FIC: Ten Sketches for a Portrait
Title: Ten Sketches for a Portrait
Author: PaulaMcG
Characters: Remus, Sirius, OCs (implied RL/SB, at least)
Rating: PG
Length: 10 x 100
Summary Remus keeps trying to catch the moving images of the life in and around him. Ten attempts at a self-portrait in a series.
Era: 1970’s - 1987
Notes: Each 100-word piece can stand on its own, too, while this series is supposed to continue and cover my Remus’s life as an artist until 1996. Nine of these drabbles, originally inspired by a lupin100 challenge, were published in two entries, in November and December 2006, and polished further with wonderful help from my f-list, particularly from ishonn. Thank you so much! Remus Lupin doesn’t help me make any money.
EDIT on the 6th of May, 2007: I'm now finally adding the tenth sketch, which I wrote in March and enjoyed working on together with my wonderful beta. Thank you once again, ishonn.
Sketches for a Portrait
1
During class the pale boy exchanges grimaces with his three friends. Determined not to succumb to his weariness, he makes his notes effortlessly and smiles to himself, adding a dissident comment. His left hand, in turn, grabs the quill and starts drawing figures on the margins of his parchment, first some magical creatures…
By the end of the class, among the faces on the margins there is a graceful one. He quickly adds pointy ears on top of the smooth black hair as well as a hideous moustache, so as to make sure this sketch, too, looks like a caricature.
2
After a couple of years of exploring Dark Creatures, subsisting on meager scholarships, he looks sicklier than at Hogwarts. Without chance for employment, he can as well study art. After all, we never know how much time we have left, so he’s dying to learn how to better record the life around him.
His friends are used to his constant sketching, and they force him to accept pads of proper aquarelle paper as gifts. He surprises them with accurate images of what he’s stored in incredible visual memory.
“Painting compensates for the threat of losing my human mind,” he says.
3
Finally I’m reaching the higher level: real portraits. This new skill is overwhelming. I can control it only when the connection is intense. My first model can’t be anyone else.
Every pose of his is safe in my mind, thanks to my visual memory, which the professors have assessed as exceptional… rather uncanny. When he’s gone and he hasn’t bothered to tell me when he’ll be back, I console myself with countless sketches.
However, the magic of movement requires his presence. And when he agrees to stay near - as man or dog - he overwhelms me, and I forget to paint.
4
Tonight he must be too much tempted to pretend the golden carefree days are back. The teasing smack on my neck turns into a caress.
He’s caught me playing with tints of yellow and red. The illusion of warmth I’ve reached is shattered momentarily when he opens the door to the balcony and steps out. But he settles to smoke in front of the birch which still glows like a torch in the chill of the fading evening.
If his face stays long enough in the middle of my landscape, perhaps I’ll manage to touch him, catching his moving image.
5
He’s alone. Better not look at himself. He’s also trying to forget what one of them looked like.
Focus on these books with no pictures. Only lines of lies to memorize: violence and greed as the sub-human nature.
No colour in this room, and no one who could afford to worry about that. No heating, no food. Huddled on the hard grey couch, wrapped in the filthy blanket, there’s just someone who’s shivering and clutching his stomach in pain.
And still, it’s him, and he can’t help remembering. Being still consoled by every single meal once offered by the traitor.
6
One image almost manages to keep him awake, dreaming of a warm meal, a bowl to cup in his numb hands, a warm place to lay down what is left of his body. Instead, obviously, he will remain under a sheet of frost, if he can’t drag himself up any longer, to wander the streets until he disappears…
The baby switches his lips into a blissful smile, still clinging to the nipple. The mother, finally realizing someone else is present, reaches out: the fire of her hair burns.
A touch on his hand causes pain, condemns him back to life.
7
He is saved by a bold artist - a werewolf who is not afraid of himself.
Those strong strokes don’t hesitate any longer, but he’ll step out before the picture of him is fully fleshed. Before he has to admit he is a model, too, while letting the expression of his left, his artist’s hand support his recovery.
In his paintings there’s perhaps a haven among the storm, but no breath of life.
He must receive the gift, and present something in return: to force out vivid words for a story to explain why he can’t help pulling his hand away.
