FIC: Remus Lupin and the Revolt of the Creatures, Chapter 8 / 21, part two
Title: Remus Lupin and the Revolt of the Creatures, Chapter Eight: New Attempts at Sharing, Part Two
Author: PaulaMcG
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: (subtly, eventually) Remus/Sirius
Era and universe: Summer and autumn 1996, an alternative world after OotP
Chapter summary: Remus’s attempts at sharing continue through hospitality, teaching and letter-writing.
Word count: around 6,100
Disclaimer: Remus won't help me make any money.
Notes: EDITED on the 13th of February 2010. I’m happy to declare that this 21-chapter novel can now be regarded as completed (while I’m planning to still polish the final scenes with my beta ishonn by the end of February). Besides Remus, of course, original characters and new settings dominate this chapter, but rest assured that I'll soon give more space to canon characters, too. I’ll be grateful for any comments, including concrit.
Chapter One can be found here, Chapter Two here, Chapter Three here and here, Chapter Four here, Chapter Five here and here, Chapter Six here and here, Chapter Seven here and the first part of Chapter Eight here.
Remus Lupin and the Revolt of the Creatures
Chapter Eight: New Attempts at Sharing
continues
The artists did not prolong their triumph. After bowing in unison once more, they quickly mixed in the audience. Most of them went to sit with their friends at different tables, and some folk from the tables climbed to the stage. A tall and broad man, who had stepped to the end of the row before the last bow, jumped down from the stage and approached with long strides. Remus realised that this man had been in the role of the stupid Death Eater, and that he was no one but Robin Bottom himself.
The admirably strong and jovial youth, whom Remus remembered from the first years when he had followed the rehearsals led by his mother, had grown to be one of the leading actors and opposition men as well as an author by the time of the raids. Since then he had not changed much, if not gained some more size. One of his grandmothers had been a giant, which he proudly declared in any opportunity. He was about ten years older than Remus but looked certainly younger than him.
He actually looked like the sun, especially in contrast with Thisby, who suddenly appeared under his arm at the moment when he reached Remus’s table. His shaved face was round and rosy and radiated original mirth.
“Welcome back to the Cotswolds, Remus. It’s great to see you after all these years!”
He had spread his arms before stopping beside the table, and Remus had stood up to hug him. The accidental brush of Thisby’s hair and forehead on his chin startled Remus, and he did not dare to look at her again. The glimpse of her standing next to Robin remained in his mind as a touching image of frailty. Robin offered a chair to her, and without looking to her direction Remus could sense her sweaty and still panting of excitement and exhaustion, trembling, and desperate for someone to lean on.
Robin refused to sit down himself. “I do want to have a long chat with you, Remus. But I hope you’ll come and see me on another day. Then I’ll introduce everybody to you. And we’ll find out what role or roles if any you want to take among us. In any case you’ll have my support in your cause. But tonight I ask you to just concentrate on making up your mind about your role in Thisby’s case. Tell her if you can help her. She is rather weary.”
“Thank you, Robin. And congratulations on the brilliant performance! I suppose I’m the one to prove that it was quite impressive and, indeed, influential. But I’ve understood I should talk to the two suitors as well.”
“I’ll ask them to come here. See you soon in Long Compton, at the old place.”
Remus followed with his eyes Robin walking among the tables and calling for Peck and Tumble, and he watched the two of them stand up, jump over benches to join each other and then approach arm in arm, chatting cheerfully. Having not dared to look at Thisby’s helpless figure, Remus suddenly heard the sound of her breathing change. He cast a cautious glance at her and saw her smiling, apparently not only of amusement but of serene sense of security, as she was leaning back on her chair in a relaxed manner.
Holding out a hand to be shaken, Remus managed to get Peck and Tumble separated. First Tumble, then Peck shook his hand heartily and embraced him in a hug as well. Their faces were beaming and their eyes sparkling, as they stole glances at each other while explaining like in competition how thrilled they were to meet him in reality, too.
They looked a lot alike, although Peck’s complexion was darker, since Tumble had the almost translucently white skin of a redhead. Besides the clearly visible horns, Peck had a slightly more withdrawn or rather mysterious air about him, whereas Tumble’s face revealed each of his quickly changing thoughts.
“The last part of the performance was a bit abstract. Or that’s how Robin puts it,” Tumble explained.
“I said we should have a wolf on the stage. Something transfigured to appear as a wolf,” Peck said.
“The performance was excellent,” Remus said feeling more than a bit uncomfortable.
“I doubt all folks got it yet. But we’ll do the show again,” Peck said.
“And Robin will change the lines and write lines for you, if you join us,” Tumble added.
“Anyway, according to Robin, tonight we should not discuss that, but Thisby’s case - in reality,” Remus said, frowning and rubbing his forehead.
He felt he was on the edge of getting a headache. The room was noisy and the smoke had thickened again.
“Take a seat,” he said, sitting down.
Peck and Tumble were clearly too full of energy to have thought of sitting down. Peck now pulled a chair from the next table, but Tumble suddenly noticed Thisby and hurried to congratulate her and to ask her if she needed something. Remus heard Thisby chuckle.
“That’s what I’ve been talking about all night!”
Remus saw that the bearded waiter was still sitting with the half-giants at the next table and was so busy drinking himself that there was a chance to avoid ordering more drinks. He could as well take his companions home for dinner, and leave behind this restless atmosphere, hopefully even the talk about his future roles on the stage.
A role for him in Thisby’s real life was unavoidable while still not defined to the degree he personally needed it to be. But he wondered if her apparently careless suitors were ready to join him - or even her - in reality. He wanted to ask a few simple questions and hoped to get simple answers.
“Please listen, Peck and Tumble. Robin pointed out that you are tired, Thisby…”
He forced himself to talk to her and not about her in the third person, like Robin had done, but he glanced at her very cautiously. She nodded sagely, but lost her concentration, whispering to Tumble. She had evidently commanded him to sit down, and they argued for a moment, until she stood up and sat down again on his lap.
“Yes?” Peck asked in a slightly grumpy tone.
“So do you need a safe place in reality?”
“Yes, please. We’ve all been threatened and…” Tumble’s voice was serious for a change, and it trailed off, while he looked at Thisby in concern.
Remus closed his eyes for a moment. There was no need for further explanations. Why should he even expect his protégés to be serious?
“I’ve got a place which is protected. But that is all I’ve got, and my right to it is based on my labour on the lands. If you all three want to come to live on the Wotton estate, you’ll have to take part in the labour. I actually need your help. Besides, of course, the Ministry doesn’t approve of me staying there. And I don’t approve of the Ministry. If you come with me, you will eventually join my side in the conflict.”
“We are ready for that,” Tumble said adopting his more thoughtful tone.
“Do you want to come with me and move in tonight? You can collect your possessions from Long Compton next time when you have a rehearsal there.”
“I don’t own anything,” Thisby said, chuckling again.
“In that case it’s simple. But your fiancés had better accompany you.”
“Yes. You will, won’t you? Peck, won’t you, too?”
