Author's Note: Thanks to Avarië Caita for the edit.
When have I last looked on
The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies
Of the dark leopards of the moon?
All the wild witches, those most noble ladies,
For all their broom-sticks and their tears,
Their angry tears, are gone.
The holy centaurs of the hills are vanished;
I have nothing but the embittered sun;
Banished heroic mother moon and vanished,
And now that I have come to fifty years
I must endure the timid sun.
-- W. B. Yeats, ‘Lines Written In Dejection'
It was like living a dream. In moving black and white was a happy family in Egypt, and one who did not belong. Molly and Arthur, who hadn't changed a bit, their gaggle of children and a rat I'd know anywhere. A rat that I should have recognised for what he was years ago, and instead I'd paid the price.
How long had it been? Ten years? Twelve? Twelve years in this hell while he ran free, scurried around the pyramids in Egypt with the sun on his face, and I rotted in darkness. This was the definitive proof that he had done what I'd seen, and rage came up inside me yet again. Rage first, then grief, then love.
For if Peter was living as some family's pet, then where was my Remus? Alive, or cold like James? Surely Peter had not got to him? And to think I had once thought Remus was capable of spying. I suspected him, yet I did not leave him, wondering if each day would bring the final nail in my coffin. That was folly, but an even greater folly I have been regretting for twelve years: that I did not go to him when everything fell apart, that I let Peter be Secret-Keeper, that I did not tell Remus, that I did not go to him.
If only I had gone to him first. He would have calmed me with the lightest of touches, rationality tempered with sorrow in his eyes as we'd figure out a plan together. I could see his face so clearly from my Azkaban cell. I wished for him, was desperate for him. Because instead of seeking him out, I'd gone to Godric's Hollow on my own. A few minutes at the house, stepping on James's spare glasses in horror, and then the angry search for Peter. I didn't think about James and Lily, refused to think or remember because they couldn't be dead, could they, and I had the crazy thought that if I could just find Peter and make him admit to killing them, then they'd come back to life again. For hours I searched, and my hands never stopped shaking. By the time I found him I hadn't eaten for a day and the irony, oh, the pathetic irony… well, a man delirious with hunger and grief found his disappearing trick funny. I let them take me away, not caring what happened to me if James and Lily were gone and Remus far away. I let them take my wand and lock me up and the whole time, I never put up a fight. In the old days I would have, but suddenly nothing mattered.
Voldemort died, they said, or faded away, but that didn't mean the darkness was over. The screams of his name echoed through Azkaban in the depths of night.
The cool stone interior was almost a relief from the accusatory world outside, a world devoid of my friends and even of my lover. I had never seen Remus again, and, once inside, my heart began to bleed for him.
Inside, protected by darkness, I didn't have to hear what they said about me. I didn't have to endure accusations, the aftermath, and the onset of a desolate loss. There was just my dank cell and the absence of joy. I had to put aside thoughts of Remus outside, alone, or I would have gnawed through the bars to get to him.
Instead, I grieved for James. Before, I'd had no time, but now, with the weight of LIFE IMPRISONMENT bearing down upon me, I had all the time in the world to remember that I was wasting a life that he could have lived. For the first few years I thought of nothing but James Potter, his Quidditch player's arrogance, his schemes, his zeal. I tried to reconcile these images with the crunch of glasses under numb feet, but I could not. I never saw the body. I never talked to Remus. I never got to mourn.
When James began to blur I turned to Peter and instead of feeling angry I felt sad. In the darkness I was sorry for the wretch, sad for the rat who'd sold himself for a bigger piece of cheese. I grieved for a weak child who'd always betrayed himself; only in Animagus form was he ever true to himself. Feeling sorry for him was easier than letting the rage bubble up to inflict on the walls or myself, and far better than thinking about Remus.
But eventually I couldn't avoid thinking of Remus and then I couldn't stop thinking of him. It was agony. I thought of all the things I could have said when I saw him last, rolling out of bed two days before Halloween. I hadn't wanted to movie, I hadn't wanted to eat or see him moving away from me to face the day. Yet I heard my voice blithely saying I'd see him soon, kissing him and letting him go. We had our own agendas, but if I'd stayed five minutes more I might have told him everything. That I wasn't keeping secrets, that I thought Peter was trouble… we could have laughed together over me thinking he was the spy, and then we'd have done something about the fear and ended the months of whispers. We'd all be alive then, instead of James dead and the three of us living our wretched half-lives.
