Thirteen Moons

Thirteen Moons

prologue

I will neither yield to the song of the siren nor the voice of the hyena,

the tears of the crocodile nor the howling of the wolf."
George Chapman (1559-1634)

A task so simple, so familiar. Pick up a quill. Dip it in ink. Press it to parchment. Begin to write. Today, that task is so hopelessly complicated. So impossibly huge. It has taken me the better part of a half-hour to manage it.

Now that I have quill in hand, I have no idea what to write.

I have spent countless hours with quill in hand, gripped in ink-stained fingers. Quill and parchment are familiar friends. Friends with whom I could explore emotions I could never express elsewhere. Emotions that I vented with impossible freedom, through the simple act of writing.

Scratch of quill on parchment.

Liquid slide of ink.

Sounds and smells that soothe away troubled thoughts. That let me leave myself behind, that let me slip loose of my moorings. That let me break free of limitations, that lift obstacles out of my way. That create a world of emotion, of rage and affection and grief and laughter, in which my daytime, earthbound self could never survive.

Once, writing was release of inhibitions. It was fulfillment.

It was like sex, in a very real sense--the deepest reaches of my soul were close enough to caress, the whole of my mind and heart aching to be touched. The dizzy soaring freedom of it, climbing ever higher, fearless, windborne. The sense of plumbing depths I could never reach any other way, of sinking deep and flying high, of total immersion.

Of release, profound and exhilarating.

Yet now, in the space of a few hours, release has become imprisonment. Thoughts that once flew have come crashing to the ground, spiraling down into grave-dark earth. Emotions I never before feared to face--at least not on parchment, not when put down with quill and ink--struggle for release.

Struggle against my inability to face them.

Struggle against the memory of things written that should have been said. Of feelings admitted to in secrecy that should have been shared.

Darkness, closing in, has changed my silent little world.

The familiar has become alien.

I stare at the quill in my hand. I no longer recognise it.

Whatever magic it once held, whatever bond I had with it, has disappeared.

There is nothing I want less than to press it to the page, to begin to write.

I do not want to remember.

I do not have a choice.

Never in my life have I faced such a difficult crossroads, certainly not with the knowledge I now hold in my heart, like the seed of some sinister weed primed to sprout. Ready to grow like some maniacal creeping horror, ready to obscure whatever humanity remains in me.

He is gone.

I am left with a choice that is no choice. I can face what has happened and go on. Or I can wallow in revenge, sinking deep, held fast by the darkness swirling inside my heart.

Revenge has never seemed so tempting.

But then, I have never had my heart ripped out by the roots, dangling useless and black like a rotten, horrible mockery of the original.

I have never truly understood the meaning of hate.

So easy to embrace.

So tempting.

So wrong.

If I dip quill in ink bottle, if I put point to parchment, I will have no choice but to face yet another battle.

I don't know if I am ready for this fight, so close on the heels of one that cost me so dearly. I don't know if I can win this battle.

I don't know if I want to.

But there is Harry.

If I am hurting, he is in agony. If I doubt my ability to fight another battle, he doubts his ability to win the coming war.

He needs me, though to me it seems arrogant to say it.

I'm not used to being needed.

Not by anyone but Sirius.

Sirius needed me not for what I could give him--that was precious little, though it shames me to say it--but for myself.

For Moony.

Moony was all I could give him, a mass of contradictions and insecurities and troubles surrounded by walls a mile high. Walls he had to break through time after time.

He never stopped breaking through those walls. Never stopped needing to see Moony behind them.

And now there is no one to tear down the walls.

No one but me.

I don't know if I'm strong enough to do it.

Still, I'm fooling myself if I believe for even a moment that I don't have to try.

There is Harry to think about.

Harry. Son of two of my best friends, now gone. Godson to another of my best friends, now gone.

He is alone now, deeply and painfully alone.

We have that as common ground, I suppose.

We also have revenge. Or, rather, the desire for it, the violent, pounding need to make someone pay for the losses we have suffered.

And we have guilt, dragging like ballast, threatening to force us beneath the surface, promising a slow, agonising trip to the bottom.

I saw it all in his eyes before he was sent away.

I recognised it, because I have seen it all in my own eyes, in the lightless surging depths of my heart.

Harry can't afford those feelings, target that he is. But he might not be able to fight them. Not if he is alone.

To help Harry, I have to fight my own private battle with darkness.

For Harry, I have to succeed.

My only hope--our only hope--is for me to examine it all, to try and make some sense of the memories crashing against the sharp jagged black rock that is my soul.

To finally understand.

To overcome.

I hope I am strong enough to begin it, and having begun, to finish.

To win.

Tomorrow morning, the fight begins.

Remus J. Lupin.

June, 1996.