“Yes, I will. I am most grateful,” Peck said and bowed.
“I can’t sleep with them in the same room, though, since they are still two,” Thisby said, giggling.
Remus apparated to Mr Landor’s house and apologised for disturbing him at such a late hour. But the elder seemed to have expected him and not to be surprised to hear who were supposed to arrive through the floo powder network in a moment. He looked not only pleased but actually cheerful when kissing Thisby, Peck and Tumble on their ash-stained foreheads and winking at Remus.
“I trust that the famous moraliser of the whole magical society will not allow the three of you to transgress the boundaries of decency, regardless of the details of the spiritual guidance which he has preferred to mine.”
Peck and Tumble burst into laughter, and Thisby kissed the old wizard’s hand, promising never to choose anybody’s guidance against his. Remus was suddenly sure that Thisby’s knowledge concerning Philomela’s son, her cousins’ benefactor and the cover boy of the Quibbler derived from one source more.
On the way up the slope Peck and Tumble chased each other across the bushes, not bothering to follow the winding lane. Remus walked side by side with Thisby, but kept the high vegetation in the middle of the lane between them. The waxing moon had risen and it increased his discomfort, while he realised that he was now giving up his privacy, which he had already got used to. This was the reason why he had decided to come to claim a home: to offer it to others. But he had never thought that the first creatures to join him would include someone like this woman.
She was first talking constantly - probably about the reactions of the audience, although Remus hardly listened to her - and when she grew silent, that sounded alarming. He glanced at her cautiously and realised that she was simply extremely tired.
“We are almost there. You can see the apple trees, and the house is just behind them.”
She stopped, and he felt it was absolutely necessary not to stay standing there. He reached out over the bushes, and she took his hand. He quickly almost forced her to continue walking. Her hand was cold, and he noticed she was shivering. Venturing another look at her, he saw her like Cinderella, with ash stains from the floo powder trip still on her white face and with the rags hardly covering her body. He should have given his cloak to her, but he realised he did not have one. He would have to ask Gumby to look for some of his parents clothes for the two of them. The two of them… She was not his fiancée. What were Peck and Tumble thinking, leaving her for him to take care of?
From behind the first apple tree Peck leaped to embrace her, and Tumble rushed from the other side and wrapped his worn cloak around her shoulders.
Remus looked forward and thought of the words in Dumbledore’s handwriting. He could see the house now, but he led his guests a bit further to check that the charm truly prevented them from seeing it.
He wondered if the elfish magic had an effect on them, too. But Peck and Tumble’s joking showed that they were in a cheerful mood, and Thisby’s laughter was no less cheerful. Her facial expression and posture had changed completely again. Suddenly stopping, Remus could hardly get their attention.
The three of them continued arm in arm a few steps, until Peck exclaimed, “Where is the house? I can feel we are almost at home now.”
Gumby apparently welcomed the new inhabitants.
“It’s been hidden by a charm. I’ll conjure a piece of parchment. You’ll have to memorise the writing. I’ll destroy the parchment, and immediately after - and afterwards every time you want to enter - in order to find the house, you’ll have to recall the words exactly as you saw them written.”
“But I don’t know how to read,” Tumble said, frowning.
Thisby only shook her head, reflecting Tumble’s expression.
“I can read it aloud,” Peck said.
“All right. It must work like that. You two just follow the writing with your eyes, and try to envisage it while saying the words in your minds after the parchment has disappeared.”
The three guests nodded and looked curious, when Remus took out his wand. He concentrated on the memory of Dumbledore’s writing burning his hand and muttered, “Albus Fidelius!”
A parchment appeared in his hand and shone for a moment, but he had to light his wand to illuminate it, while Peck slowly read the text, pointing at each word with his finger, and the other two bent their heads to follow carefully. Then Remus touched the parchment with the wand-tip, and it burnt to ashes in an instant.
“Now repeat it in your minds,” he said quietly. He watched Thisby close her eyes tightly and move her lips.
When she opened her eyes, her face lit up. “It looks just as lovely as my mother told me.”
The warm light of the fire was streaming out through the open door.
Soon watching her warm up by the fireplace, where he had himself returned only a few days earlier, Remus felt such pain and pleasure that he was relieved to have a chance to escape to practical tasks. Gumby was nowhere to be seen, and Remus quickly started preparing dinner. He had already learnt something, but Gumby would certainly have known a lot better how to prepare something suitable for such guests. The elf evidently welcomed them, but perhaps did not want to take any role of a servant in this situation - beyond offering the opened door and the fire.
Only after they had settled for the simple dinner and the guests had turned out to be far from fastidious, did Gumby appear with a pop. Remus introduced the guests to him first and him to them as a friend, whom they could call Gumby, and there was nothing more said about the elf’s status.
Gumby joined in their conversation, asking about the success of their performance. He summoned some dessert, which he must have prepared beforehand, and finally asked what kind of lodging arrangements the new inhabitants would prefer.
Remus suggested that Thisby take his mother’s bedroom in the east wing of the building, and she said that her two fiancés could share a room in the west wing. When it had been agreed that after dinner Remus would take Peck and Tumble to their room, and Gumby would see to what Thisby needed, including the clothes, Remus felt he was able to relax.
Peck took out his flute and demonstrated the instrument. “This is not just any flute. This is a shawm, and a renaissance shawm, not the old-fashioned type. Can you see this crenellated metal band wrapped around the bell? It protects the instrument but also makes it quite an effective weapon for settling disputes among musicians - or suitors.”
The two suitors were soon engaged in a dancing competition around the fireplace. Gumby benevolently called out encouragements to them every now and then and continued to fill Thisby’s plate.
Thisby smiled at him but turned to Remus. “So what did you think of the performance? As... art, I mean.”
Remus glanced at Thisby’s face to see it suddenly serious, almost tense, although the audience’s satisfaction with her achievement was still shining out at him. He realised that she was not a careless child repeating with ease what she was told to do, but an artist at heart, struggling to build images, and ever uncertain of how close to perfection she had reached. The perfection was impossible, and she would never find peace.
“You all played your roles brilliantly. Art can’t be separated from your personal experience. But you especially… I feel you mainly reflected the anguish of other persecuted creatures as well as their zest for life. So that you made them understand themselves and each other with more sympathy, while giving them hope.”
“That’s what I meant to do. It wasn’t really my story except on the surface.”
“I wonder…” Remus felt strangely confused, unable to analyse the play so as to define the facets and to find out which one was truly based on Thisby’s life. He resorted to the formal level instead. “The piece had been written excellently, too. Excellent mirth in tragedy, and grief in comedy. I just wonder why there weren’t three suitors, too, as the trials were three according to the classic pattern.”
“What pattern?”
“It’s even in the fairy tales. Have you not read such stories?”
“I’ve been told some such tales that the fairies build up, but I don’t know about any patterns. I don’t know how to read.”
Her voice sounded uncertain, but was there some half-hidden anticipation in her last comment? Remus did not look up at her face, but followed her lead.