For I knew that, wherever Remus was, he would be alone. He would transform alone, grieve for us alone. Unless… unless he hated me. I couldn't bear for him to hate me while my desperate love only grew in the years without him or hope. What if Remus died, never knowing the truth? What if he died without me holding him one more time? These thoughts consumed me far more effectively than the parasitism of the Dementors. He had to believe what they said about me and I didn't blame him, but I'd have trusted his word until the end of the earth.
My days became a daze. Some days I awoke unsure if I was still alive; my eyes ached and the skin dragged. I shuffled around my cell without knowing what propelled me. And every time I transformed, as I did to stave off madness, I thought of Remus. Before, there had never been a Padfoot without a Moony. But there had always been a Moony without a Padfoot, and there still was now, and that fact summed up everything that I wanted to protect Remus from, and I'd failed.
I remembered a night a few months before that Halloween when it was just the two of us in the house that allowed me my independence from the family. The night was impossibly dark, new moon, and he was so weak from the full one. I watched him sleep, far too afraid to close my own eyes in case he woke and needed me. As I sat by the side of our bed, the curtains shut to a darkness on both sides, his limbs began to twitch. I sensed another nightmare coming on another of the nightmares that he never remembered having, rare episodes that always kept me up and afraid to wake him. Neither of us knew what he dreamed of but he had been dreaming it for so long, since the Hogwarts days when our whole dorm used to wake. He would have this dream two or three times a year, and when he cried out James and I would keep watch while Peter would mutter about silencing charms. This time I stayed close, afraid to touch him. I took a swig of Firewhisky, feeling the warmth spread instantly through my body and into my cheeks. Not a breeze stirred outside and the house was deathly still.
"Sirius!" he cried out suddenly, as he had never done, his limbs stiffened.
I rushed next to him, whispering, "I'm here, I'm here," and smoothing my hand down his heated cheek. But my hand was hot too and he recoiled, though asleep. I moved away and, panicked now, lit as many candles as I could so that a harsh light filled the room.
Remus moaned and woke up with the light, his eyes glazed. "Sirius…" he murmured as I leaned over him, "I was so afraid for you."
"Sshh," I moved to sit next to him, took his head and cradled it in my arms. The alcohol made me dizzy and made his fear seem less real to me. "I'm okay. It's okay." I kissed his temple.
He nodded off to sleep again and I put out the candles one by one, but I did not sleep at all. I watched his face and wondered if it was thoughts of spying that haunted him. In the morning, neither of us said a word.
There was so much that I didn't know, gaps that I just couldn't fill in, and somewhere Lupin was alone while Peter had the arrogance to be alive. It made me sick. I had known he must be, but to have confirmation staring me in the face made me want to rip the newspaper to shreds. Actually, I did, and then I started clawing at the walls, and knew that I had to escape, somehow.
But where would I go?
Hogwarts.
Peter in his rodent masquerade would be at Hogwarts with Molly and Arthur's kids. So would Harry. Harry. I had to see Harry. Long ago I swore to James and Lily that I would treat him like my own, and it was time to try. Twelve years too late, I would get revenge and do what I could for their son. And…
Remus. A huge part of me, the aching, gnawing part, wanted to go straight to Remus. I wanted to just see him, maybe touch him, know that he was real and untainted by all this evil. But I couldn't. How would I find him? And it would have to be Peter first. I owed that to James and Lily. Yet again, I'd have to put my love aside, and I prayed that Remus would understand. Plus, I'd lived so long without him that I could wait a little longer. My heart had turned to dust anyway.
I would go to Hogwarts, painful though the memories might be… they were painful enough while locked up in darkness, and perhaps castle walls or the light of the sun would soothe them somehow. I searched for the clearest, happiest memory I could find, and found myself looking at Remus's face.
