with your business s in a library. People didn’t interrupt covert plans, by making small talk, in a library. Some of that inanity, one had to produce to get by in society, fell away. Libraries had an appealing structure, both physical and social.
It was those reasons, coupled with his ever present thirst for knowledge, which kept Remus coming back to libraries throughout his life. Unlike Hogwarts, unlike most places, there were so many more good feelings and memories than there were bad. Those books, those walls, those people, he trusted them, somehow. He may have discovered fairytales there, but he’d no longer been so disillusioned about his role by that time, anyway. He’d already met the Big Bad Wolf and all the doctors, priests, and shaman who’d tried to beat him back into the night. Besides, for every “Red Riding Hood” that reminded him of the badness of the beast, there was a “Lord of The Flies” that shed that same harsh light on humanity. He never felt betrayed by books. His library memories were a safe place to gaze back on. Those long hours of his adolescence, while his mother did her research, melted into the summer hols of his teens. That brief stint in his twenties, when he’d all but lived in the stacks, inexorably became weekend afternoons of his adulthood. That mildewed smell, of old paper and ink mixed with a touch of industry, wove through and around his memories, tying years and countries together, making the chronology of it more sensical, somehow. This place, that smell, they felt like home in a way no house, nor flat, nor dorm had ever been able to reproduce.
The bite had not been the best yardstick for measuring his life, as it turned out. Even though, he’d believed it always would be, for so long. Memories before the bite were often fragmented and tinged with rose colored emotions that Remus could no longer connect with, and after the bite things had changed, like a window that had been shuttered, forever giving off less light. However, he could no longer cling to the belief that that one moment had divided his life-before from his life-after. It could never be that simple, because things didn’t change once and stagnate; things continued to change.
After the bite there was alienation… until Hogwarts. After Hogwarts came loneliness… then the war. After the war there was solitude… and then another war. He married and for a time after that there was comfort. He had a son, after which he felt joy. There were so many befores and afters in his life. There were far too many pieces to simply split it into two, and those memories of the library pulled them all taut, like a thread running through them.
He still visits public libraries. Even though, as the war picks up steam, it is probably unwise. There are far fewer strategy sessions, no need for meeting with allies in alcoves. Watching people isn’t quite the same, either. The world is hunkering down, and even the muggles have tighter, more strained public faces. The library feels quieter now than Remus has ever remembered it, but he still feels centered there.
Remus imagines the library can thread the rest of the way through his life, a truer yardstick by far. He imagines sitting here, after the war, watching the way people slowly come back to life and loosen at the hinges. He imagines Teddy growing, learning to read, and to imagine. Maybe they will avoid the fairytales in favor of something they don’t know first-hand, or maybe Remus will be bold, because he hopes Teddy will never meet the Big Bad Wolf. He imagines the next after. Today the world is half-tilted toward utter disaster, but the world has done that before. After the war things will change, and Remus is getting used to the idea of Afters. He imagines he will spend the next one in a library with his son.
He hopes to hand off this twined thread.