“You can meet the patterns at the theatre, but even for getting to know your lines… Don’t you think you should learn to read?”
“It might be nice to be able to read. I like magazines, but I have to ask someone to read to me. Maybe I could have understood better what they wrote about you, if I had been able to read it myself again and again. But I kept only the photo of you, because I can’t read anyway.”
“You can learn. Tell me: did your mother speak the language of the veela to you?”
He felt he was getting seriously interested. Looking up, he saw just a simple young girl answering his questions sincerely.
“Yes, of course. And I learnt English only after a couple of springs when You Know Who was gone and my parents got together again. And now I’ve usually lived with my cousins and spoken only veela except at the theatre.”
“In that case you must learn to read veela first.”
“But that’s not possible! Who could teach me? Only some of the most honourable ones who never deal with mortal men are able to read the scripts of the veela.”
Remus realised he was probably making things too complicated once again, but he was curious to take the challenge and to find out if his principles could be applied in practice. It did obviously not seem to be the most urgent task in the war against the Ministry and Voldemort to teach a half-veela to read in her mother tongue. But the extreme complexity of this case fascinated him. Did it really make any sense to let her learn to read first in a language which probably had never been written with such vocabulary that she used in her everyday speech. He wanted to make an experiment, but to remind himself to be flexible enough and change to English, if it should turn out unsuccessful. And the teaching would not require them to give up other duties.
“I have read some texts in veela. I studied the art of healing when I was young, and the advanced level requirements - at least in the form set up by Professor Flamel - included the theory of the veela magic. The special knowledge in natural remedies which only the veela possess…”
Thisby was staring at him. He realised that her gaze did not make him dizzy anymore, but he felt that Thisby herself was distracted from what he was saying.
“Remus Lupin, there were three suitors in the play, if we count you as the third.”
That night Remus felt unable to resume writing about his past, since his current decisions had suddenly ceased to be theoretical ponderings. Shaken by the presence of new inhabitants in the house, he realised how quickly he had got used to leading a certain kind of quiet life at home.
He kept a clear distance from Thisby, Peck and Tumble during their first day, and let Gumby alone guide them to the work on the lands, on the excuse that the elf was most up to that task. Remus went by himself to the pastures to fix the sheep sheds, although it was not one of the most urgent tasks. He wanted to think about Harry or at least about what to tell Harry about himself. But the image of Thisby’s shining face returned to his mind again and again.
The meals became truly refreshing breaks from the work thanks to Peck and Tumble, whose endless jokes captivated even Remus’s attention. Their humour was lighthearted and true at the same time. Gradually, but surprisingly quickly, Remus started feeling that he would be even more relaxed in this company than with Gumby alone, in the lack of need for wording his thoughts.
In the evening of that first day Thisby appeared in the kitchen after dinner, when Remus was by himself, finishing the bottling of the apple juice.
“Do you speak veela?” she asked without an introduction.
Remus glanced at her and was still startled by her frail figure clothed in the same green robe which his mother was wearing in the last images of her treasured in his mind. Thisby had to be about seventeen years old, but she looked at the same time both more childish and more mature than that.
He attempted a smile. “No, I don’t. Would you care to teach me?”
“Yes, of course.”
She quickly grabbed an apple from the table and put it in his hand, pronouncing its delicious soft name in veela. Remus tried to repeat it and smiled at his own clumsy attempt. She nodded sagely, poured some juice into a glass and lifted it on his lips, whispering another combination of vowel sounds and a dental consonant, as far as he could figure it out. He tried to pronounce it, and they both burst into laughter, spilling the juice all over. She said a whole phrase, in which he could discern the same combination of sounds.
“Please, wait a minute. I’m not such a quick learner. I like your teaching method, but my way of learning requires a chance to analyse what’s going on. I need to write it down, too.”
His own need for visual stimuli in order to learn an alien language naturally allowed him to guide his teacher to learn literacy. Not wanting to leave the kitchen, which had turned out to be an inspiring learning environment, he summoned a piece of parchment, a quill and a bottle of ink from his desk. Then he stepped to the doorway to look out to the great hall, wondering if his old textbook of Healing Arts could be still in one of the family bookshelves. He needed an image of at least its approximate location so as to be able to summon it.
He knew he did not own a copy of the dictionary or the grammar which he had used when reading the veela script included in the text book. But his own side notes could help him recall the writing system, which had fascinated him enough to make him study it, although it had not been necessary for learning what had been required in that first Healing exam in autumn 1979. He had been even more thorough in Healing than in his other studies, probably because of his urge to independence regardless of the harm that he had still occasionally caused to himself during his transformations. Or maybe he had actually been more interested in the languages and cultures of alien creatures.
“Accio, The Most Tender Ways of Tending Mortal Wounds and Disabling Disease!”
“What do you need that for?” Thisby had sat down at the table, on a bench, and she was fumbling the quill with her right hand while eating the apple.
“Do you always use your left hand for eating?” Remus asked in passing, while sitting down beside her, placing the book next to the bottles and starting to leaf it through.
“Sorry. I should remember that most humans prefer using the right hand.”
She left the quill, moved the apple to her right hand and took another bite.
“No, I didn’t mean to correct your habits… Accio quill! I just checked that you’d better use the left hand for writing, if that’s you preferred hand. So if you want to eat while writing, you really had better hold the apple in the right hand. Sorry, I’m so meticulous that I must be terribly irritating.”
“No, you are just as wonderful… more wonderful than I had heard.”
“Anyway, you don’t have to write, unless you feel like doing it. I just summoned another quill, so you can hold one, if you want to. I need all these things to learn and memorise what an apple is in veela. Would you care to start from the beginning again, after I’ve found the right page in this book? Here it is!”
At the beginning of the chapter quoting directly an ancient veela script, which most students must have skipped, he had eighteen years earlier carefully marked the code with which to turn phonemes into the letters of the veela alphabet. He glanced through it. Thisby was staring at the page, too. He prepared the quill, reached to a basket for another apple and offered it to her.
“Please…”
Thisby looked excited when handing the apple back and pronouncing the word carefully, and Remus tried his best to repeat it.
“Is the sound at the end like in the word for throat?” he asked, peering at the book and touching his throat.
He was startled by the touch of Thisby’s hand on his and under his chin. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, feeling it was hard to do it, as if her gentle touch had pressed his windpipe closed. He had an ominous feeling concerning the vocabulary which this book was leading them to take up.
“I’ll write the word for an apple first.”
He wondered if Thisby was looking at his hand or his face or some other part of his body, while he tried to concentrate on drawing the delicate lines for the veela letters, placing the first one in the bottom right corner of the parchment and the rest in a row above it. While writing he pronounced the word slowly.
Then he would copy from the book the word for a throat. This other word had not only helped him check if the dental consonant sound was really the one which he had marked with a D, but it also offered a nice rhyme to help Thisby realise the similarity between the two words in both their spoken forms and their written representations. He repressed the urge to explain the theory of the method. Instead, he had to look up at her to check what she was observing.