Boyish now, his hair slightly curling, I remembered sitting near him in third year Astronomy. I was bored, as always, sure that I knew the basics of this subject already, so I took to scratching with my quill and staring around the room. James was next to me, working way ahead of the teacher on an advanced star chart, determined to prove that he could do this right. Looking around, I saw heads bent everywhere, now and then looking up from parchment to check the board and the teacher's lecture. And then there was Remus, sitting bolt upright, staring at the professor with his mouth open, in utmost awe. I watched him watching her for almost the whole lesson, fascinated by his fascination. I was amazed that he could take such an interest, could hunger so much to know, and I wanted that fascination for myself. I wanted him to surprise me and remind me that I didn't know everything, I wanted him to find me fascinating. I knew it so clearly then, but it was years before I could articulate that need.
And in the darkness of Azkaban, I hoped that he still thought that way. I hoped the world didn't bore him, I hoped he looked for new things, and I hoped he could hold on until I came to him. I needed to see what was new in the world, and hoped that he could show me.
So in the end, the choice was easy. I took my life into my own hands and put up a fight once again. At full moon, for old times' sake, I transformed into Padfoot and slipped through the bars, past the faceless guards and the cells where bodies hissed and squealed in soulless sleep. I ran through the stone corridors and galloped out of the building down to the rocky shore, the moonlight dangerously bright over the ocean surrounding the island. I instinctively knew which way to the mainland, and slipped into the water.
I paddled all night, fighting to keep afloat, and in the early hours of the morning, I reached a shore. I shook out my black fur and, staggered up the hot sand before collapsing. The sun came up, and I felt its light on my face for the first time in twelve years.
The owl from Dumbledore came the same day as the news that Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban. Either would have been a shock, but together… it was absolute disruption to my closeted world.
Alone in my run-down cottage, I sank into a chair at the kitchen table. The Daily Prophet owl nipped at the Hogwarts one in greeting, then they set off in search of food together while I rubbed a hand over my eyes in hopes of stopping the flood of memories.
Sirius's face on the front page of the paper echoed in my mind, but the most vivid image was of the full moon rising over a house in Godric's Hollow. Then the waning moon setting over the same house in ruins.
Oh, how I hated that moon! If it hadn't been full, I could have been with James and Lil, helping them. I could have protected Peter. I could have… if I had been with Sirius, would I still be alive today?
All I know is that I returned from the transformation, spent alone in my warded forest, to find Arthur Weasley in our kitchen, attempting to tell me that everyone was dead by the hand of the man who had been my world. He accompanied me to the rubble of the house. I picked up the frames of James' spectacles, all the glass gone, and then dropped them quickly, the possession of a now-dead man. Arthur left me there and I suddenly wished for the ignorance of being a wolf incapable of speech or comprehension of grief.
How had I become this? Reduced from four to one, my only true friends taken away, and my lover not who I thought he was. It was not fair and numbness filled me for many months. I did not try to see Sirius before they imprisoned him. I did not know what to say as I did not know what to feel. He betrayed us all. He killed James, and Peter, and Lily. Was I next on the list? The man I loved was someone else and he was in Azkaban. My friends were gone. I hated the moon because hating it gave me no guilt.
Before, it was easy being a destitute werewolf in the arms of Sirius. Times were uncertain and our career paths shaky; none of us could hold down work, me least of all. Sirius lived mainly off his uncle's inheritance and supported me as we lived together. Our house was a drop-in centre and James and Lily and Peter and assorted hangers-on were always coming ‘round. But I moved out as soon as possible after… after the deaths. I retreated to this cottage faraway, because being a lone werewolf was easier away from the world. I wanted to be alone, if I couldn't be with the others.
Why did I have to live while everyone else was gone? It wasn't fair, and with the shadow growing paler and the Order disbanded, it was quiet that I needed. I buried myself in books, in texts that would not lie, and began to study creatures that could not betray me. I knew that once again I had been too trusting, and paid for it with my friends' lives.
