Conversation Piece

I took this walk to ease my mind
Find out what’s gnawing at me
Wouldn’t think, to look at me
That I’ve spent a lot of time in education
It all seems so long ago
I’m a thinker, not a talker
I’ve no one to talk to, anyway

I can’t see the road
For the rain in my eyes

He braced himself against the cold wind, feeling the chill bite through his several-years-too-old coat despite his best efforts to ignore the sensation. In his stuffy room, when the warmth and familiarity began to feel suffocating, it had seemed like a good idea to take this walk – to ease his mind, perhaps. He hadn’t counted on the raindrops that began to drizzle onto his uncovered hair as he walked.

Those raindrops made him think – he remembered something from more than ten years ago, an evening where he’d walked out of a Muggle cinema, holding hands with someone dear to him. It had started to rain, and they had laughed, running back to their flat, arriving soaked and breathless and in love.

He had another small flat now, not much better than the bed-sit he’d taken when he’d first left school and tried to carve out an existence from the vast world that had lain before him in those days. That world was behind him, or rather above him, now – but that was beside the point. Or perhaps it was the point.

It had been more than ten years since— well, he was used to being alone now. He craved it, truthfully. Being with others made him jumpy or uncomfortable or simply depressed; truly depressed, in the way that made him crawl home after the brush with companionship and lie in bed for several days, lost in his thoughts.

It was not fulfilling. It held no meaning. It was absolutely unproductive and useless, and would have been better off had it been ended as well those ten years ago. But it was Remus J. Lupin’s life, and he was living it.

He felt slightly better now that he was outside and walking; even if it was too cold, he was moving, he was alive. The rain must have scared everyone else inside, he mused, because he was the only one out on the sidewalk. He preferred it that way, though; he wouldn’t have wanted to meet anyone on the street. He knew that they whispered about him when they saw him, asking themselves if he was homeless or just poor, if he knew what he looked like, if perhaps they should give him a donation or a warm meal. For a man who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, he guessed that he had been quite a conversation piece for them.

‘Wouldn’t think to look at me that I’ve spent a lot of time in education,’ he thought, half-smirking to himself, thinking about his patched coat and worn shoes and graying hair and hard face. ‘I used to teach children who came from those kinds of families.’

His teaching years were long over, however. He had hired out as a private tutor during the early years, the bed-sit years, the not-alone years. It had been a second job for him, a way to bring in a little extra money, and he had ended up enjoying it more than his actual job. But after he was left alone, those ten-years-or-more ago, people had started to recognize him from the recent event, and they had one by one refused his tutoring services for their children. ‘Had to keep their children safe from the one who wasn’t convicted,’ he thought bitterly.

He balled his hands into fists within his coat pockets, trying to fight off the numbness that was taking over his fingers; he wrinkled his nose unconsciously, and sniffed. The air was stale, the lamplight was stale, the rain was stale. Everything around him was old and lifeless and devoid of feeling – numb, like his fingers and his nose. But perhaps numbness was better than feeling what little there was to actually feel.

The rain began to come down harder, not yet a downpour but promising to turn into a steady shower. He turned around right there, in the middle of the sidewalk, not looking where he was going because he already knew that he was alone. He was always alone. Glancing up at the street sign to see how far he was from his flat, he was rewarded with cold droplets splashing past his lids, into his dulled amber eyes.

He bent his head and blinked fiercely, trying to look where he was going. He couldn’t see the road for the rain in his eyes.

I live above the grocer’s store
Owned by an Austrian
He often calls me down to eat
And he jokes about his broken English,
Tries to be a friend to me
But for all my years of reading conversation
I stand without a word to say

I can’t see the bridge
For the rain in my eyes

He entered through the back door and hoped to slip up the stairs to his flat, unnoticed, avoiding anyone who might be downstairs. But luck, as usual, was not with him, and the Austrian who lived below him was in the corridor. The man had a small grocer’s store in front, and lived alone in the back. Remus had never asked why he was alone, and the man had never offered any explanations.

He was a stocky, dark-haired man, pleasant but too talkative for Remus’s nature. When he initially moved in, he had hoped that the Austrian would not speak very good English, and would therefore spare Remus from much conversation. This, however, was not the case; he often called Remus down to eat, joking about his broken English.

The Austrian had obviously moved to the country within the past ten years, was obviously a Muggle; so he did not know exactly who or what he had renting the flat above him. Poor, senseless man – he tried to be a friend to Remus.

“Hello, Remus,” he said cordially, in his thick accent. Remus smiled half-heartedly, the corners of his mouth turning upward awkwardly. “Gone for a walk?”

Remus nodded, trying to perform the impossible tasks of smiling and nodding and not running away. The other man began to speak about something, some customer who had come in or how business was going or how had Remus’s day been, but all Remus could think of was how there had been a time when he had not been so silent. Vaguely, it seemed, he remembered when he had eaten all of his meals with friends, when he had never been alone, when he had stupidly treasured the moments to himself when he was studying or alone somewhere. He would never have valued the alone-moments during those days had he known they would become his entire future.

“…have dinner?”