After releasing his windpipe she had started poking at the letters of the first word. Now she was looking at her inky fingertips.
Remus took his wand and performed a drying spell. “See, I have to do this because I use my right hand and I would mess up the ink on the first word, when I proceed to the left as we must do in writing veela. It will be easier for you, because you use your left hand. Now it’s also a bit hard for you to compare the second word with the first, since my hand covers it. But try to see what happens.
Remus himself was excited to see what would happen. He trusted that she was intelligent enough - and, most of all, had enough experience of comparing different spoken language systems - to even instantaneously become aware of the relationship between a phoneme and a letter. Still, she may not have ever thought of the fact that spoken words could be separated into phonemes. Or maybe she had experienced it, when practising the intricate sound patterns, with which she obviously enjoyed playing when singing.
He pronounced the word slowly while writing it. She had bent her head low towards the tabletop to peer at the movements of the quill. He lifted his hand, performed the drying spell, and began to observe the expression of concentration on her face. She would not disappoint him, and he started smiling before she looked up at him and spoke.
“It sounds like a piece of a poem, and you can see it here. Now you won’t forget it!” She caressed the ending of each word with her fingertips and turned a beaming face back to him.
Once again he was startled by the realisation that she was able to only reflect emotion. She was happy that he was learning, or maybe the fact that he enjoyed her learning made her happy. Still, it was only his enthusiasm shining on her. She was the moon. And her almost absolute destitution, her alienation from her life burned in his body and mind more painfully than ever.
The lines of his own handwriting - from the night before he had met Thisby - suddenly presented themselves to him as a treasure.
Thisby had gone out, summoned by Peck’s flute, and Remus had climbed to his loft, doubting that he would be able to concentrate on the never-ending letter. He had finished the lesson quickly. He had been afraid that his sudden grief for her would reflect on her and undo the positive experience of learning. Partly in order to end off the lesson by emphasising the significance of writing, he had explained that he needed to write a letter to a friend whom he missed. Thisby had evidently connected the sorrow in his expression only to another person, and she had asked if it was a woman.
He had wished he could have answered affirmatively so as to remove the uncomfortable tension between the two of them. He had been unable to lie, but he had only said, “Someone who used to be my student.”
Now at first unable to concentrate on thinking about Harry, he was suddenly overwhelmed by the blessing present in the familiarity of the text in the unfinished letter. It had been produced by the movement of his hand, in the way he had since his childhood learnt to move it smoothly. It had been controlled by his mind. And it conveyed his deepening understanding of his life in a language of his own. How could he have thought that he was unfortunate? He was in quite a satisfactory control of different ways of expressing himself and not just reflecting something from the outside. Unless the emotions and thoughts of every creature were only reflections.
Harry,
I was telling you about the memory of how I was bitten by a werewolf. Or was I? I claimed to be writing to myself. And I was not describing the event. After the nightmare, which I merely mentioned, that experience belongs to my history, too. Still, I don’t feel like describing it in words. I actually painted it and I wish I could show the product to you, though it was an abstract painting, which is supposed to adopt any meaning, when someone looks at it, and not just the contents which the artist had in mind. Unfortunately, I had to sell it, and did not even get much for it. But I can envisage it, and that’s enough for me.
I have sold, or left behind, or painted over almost all the paintings I’ve ever made. But except in the case of the real portraits, it’s no big loss, as I can remember them and they remain in my mind - or rather continue to develop in my mind, maybe better than if I were able to continue to look at them. I can still see in my mind the first sketch which I showed to your mother - one I actually drew when standing beside her at the blackboard. We were twelve years old…
Anyway, turning that ancient torment into a painting now seemed the appropriate thing to do, especially because I may not have ever started to learn to paint, had I not been bitten. I had to spend several days at the hospital - even though my wounds had been closed by the best healers before I regained consciousness, so that I never saw anything but the scars, which are meant to remain permanently in such a case. I remember exactly why I was so restless that the young healer Miss Emeline said she didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. I told her I had suddenly discovered how I would play great battles with my friends. I was able to see it all vivid in my mind. All the descriptions of fighting heroes in the old tales, which I had been told by my parents, my uncle and Gumby the house-elf, had become alive. I wanted to rush out and do it, to be one of the heroes.
She asked me to show her what I saw in my mind, and she gave me a piece of charcoal and thick porous type of paper like I had not seen before. I remember the frustration when I couldn’t produce the same I had in my mind. But slowly the charcoal started to live its own life and to guide my mind to new images. Even the accidental strokes revealed surprises, which combined with what I had seen or only heard in words. New adventures were formed on the paper, and they enchanted me.
At home I continued with watercolours, and the play of the ever-changing scenes and figures replaced interaction with other children. I practised to learn to read soon, so I had new sources for ideas available. I also spent a lot of time outside and fancied the woods behind the house, where I vaguely remembered I had played with other boys when I had been little - just months earlier. When I wanted to capture and to keep all that I had read about, or done or - as my body was always weaker than I wished - just imagined doing, I recorded it in drawings and paintings.
I didn’t miss anybody to share it all with me besides Gumby the house-elf. I hadn’t forgotten that I had always taken the role of the king when playing with other boys. Although my parents were kind to their servants, Gumby was supposed to do what I told him to. He was supposed to call me Master Remus. He didn’t oppose my orders, but for some reason he always disappeared, when I suggested he take the role of the king’s servant in my play. When I asked him why he avoided playing with me, he explained, “Master cannot remember. But that is not true. That is not even how we played before. Wizards do not know the truth. But Master can now learn again the true game.” And he suggested that we take the roles of brothers, and that was our secret and my favourite way of playing.
I remember I seriously suggested that Gumby follow me to Hogwarts. I was quite sure that what I could reveal of myself to other students would appear so boring that I wouldn’t be able to make any friends. And Gumby’s friendship was very special to me, although from the beginning of my historical time until my belated homecoming my mind was devoid of the conscious memory of my earliest bond with him. The closest bond possible, which had as a unique blessing tied my life to the secret of the elves.
My parents were happy when Gumby had time to accompany me in play. I remember my father first wanted to forbid me to go alone to the woods. After four years they told me what had once hurt me there. That was when I started my attempts at a true understanding of why they kept telling me that I had better avoid violent scenes in my painting and drawing, too, instead of just letting out anything that came to my mind.
What I first learnt to control was my painting. I had realised that I didn’t paint what I had done or what had already existed in my mind. Every time something else appeared from the strokes of the paintbrush. I had enjoyed the surprises, but I learnt to enjoy controlling them. Later in life I learnt to relatively well control my mind, first the purely human tension on my better days, and afterwards even the aggression which arises from my disorder. After that I wanted to learn again to paint more spontaneously, but my conscious mind still quickly follows and analyses whatever I produce. It’s easier to learn than unlearn.
The draft on the blackboard was an example of controlling the chalk and easing my mind with the help of it. Am I writing to you, Harry? I should consider what would interest you. What you would like to read about that incident is probably not the level of control and consciousness in my visual expression. But do I dare to write about my very closest friends? In that case I must start from the beginning.
