Constructed

Constructed

Falkesbane

*

The cottage in Hogsmeade would have been called rustic by only the most steadfast of optimists, and an unholy mess by anyone else, but it was all Remus Lupin could afford and therefore it was where he chose to live. It was far enough away from the greater part of the town to be private, and close enough to avoid abject loneliness; large enough for one man and bit of extra room, and small enough for the lack of other people to be too noticeable.

Remus himself was a secret sort of man, made slightly reclusive by both necessity and grief. It was not long after his move to the town before the residents of Hogsmeade grew curious about this stranger. The previous occupant of the cottage had been an elderly witch, who had once housed a grown-up daughter but otherwise had never done anything remotely interesting, and Remus was a welcome change. The man rarely walked into the shops in Hogsmeade - it was widely rumoured that he used Floo to Diagon Alley to do all his shopping - and soon enough, in town, Remus was declared an official hermit, unspeakably shy and probably very strange.

Nothing would have happened, Remus often reasoned to himself, were it not for the room in the back part of the house. There was a living room that gave way to a tiny half-kitchen, and a small bedroom that he used, and then another room stuck perfunctorily on the back, which jutted out into the forested lawn. Remus' first inspection of this room, on his first day in the new cottage, yielded the discovery that the elderly witch - gone to permanent stay at St. Mungo's - had failed to take away some of her things. There was a delicately carved armoire, and a matching vanity, and on this vanity was a gold-plated hand mirror. This mirror was of such a quality that he could not help but pick it up and turn it over in his hands, and marvel at the craftsmanship. All of these things unmistakably belonged to a lady, and, inexplicably, Remus felt as if they should remain undisturbed, as though they were in their natural element and would not be removed.

For a month or so into his occupancy at the cottage, Remus thought little of this room, and left it unopened. He busied himself with his work in the Order and his compelling and pulsing need to push back seemingly every memory he had ever had, for each brought him a curious and painful lurch in his stomach, as though he were trying to breathe while drowning. It was really no surprise that he did not think of the room, for he was trying not to think of anything. In truth, he was lonely and unwilling to admit it, and so blanking out anything that might have forced him to heal was the only solution.

However, it happened, whether by chance or a mysterious turn of fate, that Remus was waiting in line at a Floo terminal, having finished his shopping (for indeed Hogsmeade was right about this), when his eye caught something abandoned on the ground. He stooped to retrieve it and found that it was a hair-ribbon, yellow and still fine in spite of dust from the cobbled streets. Without really thinking about it, he stuck it into the pocket of his robes. After coming out of his own fireplace, he set down his own parcels, put them away, and, as he had a sheepish habit of putting his hands in his pockets, his fingers brushed the little ribbon, and he drew it out again, regarded it thoughtfully for a moment, and then strode into the back room and placed it next to the ornate hand mirror. Remus stood and looked at the pair of objects on the vanity, and, again, they seemed that they belonged there, and so he left them and closed the door.

The collection of objects grew from there. Remus was called to help clear Grimmauld Place of its unnecessary tidbits, now that it was unoccupied, and from here he extracted a spinning-desk and a braided rug of burgundy and cream, and these were also placed into the room. On a dreary afternoon, Remus took half his teacups and transfigured them one by one, so that the plain white china was beautifully inlaid with patterns of roses. One of his pillows he transformed into a lace concoction, and this was laid reverently on the chair of the vanity, so that whoever sat there would never become sore. He took to gardening in the back yard of the cottage, where he worked the quiet earth and cultivated peonies, irises, huge bunches of lily-of-the-valley, and weekly he carefully snipped some of these flowers and arranged them artfully next to the spinning wheel. From the forest behind he procured a large mass of fallen wood, and with a bit of labour and magic he managed to transform it into a day bed, the sort of thing a lady would lounge on were she in need of rest.

Naturally, Remus told no one of this gradual redecoration. He was known in the Order as generally quiet and studious, and most were afraid to speak to him because they knew he was grieving yet, so it came to pass that he never had any visitors to the little cottage. Most of his social occasions came as invitations to dinner at the houses of his friends, which were often extended simply to see if Remus himself was all right. Quickly, Remus found that he preferred his own company, where he could sit in front of his fire and read, or simply loll his head back on the sofa and close his eyes and allow the heat to make him drowsy and satisfied.

After a while, though, Remus abandoned his own living room for the room at the back, where he would sit as though he were a guest, hands folded neatly over his lap while he sat stiffly on the day-bed. He began to think that the room perhaps did have an occupant, but the image of her was hazy and changeable, one day fair with brown curls, another day dark and short-haired, still another day freckled and vibrant like a Weasley. The personality, however, did not change; she was intelligent and composed, and would have liked to learn to play the harpsichord if she had ever had the opportunity, and liked it especially to sip tea and stare at him for an entire lazy afternoon. She did not like those who were small-minded, or those who deceived, but, other than that, she was a just person, considerate, open. And Remus would sit, rapt, as though he were hearing every word drop from her phantom lips like a holy sonnet, as though he could spend the remainder of his life listening and die a happy man.

Things grew murkier on an autumn trip into Diagon Alley, when, seemingly unashamed, he walked into a lady's shop and purchased a set of robes, shimmery, dark maroon, to match the colours of the room. After pondering, he also decided on a pair of elegant gold drop earrings, and these were wrapped in a pretty parcel which he tucked under his arm with his other things as though it were something as unremarkable as a new book or a box of quills. No one knew him and no one looked at him strangely for this; he was a handsome man in spite of greying hair, and it was not a stretch of the imagination for any passer-by to assume that a real lady awaited the gifts at his home. In the back room, Remus arranged the robes over the day-bed, as though they were arranged to be worn upon waking, and placed the earrings beside the mirror and ribbon.

He was a poor man, and so he was unable to fill the room with all the things such a lady as his might have wanted, but he improved on it whenever he could, adding a tapestry here or a pair of dainty sandals there, and soon it would have been impossible for a visitor to say that a woman did not live in the room, for the evidence was all there. He managed to procure a small table and two chairs, and this he placed into the center of the room, atop the braided rugs. On it, he arranged the transfigured cups, and so he had a perfect little tea room for two people.

For a moment, he regarded the room, and smiled because it was perfect. The tea-kettle in the kitchen whistled, and he went to retrieve it. He made sure to pour two cups, serving himself second, and took care to stir sugar in the lady's cup. He took a sip from his own cup and shut his eyes. "My lady," he whispered, "wakes each morning and sits at her vanity, where she is ever-comfortable, and holds her hand-mirror and pulls her hair back in a ribbon - it's quite a trick of the hand, really. She dresses in dark scarlet because she thinks it makes her look nice, and she wears very little jewelry except for earrings. She is not one for too much ceremony." He chuckled. "She likes to read, and she doesn't really like to spin but thinks it's a skill one should really have, and she has an especial fondness for spouting off about werewolf rights. She likes her tea sweet, and she feels much brighter whenever there are fresh flowers about, and - oh, how she loves me."

The room was quiet, but Remus did not notice, and he hummed and poured himself another cup.

*

END