Oh, but Sirius, what had become of him? How was it possible? Not a day went by that questions did not chase around my brain. The torment was the worst during the full moon. Some nights I'd have to gnaw at my own flesh or manacle my legs to stop me running off to tear his limbs apart. I knew he'd been the Secret-Keeper, yes, but that he was working for Voldemort and betrayed the Potters… I just didn't know how the Sirius I knew could have sold his best friend. Because while Sirius was my lover, James was our brother. And somehow Peter fit in there, silly Peter, who went after volatile Sirius. He never knew what he was getting into.
I remembered the last time I saw Sirius, his hair dark against the pillow, refusing breakfast and reminding me of my plans.
"I'm on duty tonight and then tomorrow I'm visiting Peter, okay? I don't think I can be with you Hallowe'en night, but I'll be right here waiting afterwards." A light kiss on the cheek and eyes that promised.
But he wasn't there, Arthur was, and there was no James or Peter either. Just me, alone, and Sirius out there alone.
For some time I wondered if there wasn't blood on my hands too. We had known there was a spy among us, and even as we whispered about it we'd sneak furtive looks to search each other for signs of guilt. I trusted too much, and… why hadn't he killed me too? Why didn't someone else? I didn't want to live when everything had become a lie and my constants had collapsed. I would gladly have died instead of James or Peter. Anything was preferable to this miserable existence. Once again I was the outcast werewolf, the warmth of human companionship and Sirius's body wrapped around mine all but forgotten. I transformed alone and howled for hours, when I never used to make a sound if Padfoot or Prongs was with me.
I took to sleeping during the day and working late into the night, poring over books until I could only stare numbly, too tired for the doubts and pain to creep in again. Candles burnt to a stub while I sat for hours; I'd awaken from the reverie to find more wax wasted. Most months Molly sent me parcels and sometimes a nearby Muggle farmer would give me a day's work, so I subsisted. Those dark hours before dawn, though… they were the darkest of my life.
Because the nights were not even a refuge; they brought their own memories. Like the last night that Sirius and I were together…I remember the light of the waxing moon playing on the shadows of his naked body, the sheets flung off because it was a hot night. I remember glancing outside at the moon almost fearfully, and he laughed softly through drowsy eyes and murmured, "Don't worry, I'll be here when it's over," and his shut eyelids had been a ruse because he sat up suddenly and pulled me down frantically, and the moon was forgotten as he kissed me heatedly. The softest of breezes made the curtains dance but I knew nothing except his hands and skin and sweat.
And much later, when the room was darkest, he suddenly paused in our movements, his face hovering inches from mine, and his eyes shone with something I didn't understand as they flickered over every inch of my face. "Remus, I have to tel- I… we… oh God," and he kissed me instead, a kiss to make me forget everything as we rolled over and over and nearly fell of the bed because I didn't want to see that look in his eyes again.
I think now that it was fear.
Hours later, in weak sunlight, he promised me again. "I'll be right here waiting." And I had believed him. How purely evil; he must have known he was lying. Even now it makes bile rise to my throat. And then he walked away, out into daylight, as I made breakfast and ate alone, the way I have ever since. Had he been going to confess everything? Would what he was going to say have changed everything?
And now… now, he was out. He had gained a false freedom, and we all had to fear. Would he come after me? After Harry? I had never sought out the boy; I felt nothing for James and Lily's son, or rather, I felt too much.
What if I was finally going to get some answers? Sirius may as well have been dead to me, but suddenly he was alive and what if he came to kill me? I'd kill him first for what he did to us all. Or what if he found me here, took my face in his hands and said he'd never stopped loving me? I wanted to see him again, hear his voice, and I knew that was crazy, because he had been a spy. He would go to Voldemort, not me. Yet my loneliness made me desperate and my love blinded me as it always had. I wanted to run, and I wanted Sirius to find me.
Perhaps it was finally time to face the world outside. I owed it to James to see what I could do for his son, in lieu of a godfather. But taking this job would mean… Hogwarts.
Even the seal brought memories swarming. I remembered getting my letter, and how the yellow of the parchment and the twinkling of Dumbledore's eyes when he came to discuss my enrolment were like warm sunshine breaking through the dust of my marred childhood.