The first part of Chapter Nine is here.
Author: PaulaMcG
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: (subtly, eventually) Remus/Sirius
Era and universe: Summer and autumn 1996, an alternative world after OotP
Chapter summary: Remus’s attempts at sharing continue through hospitality, teaching and letter-writing.
Word count: around 6,100
Disclaimer: Remus won't help me make any money.
Notes: EDITED on the 13th of February 2010. I’m happy to declare that this 21-chapter novel can now be regarded as completed (while I’m planning to still polish the final scenes with my beta ishonn by the end of February). Besides Remus, of course, original characters and new settings dominate this chapter, but rest assured that I'll soon give more space to canon characters, too. I’ll be grateful for any comments, including concrit.
Chapter One can be found here, Chapter Two here, Chapter Three here and here, Chapter Four here, Chapter Five here and here, Chapter Six here and here, Chapter Seven here and the first part of Chapter Eight here.
Remus Lupin and the Revolt of the Creatures
Chapter Eight: New Attempts at Sharing
continues
The artists did not prolong their triumph. After bowing in unison once more, they quickly mixed in the audience. Most of them went to sit with their friends at different tables, and some folk from the tables climbed to the stage. A tall and broad man, who had stepped to the end of the row before the last bow, jumped down from the stage and approached with long strides. Remus realised that this man had been in the role of the stupid Death Eater, and that he was no one but Robin Bottom himself.
The admirably strong and jovial youth, whom Remus remembered from the first years when he had followed the rehearsals led by his mother, had grown to be one of the leading actors and opposition men as well as an author by the time of the raids. Since then he had not changed much, if not gained some more size. One of his grandmothers had been a giant, which he proudly declared in any opportunity. He was about ten years older than Remus but looked certainly younger than him.
He actually looked like the sun, especially in contrast with Thisby, who suddenly appeared under his arm at the moment when he reached Remus’s table. His shaved face was round and rosy and radiated original mirth.
“Welcome back to the Cotswolds, Remus. It’s great to see you after all these years!”
He had spread his arms before stopping beside the table, and Remus had stood up to hug him. The accidental brush of Thisby’s hair and forehead on his chin startled Remus, and he did not dare to look at her again. The glimpse of her standing next to Robin remained in his mind as a touching image of frailty. Robin offered a chair to her, and without looking to her direction Remus could sense her sweaty and still panting of excitement and exhaustion, trembling, and desperate for someone to lean on.
Robin refused to sit down himself. “I do want to have a long chat with you, Remus. But I hope you’ll come and see me on another day. Then I’ll introduce everybody to you. And we’ll find out what role or roles if any you want to take among us. In any case you’ll have my support in your cause. But tonight I ask you to just concentrate on making up your mind about your role in Thisby’s case. Tell her if you can help her. She is rather weary.”
“Thank you, Robin. And congratulations on the brilliant performance! I suppose I’m the one to prove that it was quite impressive and, indeed, influential. But I’ve understood I should talk to the two suitors as well.”
“I’ll ask them to come here. See you soon in Long Compton, at the old place.”
Remus followed with his eyes Robin walking among the tables and calling for Peck and Tumble, and he watched the two of them stand up, jump over benches to join each other and then approach arm in arm, chatting cheerfully. Having not dared to look at Thisby’s helpless figure, Remus suddenly heard the sound of her breathing change. He cast a cautious glance at her and saw her smiling, apparently not only of amusement but of serene sense of security, as she was leaning back on her chair in a relaxed manner.
Holding out a hand to be shaken, Remus managed to get Peck and Tumble separated. First Tumble, then Peck shook his hand heartily and embraced him in a hug as well. Their faces were beaming and their eyes sparkling, as they stole glances at each other while explaining like in competition how thrilled they were to meet him in reality, too.
They looked a lot alike, although Peck’s complexion was darker, since Tumble had the almost translucently white skin of a redhead. Besides the clearly visible horns, Peck had a slightly more withdrawn or rather mysterious air about him, whereas Tumble’s face revealed each of his quickly changing thoughts.
“The last part of the performance was a bit abstract. Or that’s how Robin puts it,” Tumble explained.
“I said we should have a wolf on the stage. Something transfigured to appear as a wolf,” Peck said.
“The performance was excellent,” Remus said feeling more than a bit uncomfortable.
“I doubt all folks got it yet. But we’ll do the show again,” Peck said.
“And Robin will change the lines and write lines for you, if you join us,” Tumble added.
“Anyway, according to Robin, tonight we should not discuss that, but Thisby’s case - in reality,” Remus said, frowning and rubbing his forehead.
He felt he was on the edge of getting a headache. The room was noisy and the smoke had thickened again.
“Take a seat,” he said, sitting down.
Peck and Tumble were clearly too full of energy to have thought of sitting down. Peck now pulled a chair from the next table, but Tumble suddenly noticed Thisby and hurried to congratulate her and to ask her if she needed something. Remus heard Thisby chuckle.
“That’s what I’ve been talking about all night!”
Remus saw that the bearded waiter was still sitting with the half-giants at the next table and was so busy drinking himself that there was a chance to avoid ordering more drinks. He could as well take his companions home for dinner, and leave behind this restless atmosphere, hopefully even the talk about his future roles on the stage.
A role for him in Thisby’s real life was unavoidable while still not defined to the degree he personally needed it to be. But he wondered if her apparently careless suitors were ready to join him - or even her - in reality. He wanted to ask a few simple questions and hoped to get simple answers.
“Please listen, Peck and Tumble. Robin pointed out that you are tired, Thisby…”
He forced himself to talk to her and not about her in the third person, like Robin had done, but he glanced at her very cautiously. She nodded sagely, but lost her concentration, whispering to Tumble. She had evidently commanded him to sit down, and they argued for a moment, until she stood up and sat down again on his lap.
“Yes?” Peck asked in a slightly grumpy tone.
“So do you need a safe place in reality?”
“Yes, please. We’ve all been threatened and…” Tumble’s voice was serious for a change, and it trailed off, while he looked at Thisby in concern.
Remus closed his eyes for a moment. There was no need for further explanations. Why should he even expect his protégés to be serious?
“I’ve got a place which is protected. But that is all I’ve got, and my right to it is based on my labour on the lands. If you all three want to come to live on the Wotton estate, you’ll have to take part in the labour. I actually need your help. Besides, of course, the Ministry doesn’t approve of me staying there. And I don’t approve of the Ministry. If you come with me, you will eventually join my side in the conflict.”
“We are ready for that,” Tumble said adopting his more thoughtful tone.
“Do you want to come with me and move in tonight? You can collect your possessions from Long Compton next time when you have a rehearsal there.”
“I don’t own anything,” Thisby said, chuckling again.
“In that case it’s simple. But your fiancés had better accompany you.”
“Yes. You will, won’t you? Peck, won’t you, too?”
“Yes, I will. I am most grateful,” Peck said and bowed.