Remus shook his head, but managed to choke out, “No, thank you,” in a thin, tight voice. He attempted to smile again – he managed only to raise his lips from a frown to a straight line. He saw the slight hurt in the Austrian’s eyes, offended that Remus still did not see him fit for friendship; but the other man merely shrugged.

“Then good night, yeah?” he said thickly, and Remus nodded, making for the stairs. He did not mean to be rude, but he did not have the strength or the energy to cross that bridge and befriend the man. There was nothing wrong with him – rather, there was something wrong with Remus. There were many things wrong with Remus.

He walked blindly up the stairs to his flat, unlocking the door with Muggle keys and immediately locking it behind him. The keys were placed on the desk against the wall, the lights were left off, the coat was hung on a peg near the door – all these motions were completed mechanically. His mind was far away.

He remembered running back to the bed-sit in the rain with someone he was in love with. They were young and strong and fearless, recklessly in love and promised to each other. They had run in the door soaking wet and out of breath and laughing, kissing each other frantically, wiping their smeared mascara and glitter off of each other’s faces.

Early on, Remus had missed him so much that it hurt physically. He felt as though he had been stricken deaf and dumb, imprisoned in his own silence and solitude, left alone. Now, though, it was beyond hurt or ache or pain. It was a wound so deep that it severed all nerves, and left Remus with barely enough strength to function on the day-to-day – and none to grieve, none to even begin to dream of healing.

Numb as he was, Remus was good at forgetting. He could bury himself in his work, commissioned by Dumbledore to keep him from starving on the streets, for days at a time without realizing it. But tonight something made him remember – and it was like rain in a dry land. The cracks in his heart, so long dry and dusty, hurt more with the rain than without it.

Like the rain that now poured down outside his window, memories poured down upon Remus, and he had nothing with which to cover himself.

A happily married couple, a beautiful woman and a handsome man, holding their child – a pudgy, blond boy, cheeks flushed from running through the castle during their school days – the married couple as children – skin on skin in a crimson castle bed – long black hair and laughing silver eyes, rimmed with glitter and kohl – the castle Great Hall, dining at a feast with all of his long-gone friends.

The memories rushed at him, rendering him blind again, just as he had been moments before on the street. He couldn’t see the bridge for the rain in his eyes.

And the world is full of life
Full of folk who don’t know me
And they walk in twos or threes or more
While the light that shines above the grocer’s store
Investigates my face so rudely
And my essays lying scattered on the floor
Fulfill my needs just by being there
And my hands shake, my head hurts,
My voice sticks inside my throat
I’m invisible and dumb
And no one will recall me

And I can’t see the water
For the tears in my eyes

He realized he was standing and looking out the window, onto the street. The lamplight made the rain and the puddles sparkle like the glitter he had worn, those ten-years-or-more ago – the shine hid the grit and pain and ugliness below, but oh, how it shone while it was there.

Doors opened down the street and a couple burst through them, unshielded from the pouring rain and winter chill – they had each other to keep warm. Faintly Remus’s body, his still-numb nose and fingers, seemed to remember the warmth of a lover – but he was only cold now, cold and damp from the ceaseless rain that seemed to drown him even within the stuffy, suffocating safety of his room.

He tore his eyes away from the couple, now holding each other in the downpour and kissing, oblivious to the cold and wind and rain. Remus turned his face away, looking anywhere else but at those happy people that might have been himself and his lover those ten-years-or-more ago. His eyes caught sight of his desk, illuminated by the light that shone above the grocer’s store, invading his room through the window – the desk, the chair, the floor were surrounded by his essays, the only work he’d been able to find. Writing mindless articles for magazines, research papers for magical defense companies, theories for Dumbledore…anything to bring in the rent money and keep his mind off of what he’d lost.

He’d begun to feel a sense of pride in his work, pride that he knew so much and learned so quickly and wrote so well, but now, looking at the papers in his empty room and imagining the laughter and whispers of the couple on the street below, he knew it was meaningless. Meaningless. Devoid of every human sentiment except the numb feeling which overcame him.

He had been reduced to a name on scattered papers.

His hands shook, his head hurt – the light coming in through the window seemed to investigate his face so rudely, revealing him to be nothing but a tired old man who had never spoken up to claim his place in the world.

He was nothing.

His head dropped forward into his hands, and he shook. He wanted so badly to sob, to release this unbearable pain that was numbing him and cutting him off from the world, but his voice stuck inside his throat – his punishment, he hysterically thought, for being alone for so long. He had gone so many years without companionship that now, when he finally felt that he needed someone or something, he could not cry out for it. No one would have heard him, anyway.

’I’m invisible and dumb,’ he realized suddenly, shaking but unable to cry out, unable to make any sound. ’And no one will recall me.’

After a time had passed, and he felt able to move again, he silently stood and approached the window, looking out into the rainy street again. The couple had gone, presumably to seek shelter, to make love, to hold each other and laugh as Remus faintly remembered. The light had been turned off. The street was dark, with only the rain to keep it company.

He stared, not moving, not speaking. He couldn’t see the water through the tears in his eyes.