Oh, Hogwarts. I admit that I was curious to see the castle again, but fearful of ghosts, and not the corporeal ones. I knew the shadows of my teenage years lurked in the corridors; James and Peter's footsteps were worn into threadbare carpets the way that their memories were worn into my mind. The Forest floor bore the tracks of our night wanderings; the classrooms the traces of our foolery. More than the echoes that would follow me, I dreaded the physical memories that might be found. Some long-forgotten belonging in a secret passage, scratch marks on the Whomping Willow, a ‘J.P. <3's L.E.' carved into a desk in the Charms room… I could deal with my own history clouding my mind, but not with any physical reminders – I'd even placed the newspaper face down on the kitchen table so I did not have to see the dishevelled face of Sirius.
Yet, Hogwarts was Hogwarts. The years spent there were my golden age, a time when the dark of night did not fill me with dread. The four of us had ruled the castle, the grounds, and even Hogsmeade. I recalled the secret thrills of being out of bed at nighttime; slipping to the shack on my own to transform became just another adventure. I remembered the pranks, the parties, missing the final Quidditch match of fifth year only to join the still-strong party early the next morning. And I remembered… Sirius. There were years of latent friendship, when my stomach would flip if he came near me, but I thought nothing of it. I was used to admiring the rakish black hair and imagining its texture between my fingers.
Then, mid-way through seventh year, everything changed.
The velvet sky was growing pale after one of our Forest romps. It had not been particularly enjoyable; the stress of NEWTS study was starting to show in all of us and for me this meant extra aggression that I could not calm. I remember running ahead of the others, yet Padfoot kept up. The details are hazy, but I know he nipped at me gently to tell me to wait for Prongs and Wormtail, but I had almost snapped back, feeling the urge to just run off on my own and keep running. The black dog then curled up in the buttress roots of an old oak and looked at me with mournful eyes. I ignored him and trotted around in circles impatiently.
As dawn came I assumed that the others had gone back up to the castle. I never let them see me transform if I could help it, my process was not so painless as theirs. As I felt the familiar stretching and breaking I tried to focus on the fading stars in the pink sky through the canopy of the Forest, but Sirius's face came to mind instead and suddenly I realised that he was there, stepping out from behind a tree. I reeled as my body became human again, and when I felt his hand on my shoulder I nearly bit it but instead staggered to the ground and dry-retched.
"Remus," he said, suddenly close and touching me again.
"You were watching me!" I said with as much anger as I could muster in my weakened state.
"I… I always watch. Just to make sure that you're all right."
I couldn't be angry at that. He pulled me up to face him.
"Why so angry, Remus?" he said softly. "Angry at us? At me?"
I shook my head. "It's just school, I guess."
"You shouldn't worry so much, you know. It'll be okay. You'll be okay," somehow his arm was curving around my shoulder blades, but neither of us had noticed. I breathed very softly, as if I might disturb the scene. "I know you will be," he finished.
Sirius's hair hung in his eyes. I brushed it back; the gesture seemed right. The strands were like silk. He blinked suddenly, then leaned forward and kissed me.
I had never been kissed before, but suddenly I knew that whenever I had imagined kissing someone, it had been Sirius. Incapable of chasteness, his tongue was pressing inside and I opened my lips to him, astounded at such simple intimacy. My skin tingled but every inch of me was warm. I had no idea what it meant to be kissing Sirius as the day broke, but I never wanted to leave the Forest.
And now here I was, years later, with my friends (and my lover, for all intents and purposes) dead, and I was afraid of a school! My house was falling apart around me, I lived in the wretched cover of night, and if I waited, Sirius Black the mass murderer might come back to finish his betrayal. There was nothing else for me. I needed steady work. I just wouldn't explore the castle too much, and I wouldn't even have to go into the forest – Dumbledore had promised a monthly potion to alleviate the transformation. I briefly wondered on Severus Snape's complicity in that.
So this was it. I sent word to Dumbledore and gathered my meagre belongings. I would teach what I knew; arm the students to trust themselves and not others. I would see James's son for myself and try not to let the shadows of memories overcome me. And maybe, maybe, Sirius would find me and I would get some answers… or just more lies.
Either way, some weeks later I went to find out. After the full moon the darkness ended. I stepped out of my front door and into the weak sunshine.