“I can’t sleep with them in the same room, though, since they are still two,” Thisby said, giggling.
Remus apparated to Mr Landor’s house and apologised for disturbing him at such a late hour. But the elder seemed to have expected him and not to be surprised to hear who were supposed to arrive through the floo powder network in a moment. He looked not only pleased but actually cheerful when kissing Thisby, Peck and Tumble on their ash-stained foreheads and winking at Remus.
“I trust that the famous moraliser of the whole magical society will not allow the three of you to transgress the boundaries of decency, regardless of the details of the spiritual guidance which he has preferred to mine.”
Peck and Tumble burst into laughter, and Thisby kissed the old wizard’s hand, promising never to choose anybody’s guidance against his. Remus was suddenly sure that Thisby’s knowledge concerning Philomela’s son, her cousins’ benefactor and the cover boy of the Quibbler derived from one source more.
On the way up the slope Peck and Tumble chased each other across the bushes, not bothering to follow the winding lane. Remus walked side by side with Thisby, but kept the high vegetation in the middle of the lane between them. The waxing moon had risen and it increased his discomfort, while he realised that he was now giving up his privacy, which he had already got used to. This was the reason why he had decided to come to claim a home: to offer it to others. But he had never thought that the first creatures to join him would include someone like this woman.
She was first talking constantly - probably about the reactions of the audience, although Remus hardly listened to her - and when she grew silent, that sounded alarming. He glanced at her cautiously and realised that she was simply extremely tired.
“We are almost there. You can see the apple trees, and the house is just behind them.”
She stopped, and he felt it was absolutely necessary not to stay standing there. He reached out over the bushes, and she took his hand. He quickly almost forced her to continue walking. Her hand was cold, and he noticed she was shivering. Venturing another look at her, he saw her like Cinderella, with ash stains from the floo powder trip still on her white face and with the rags hardly covering her body. He should have given his cloak to her, but he realised he did not have one. He would have to ask Gumby to look for some of his parents clothes for the two of them. The two of them… She was not his fiancée. What were Peck and Tumble thinking, leaving her for him to take care of?
From behind the first apple tree Peck leaped to embrace her, and Tumble rushed from the other side and wrapped his worn cloak around her shoulders.
Remus looked forward and thought of the words in Dumbledore’s handwriting. He could see the house now, but he led his guests a bit further to check that the charm truly prevented them from seeing it.
He wondered if the elfish magic had an effect on them, too. But Peck and Tumble’s joking showed that they were in a cheerful mood, and Thisby’s laughter was no less cheerful. Her facial expression and posture had changed completely again. Suddenly stopping, Remus could hardly get their attention.
The three of them continued arm in arm a few steps, until Peck exclaimed, “Where is the house? I can feel we are almost at home now.”
Gumby apparently welcomed the new inhabitants.
“It’s been hidden by a charm. I’ll conjure a piece of parchment. You’ll have to memorise the writing. I’ll destroy the parchment, and immediately after - and afterwards every time you want to enter - in order to find the house, you’ll have to recall the words exactly as you saw them written.”
“But I don’t know how to read,” Tumble said, frowning.
Thisby only shook her head, reflecting Tumble’s expression.
“I can read it aloud,” Peck said.
“All right. It must work like that. You two just follow the writing with your eyes, and try to envisage it while saying the words in your minds after the parchment has disappeared.”
The three guests nodded and looked curious, when Remus took out his wand. He concentrated on the memory of Dumbledore’s writing burning his hand and muttered, “Albus Fidelius!”
A parchment appeared in his hand and shone for a moment, but he had to light his wand to illuminate it, while Peck slowly read the text, pointing at each word with his finger, and the other two bent their heads to follow carefully. Then Remus touched the parchment with the wand-tip, and it burnt to ashes in an instant.
“Now repeat it in your minds,” he said quietly. He watched Thisby close her eyes tightly and move her lips.
When she opened her eyes, her face lit up. “It looks just as lovely as my mother told me.”
The warm light of the fire was streaming out through the open door.
Soon watching her warm up by the fireplace, where he had himself returned only a few days earlier, Remus felt such pain and pleasure that he was relieved to have a chance to escape to practical tasks. Gumby was nowhere to be seen, and Remus quickly started preparing dinner. He had already learnt something, but Gumby would certainly have known a lot better how to prepare something suitable for such guests. The elf evidently welcomed them, but perhaps did not want to take any role of a servant in this situation - beyond offering the opened door and the fire.
Only after they had settled for the simple dinner and the guests had turned out to be far from fastidious, did Gumby appear with a pop. Remus introduced the guests to him first and him to them as a friend, whom they could call Gumby, and there was nothing more said about the elf’s status.
Gumby joined in their conversation, asking about the success of their performance. He summoned some dessert, which he must have prepared beforehand, and finally asked what kind of lodging arrangements the new inhabitants would prefer.
Remus suggested that Thisby take his mother’s bedroom in the east wing of the building, and she said that her two fiancés could share a room in the west wing. When it had been agreed that after dinner Remus would take Peck and Tumble to their room, and Gumby would see to what Thisby needed, including the clothes, Remus felt he was able to relax.
Peck took out his flute and demonstrated the instrument. “This is not just any flute. This is a shawm, and a renaissance shawm, not the old-fashioned type. Can you see this crenellated metal band wrapped around the bell? It protects the instrument but also makes it quite an effective weapon for settling disputes among musicians - or suitors.”
The two suitors were soon engaged in a dancing competition around the fireplace. Gumby benevolently called out encouragements to them every now and then and continued to fill Thisby’s plate.
Thisby smiled at him but turned to Remus. “So what did you think of the performance? As... art, I mean.”
Remus glanced at Thisby’s face to see it suddenly serious, almost tense, although the audience’s satisfaction with her achievement was still shining out at him. He realised that she was not a careless child repeating with ease what she was told to do, but an artist at heart, struggling to build images, and ever uncertain of how close to perfection she had reached. The perfection was impossible, and she would never find peace.
“You all played your roles brilliantly. Art can’t be separated from your personal experience. But you especially… I feel you mainly reflected the anguish of other persecuted creatures as well as their zest for life. So that you made them understand themselves and each other with more sympathy, while giving them hope.”
“That’s what I meant to do. It wasn’t really my story except on the surface.”
“I wonder…” Remus felt strangely confused, unable to analyse the play so as to define the facets and to find out which one was truly based on Thisby’s life. He resorted to the formal level instead. “The piece had been written excellently, too. Excellent mirth in tragedy, and grief in comedy. I just wonder why there weren’t three suitors, too, as the trials were three according to the classic pattern.”
“What pattern?”
“It’s even in the fairy tales. Have you not read such stories?”
“I’ve been told some such tales that the fairies build up, but I don’t know about any patterns. I don’t know how to read.”
Her voice sounded uncertain, but was there some half-hidden anticipation in her last comment? Remus did not look up at her face, but followed her lead.
“You can meet the patterns at the theatre, but even for getting to know your lines… Don’t you think you should learn to read?”