8
Her wrinkled hand lifts a cup full of warm milk to his lips. Now the hands are joined beside her cheek, and the sharp gaze of her beady eyes leaves him for a moment: she closes her lids to make sure he can understand the sign.
While her potions start nourishing his new skin, in his dream he is able…
I am able to hold a paint brush again. I don’t need parchment, paper or canvas. The figures are leaping across the walls. Dolphins. The Prince of Lilies. The monster turns a human face towards me and builds the palace.
9
I return to check the ever-changing nuances in my landscape. The human figures as distracting decoration.
Only plain pencil lines in the cheapest notebook. I still don’t pilfer anything unnecessary - or anything to sustain this body, although I admit the gift mustn’t be rejected.
An angel’s smile, however, is persistent enough, to take me along and up. He shares his tricks of surviving: how to fill his stomach for free and sate his nostalgia with songs about the home lost before he was born.
No matter how bereft and disillusioned, I am bound to see Samir as a beautiful man.
10
The carpet’s gliding at the north wind’s speed. I’m sprawled in perfect stillness until Brünnhilde nudges me. ”You said you’d enjoy the landscapes.”
The sight of her motherly face could substitute for sleep, but... ”Seen the sea before.”
”And the Sahara? You’ll paint this.” She rolls me onto my stomach, to peer down over the edge.
The sand glows in breathtaking shades, but... ”There’s real work at your school.”
I’m staring in rapture only at the surprise between the late afternoon sun and the side of a dune: our shadow travelling along - this weary tramp in a witch’s healing hands.
Further notes: This series was originally inspired by lupin100’s challenge “Portraits”. Each piece is (once again) supposed to both stand on its own and complement the rest of my Remus’s story. Drabble # 5 is set in England in 1983 - at the time of my story I Don’t Dream. Drabbles # 6 and 7 are set in Paris in 1985 and 1986, and the OC with whom Remus interacts in them is Jean from A Gift. Drabbles # 8 and 9 are set in Greece, in Crete and Thessalonica, respectively, in 1986 and 1987, and # 9 summarizes and complements Come Up With Me. Drabble # 10 is set in December 1987, soon after Here I Am Anew.
Author: PaulaMcG
Characters: Remus, Sirius, OCs (implied RL/SB, at least)
Rating: PG
Length: 10 x 100
Summary Remus keeps trying to catch the moving images of the life in and around him. Ten attempts at a self-portrait in a series.
Era: 1970’s - 1987
Notes: Each 100-word piece can stand on its own, too, while this series is supposed to continue and cover my Remus’s life as an artist until 1996. Nine of these drabbles, originally inspired by a lupin100 challenge, were published in two entries, in November and December 2006, and polished further with wonderful help from my f-list, particularly from ishonn. Thank you so much! Remus Lupin doesn’t help me make any money.
EDIT on the 6th of May, 2007: I'm now finally adding the tenth sketch, which I wrote in March and enjoyed working on together with my wonderful beta. Thank you once again, ishonn.
Sketches for a Portrait
1
During class the pale boy exchanges grimaces with his three friends. Determined not to succumb to his weariness, he makes his notes effortlessly and smiles to himself, adding a dissident comment. His left hand, in turn, grabs the quill and starts drawing figures on the margins of his parchment, first some magical creatures…
By the end of the class, among the faces on the margins there is a graceful one. He quickly adds pointy ears on top of the smooth black hair as well as a hideous moustache, so as to make sure this sketch, too, looks like a caricature.
2
After a couple of years of exploring Dark Creatures, subsisting on meager scholarships, he looks sicklier than at Hogwarts. Without chance for employment, he can as well study art. After all, we never know how much time we have left, so he’s dying to learn how to better record the life around him.
His friends are used to his constant sketching, and they force him to accept pads of proper aquarelle paper as gifts. He surprises them with accurate images of what he’s stored in incredible visual memory.
“Painting compensates for the threat of losing my human mind,” he says.
3
Finally I’m reaching the higher level: real portraits. This new skill is overwhelming. I can control it only when the connection is intense. My first model can’t be anyone else.
Every pose of his is safe in my mind, thanks to my visual memory, which the professors have assessed as exceptional… rather uncanny. When he’s gone and he hasn’t bothered to tell me when he’ll be back, I console myself with countless sketches.