“It might be nice to be able to read. I like magazines, but I have to ask someone to read to me. Maybe I could have understood better what they wrote about you, if I had been able to read it myself again and again. But I kept only the photo of you, because I can’t read anyway.”
“You can learn. Tell me: did your mother speak the language of the veela to you?”
He felt he was getting seriously interested. Looking up, he saw just a simple young girl answering his questions sincerely.
“Yes, of course. And I learnt English only after a couple of springs when You Know Who was gone and my parents got together again. And now I’ve usually lived with my cousins and spoken only veela except at the theatre.”
“In that case you must learn to read veela first.”
“But that’s not possible! Who could teach me? Only some of the most honourable ones who never deal with mortal men are able to read the scripts of the veela.”
Remus realised he was probably making things too complicated once again, but he was curious to take the challenge and to find out if his principles could be applied in practice. It did obviously not seem to be the most urgent task in the war against the Ministry and Voldemort to teach a half-veela to read in her mother tongue. But the extreme complexity of this case fascinated him. Did it really make any sense to let her learn to read first in a language which probably had never been written with such vocabulary that she used in her everyday speech. He wanted to make an experiment, but to remind himself to be flexible enough and change to English, if it should turn out unsuccessful. And the teaching would not require them to give up other duties.
“I have read some texts in veela. I studied the art of healing when I was young, and the advanced level requirements - at least in the form set up by Professor Flamel - included the theory of the veela magic. The special knowledge in natural remedies which only the veela possess…”
Thisby was staring at him. He realised that her gaze did not make him dizzy anymore, but he felt that Thisby herself was distracted from what he was saying.
“Remus Lupin, there were three suitors in the play, if we count you as the third.”
That night Remus felt unable to resume writing about his past, since his current decisions had suddenly ceased to be theoretical ponderings. Shaken by the presence of new inhabitants in the house, he realised how quickly he had got used to leading a certain kind of quiet life at home.
He kept a clear distance from Thisby, Peck and Tumble during their first day, and let Gumby alone guide them to the work on the lands, on the excuse that the elf was most up to that task. Remus went by himself to the pastures to fix the sheep sheds, although it was not one of the most urgent tasks. He wanted to think about Harry or at least about what to tell Harry about himself. But the image of Thisby’s shining face returned to his mind again and again.
The meals became truly refreshing breaks from the work thanks to Peck and Tumble, whose endless jokes captivated even Remus’s attention. Their humour was lighthearted and true at the same time. Gradually, but surprisingly quickly, Remus started feeling that he would be even more relaxed in this company than with Gumby alone, in the lack of need for wording his thoughts.
In the evening of that first day Thisby appeared in the kitchen after dinner, when Remus was by himself, finishing the bottling of the apple juice.
“Do you speak veela?” she asked without an introduction.
Remus glanced at her and was still startled by her frail figure clothed in the same green robe which his mother was wearing in the last images of her treasured in his mind. Thisby had to be about seventeen years old, but she looked at the same time both more childish and more mature than that.
He attempted a smile. “No, I don’t. Would you care to teach me?”
“Yes, of course.”
She quickly grabbed an apple from the table and put it in his hand, pronouncing its delicious soft name in veela. Remus tried to repeat it and smiled at his own clumsy attempt. She nodded sagely, poured some juice into a glass and lifted it on his lips, whispering another combination of vowel sounds and a dental consonant, as far as he could figure it out. He tried to pronounce it, and they both burst into laughter, spilling the juice all over. She said a whole phrase, in which he could discern the same combination of sounds.
“Please, wait a minute. I’m not such a quick learner. I like your teaching method, but my way of learning requires a chance to analyse what’s going on. I need to write it down, too.”
His own need for visual stimuli in order to learn an alien language naturally allowed him to guide his teacher to learn literacy. Not wanting to leave the kitchen, which had turned out to be an inspiring learning environment, he summoned a piece of parchment, a quill and a bottle of ink from his desk. Then he stepped to the doorway to look out to the great hall, wondering if his old textbook of Healing Arts could be still in one of the family bookshelves. He needed an image of at least its approximate location so as to be able to summon it.
He knew he did not own a copy of the dictionary or the grammar which he had used when reading the veela script included in the text book. But his own side notes could help him recall the writing system, which had fascinated him enough to make him study it, although it had not been necessary for learning what had been required in that first Healing exam in autumn 1979. He had been even more thorough in Healing than in his other studies, probably because of his urge to independence regardless of the harm that he had still occasionally caused to himself during his transformations. Or maybe he had actually been more interested in the languages and cultures of alien creatures.
“Accio, The Most Tender Ways of Tending Mortal Wounds and Disabling Disease!”
“What do you need that for?” Thisby had sat down at the table, on a bench, and she was fumbling the quill with her right hand while eating the apple.
“Do you always use your left hand for eating?” Remus asked in passing, while sitting down beside her, placing the book next to the bottles and starting to leaf it through.
“Sorry. I should remember that most humans prefer using the right hand.”
She left the quill, moved the apple to her right hand and took another bite.
“No, I didn’t mean to correct your habits… Accio quill! I just checked that you’d better use the left hand for writing, if that’s you preferred hand. So if you want to eat while writing, you really had better hold the apple in the right hand. Sorry, I’m so meticulous that I must be terribly irritating.”
“No, you are just as wonderful… more wonderful than I had heard.”
“Anyway, you don’t have to write, unless you feel like doing it. I just summoned another quill, so you can hold one, if you want to. I need all these things to learn and memorise what an apple is in veela. Would you care to start from the beginning again, after I’ve found the right page in this book? Here it is!”
At the beginning of the chapter quoting directly an ancient veela script, which most students must have skipped, he had eighteen years earlier carefully marked the code with which to turn phonemes into the letters of the veela alphabet. He glanced through it. Thisby was staring at the page, too. He prepared the quill, reached to a basket for another apple and offered it to her.
“Please…”
Thisby looked excited when handing the apple back and pronouncing the word carefully, and Remus tried his best to repeat it.
“Is the sound at the end like in the word for throat?” he asked, peering at the book and touching his throat.
He was startled by the touch of Thisby’s hand on his and under his chin. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, feeling it was hard to do it, as if her gentle touch had pressed his windpipe closed. He had an ominous feeling concerning the vocabulary which this book was leading them to take up.
“I’ll write the word for an apple first.”
He wondered if Thisby was looking at his hand or his face or some other part of his body, while he tried to concentrate on drawing the delicate lines for the veela letters, placing the first one in the bottom right corner of the parchment and the rest in a row above it. While writing he pronounced the word slowly.
Then he would copy from the book the word for a throat. This other word had not only helped him check if the dental consonant sound was really the one which he had marked with a D, but it also offered a nice rhyme to help Thisby realise the similarity between the two words in both their spoken forms and their written representations. He repressed the urge to explain the theory of the method. Instead, he had to look up at her to check what she was observing.
After releasing his windpipe she had started poking at the letters of the first word. Now she was looking at her inky fingertips.
Remus took his wand and performed a drying spell. “See, I have to do this because I use my right hand and I would mess up the ink on the first word, when I proceed to the left as we must do in writing veela. It will be easier for you, because you use your left hand. Now it’s also a bit hard for you to compare the second word with the first, since my hand covers it. But try to see what happens.
Remus himself was excited to see what would happen. He trusted that she was intelligent enough - and, most of all, had enough experience of comparing different spoken language systems - to even instantaneously become aware of the relationship between a phoneme and a letter. Still, she may not have ever thought of the fact that spoken words could be separated into phonemes. Or maybe she had experienced it, when practising the intricate sound patterns, with which she obviously enjoyed playing when singing.
He pronounced the word slowly while writing it. She had bent her head low towards the tabletop to peer at the movements of the quill. He lifted his hand, performed the drying spell, and began to observe the expression of concentration on her face. She would not disappoint him, and he started smiling before she looked up at him and spoke.
“It sounds like a piece of a poem, and you can see it here. Now you won’t forget it!” She caressed the ending of each word with her fingertips and turned a beaming face back to him.
Once again he was startled by the realisation that she was able to only reflect emotion. She was happy that he was learning, or maybe the fact that he enjoyed her learning made her happy. Still, it was only his enthusiasm shining on her. She was the moon. And her almost absolute destitution, her alienation from her life burned in his body and mind more painfully than ever.
The lines of his own handwriting - from the night before he had met Thisby - suddenly presented themselves to him as a treasure.
Thisby had gone out, summoned by Peck’s flute, and Remus had climbed to his loft, doubting that he would be able to concentrate on the never-ending letter. He had finished the lesson quickly. He had been afraid that his sudden grief for her would reflect on her and undo the positive experience of learning. Partly in order to end off the lesson by emphasising the significance of writing, he had explained that he needed to write a letter to a friend whom he missed. Thisby had evidently connected the sorrow in his expression only to another person, and she had asked if it was a woman.
He had wished he could have answered affirmatively so as to remove the uncomfortable tension between the two of them. He had been unable to lie, but he had only said, “Someone who used to be my student.”
Now at first unable to concentrate on thinking about Harry, he was suddenly overwhelmed by the blessing present in the familiarity of the text in the unfinished letter. It had been produced by the movement of his hand, in the way he had since his childhood learnt to move it smoothly. It had been controlled by his mind. And it conveyed his deepening understanding of his life in a language of his own. How could he have thought that he was unfortunate? He was in quite a satisfactory control of different ways of expressing himself and not just reflecting something from the outside. Unless the emotions and thoughts of every creature were only reflections.
Harry,
I was telling you about the memory of how I was bitten by a werewolf. Or was I? I claimed to be writing to myself. And I was not describing the event. After the nightmare, which I merely mentioned, that experience belongs to my history, too. Still, I don’t feel like describing it in words. I actually painted it and I wish I could show the product to you, though it was an abstract painting, which is supposed to adopt any meaning, when someone looks at it, and not just the contents which the artist had in mind. Unfortunately, I had to sell it, and did not even get much for it. But I can envisage it, and that’s enough for me.
I have sold, or left behind, or painted over almost all the paintings I’ve ever made. But except in the case of the real portraits, it’s no big loss, as I can remember them and they remain in my mind - or rather continue to develop in my mind, maybe better than if I were able to continue to look at them. I can still see in my mind the first sketch which I showed to your mother - one I actually drew when standing beside her at the blackboard. We were twelve years old…
Anyway, turning that ancient torment into a painting now seemed the appropriate thing to do, especially because I may not have ever started to learn to paint, had I not been bitten. I had to spend several days at the hospital - even though my wounds had been closed by the best healers before I regained consciousness, so that I never saw anything but the scars, which are meant to remain permanently in such a case. I remember exactly why I was so restless that the young healer Miss Emeline said she didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. I told her I had suddenly discovered how I would play great battles with my friends. I was able to see it all vivid in my mind. All the descriptions of fighting heroes in the old tales, which I had been told by my parents, my uncle and Gumby the house-elf, had become alive. I wanted to rush out and do it, to be one of the heroes.
She asked me to show her what I saw in my mind, and she gave me a piece of charcoal and thick porous type of paper like I had not seen before. I remember the frustration when I couldn’t produce the same I had in my mind. But slowly the charcoal started to live its own life and to guide my mind to new images. Even the accidental strokes revealed surprises, which combined with what I had seen or only heard in words. New adventures were formed on the paper, and they enchanted me.
At home I continued with watercolours, and the play of the ever-changing scenes and figures replaced interaction with other children. I practised to learn to read soon, so I had new sources for ideas available. I also spent a lot of time outside and fancied the woods behind the house, where I vaguely remembered I had played with other boys when I had been little - just months earlier. When I wanted to capture and to keep all that I had read about, or done or - as my body was always weaker than I wished - just imagined doing, I recorded it in drawings and paintings.
I didn’t miss anybody to share it all with me besides Gumby the house-elf. I hadn’t forgotten that I had always taken the role of the king when playing with other boys. Although my parents were kind to their servants, Gumby was supposed to do what I told him to. He was supposed to call me Master Remus. He didn’t oppose my orders, but for some reason he always disappeared, when I suggested he take the role of the king’s servant in my play. When I asked him why he avoided playing with me, he explained, “Master cannot remember. But that is not true. That is not even how we played before. Wizards do not know the truth. But Master can now learn again the true game.” And he suggested that we take the roles of brothers, and that was our secret and my favourite way of playing.
I remember I seriously suggested that Gumby follow me to Hogwarts. I was quite sure that what I could reveal of myself to other students would appear so boring that I wouldn’t be able to make any friends. And Gumby’s friendship was very special to me, although from the beginning of my historical time until my belated homecoming my mind was devoid of the conscious memory of my earliest bond with him. The closest bond possible, which had as a unique blessing tied my life to the secret of the elves.
My parents were happy when Gumby had time to accompany me in play. I remember my father first wanted to forbid me to go alone to the woods. After four years they told me what had once hurt me there. That was when I started my attempts at a true understanding of why they kept telling me that I had better avoid violent scenes in my painting and drawing, too, instead of just letting out anything that came to my mind.
What I first learnt to control was my painting. I had realised that I didn’t paint what I had done or what had already existed in my mind. Every time something else appeared from the strokes of the paintbrush. I had enjoyed the surprises, but I learnt to enjoy controlling them. Later in life I learnt to relatively well control my mind, first the purely human tension on my better days, and afterwards even the aggression which arises from my disorder. After that I wanted to learn again to paint more spontaneously, but my conscious mind still quickly follows and analyses whatever I produce. It’s easier to learn than unlearn.
The draft on the blackboard was an example of controlling the chalk and easing my mind with the help of it. Am I writing to you, Harry? I should consider what would interest you. What you would like to read about that incident is probably not the level of control and consciousness in my visual expression. But do I dare to write about my very closest friends? In that case I must start from the beginning.
The first part of Chapter Nine is here.