However, the magic of movement requires his presence. And when he agrees to stay near - as man or dog - he overwhelms me, and I forget to paint.
4
Tonight he must be too much tempted to pretend the golden carefree days are back. The teasing smack on my neck turns into a caress.
He’s caught me playing with tints of yellow and red. The illusion of warmth I’ve reached is shattered momentarily when he opens the door to the balcony and steps out. But he settles to smoke in front of the birch which still glows like a torch in the chill of the fading evening.
If his face stays long enough in the middle of my landscape, perhaps I’ll manage to touch him, catching his moving image.
5
He’s alone. Better not look at himself. He’s also trying to forget what one of them looked like.
Focus on these books with no pictures. Only lines of lies to memorize: violence and greed as the sub-human nature.
No colour in this room, and no one who could afford to worry about that. No heating, no food. Huddled on the hard grey couch, wrapped in the filthy blanket, there’s just someone who’s shivering and clutching his stomach in pain.
And still, it’s him, and he can’t help remembering. Being still consoled by every single meal once offered by the traitor.
6
One image almost manages to keep him awake, dreaming of a warm meal, a bowl to cup in his numb hands, a warm place to lay down what is left of his body. Instead, obviously, he will remain under a sheet of frost, if he can’t drag himself up any longer, to wander the streets until he disappears…
The baby switches his lips into a blissful smile, still clinging to the nipple. The mother, finally realizing someone else is present, reaches out: the fire of her hair burns.
A touch on his hand causes pain, condemns him back to life.
7
He is saved by a bold artist - a werewolf who is not afraid of himself.
Those strong strokes don’t hesitate any longer, but he’ll step out before the picture of him is fully fleshed. Before he has to admit he is a model, too, while letting the expression of his left, his artist’s hand support his recovery.
In his paintings there’s perhaps a haven among the storm, but no breath of life.
He must receive the gift, and present something in return: to force out vivid words for a story to explain why he can’t help pulling his hand away.
8
Her wrinkled hand lifts a cup full of warm milk to his lips. Now the hands are joined beside her cheek, and the sharp gaze of her beady eyes leaves him for a moment: she closes her lids to make sure he can understand the sign.
While her potions start nourishing his new skin, in his dream he is able…
I am able to hold a paint brush again. I don’t need parchment, paper or canvas. The figures are leaping across the walls. Dolphins. The Prince of Lilies. The monster turns a human face towards me and builds the palace.
9
I return to check the ever-changing nuances in my landscape. The human figures as distracting decoration.
Only plain pencil lines in the cheapest notebook. I still don’t pilfer anything unnecessary - or anything to sustain this body, although I admit the gift mustn’t be rejected.
An angel’s smile, however, is persistent enough, to take me along and up. He shares his tricks of surviving: how to fill his stomach for free and sate his nostalgia with songs about the home lost before he was born.
No matter how bereft and disillusioned, I am bound to see Samir as a beautiful man.
10
The carpet’s gliding at the north wind’s speed. I’m sprawled in perfect stillness until Brünnhilde nudges me. ”You said you’d enjoy the landscapes.”
The sight of her motherly face could substitute for sleep, but... ”Seen the sea before.”
”And the Sahara? You’ll paint this.” She rolls me onto my stomach, to peer down over the edge.
The sand glows in breathtaking shades, but... ”There’s real work at your school.”
I’m staring in rapture only at the surprise between the late afternoon sun and the side of a dune: our shadow travelling along - this weary tramp in a witch’s healing hands.
Further notes: This series was originally inspired by lupin100’s challenge “Portraits”. Each piece is (once again) supposed to both stand on its own and complement the rest of my Remus’s story. Drabble # 5 is set in England in 1983 - at the time of my story I Don’t Dream. Drabbles # 6 and 7 are set in Paris in 1985 and 1986, and the OC with whom Remus interacts in them is Jean from A Gift. Drabbles # 8 and 9 are set in Greece, in Crete and Thessalonica, respectively, in 1986 and 1987, and # 9 summarizes and complements Come Up With Me. Drabble # 10 is set in December 1987, soon after Here I Am Anew.