The Origin Of Love

When Remus was upset, Sirius knew that something was terribly wrong. So Remus was hardly ever upset. He was incredibly, almost unbelievably, controlled. Calm, conscientious, collected - Remus was the epitome of self-control, the proverbial pillar of strength for the Marauders during times of trouble or poor judgment.

So to discover Remus lying on his bed in the seventh year boys' dormitory, sniffling over the text of ancient Greek mythology, was a vivid warning to Sirius that something drastic had happened. Someone had died, or there'd been another Death Eater raid, or Lily had called off her engagement to James and announced that she was in love with Severus Snape instead.

"Remus?" Sirius asked hesitantly, standing just inside the doorway.

Remus glanced up, blushed, and wiped hastily at his eyes. "Yes?" he asked, then cleared his throat. He was trying to hide the fact that he'd been crying, but for all his skill at hiding his curse from the rest of the school, he could never hide his emotions from his friends. "Something wrong?"

"That's what I was going to ask you...is everything okay?" His voice betrayed his concern.

"Er - yeah. I'm fine, really. It's, ah..." Remus flushed again, unable to come up with a satisfactory lie to explain his current state.

"Dust from the book irritating your eyes?" Sirius suggested dryly.

"Yeah, that's it." Then, realizing the humor of the situation, he laughed slightly. "Coming up with my cover story, hmm, Sirius?"

"That's what I'm here for." Without asking permission, and without needing to ask for it, Sirius approached Remus's bed and sat down next to his friend. "So, what's the dust?" he asked gently.

"Hmm?" Remus, lying on his stomach, was doing his best to avoid answering questions - Sirius knew this. But to find Remus in such a state was anything but normal.

"What's bothering you?" Sirius rephrased the question, trying to make his blunt query sound gentle. He placed one hand on Remus's shoulder, touching him lightly.

"Nothing...really. Just...well, I've been thinking." Remus paused, and Sirius waited in silence. He knew by now, after seven years of such close friendship, that Remus revealed things in his own good time. Sirius, on the other hand, had the habit of blurting out whatever he'd thought of without the consideration of censoring his thoughts.

"About love," he continued, still looking at the book of mythology. "And soulmates, and...finding the one person who's right for you."

Sirius saw it suddenly. "Did James and Lily getting engaged make you think of this?"

"Yes. Because they're so - well, they're perfect for each other." Remus lay down on the bed now, folding his arms over the book and resting his head on them. He turned his face to the side so he could watch Sirius's expression.

"And you don't think you'll ever feel that way," Sirius guessed.

Remus sighed, and remained silent for a long moment before admitting, "Yes."

"Remus, just because you didn't meet your soulmate at the age of eleven doesn't mean you won't fall in love with that perfect someone one day," he said, laughing at the thought of James and Lily's fateful meeting on the Hogwarts Express during their first year. James had bumped into Lily while in pursuit of Sirius in one of their tussles, and she had dropped her suitcase, which fell open to expose her undergarments to the students who were waiting to board the train. When James had tried to help her and apologize, she had slapped him. It wasn't quite love at first sight, but they had grown rather fond of each other over the years, until one day it hit them that they wanted to be with each other forever.

"Right, but...well, what if we never find our soulmates? What if we just search for them forever, and we're never satisfied?"

Sirius ran a hand through his long black hair, and shrugged. "Remus, who says there are even such things as soulmates? What if you're just supposed to be happy with the one you're with?"

Remus glanced up at him through tawny-brown bangs. "You don't believe that we're supposed to fall in love with someone in particular - that you're destined to be together?"

"Not really. I mean, well, maybe some people are, and some people aren't."

"But why only some people?" Remus pressed, and Sirius felt the familiar twinge in his heart.

"Remus, where did you get this stuff?" he asked, avoiding answering the question.

"From one of the mythology books...I was reading it for class, and I found this, and I thought it was...well, beautiful. You should read it." Remus sat up in a graceful motion, his robes flowing around him, and lifted the musty book onto his lap. When Sirius had slid onto the bed, so they were sitting facing each other, Remus handed the book to him.

"No, thanks, mate. I promised to do as little reading as I could this year, and I'm sticking to it. Why don't you just tell me what it's about, anyway? It looks...dull." Sirius pushed the book back to Remus.

"It's not dull, but alright..." Remus glanced down, looking over the tiny words once more, then looked back up at Sirius and began to tell his story.

Listening to Remus speak, Sirius reflected, was a beautiful thing. Especially when he spoke about a topic he loved, as he was now. Remus had jumped at the chance to take the seventh year mythology class, and his enthusiasm had kept the other Marauders awake during many a dull homework assignment.

"When the earth was still flat, and clouds were made of fire, and mountains - like Olympus - stretched up to the sky, or sometimes higher...during that mythological time...people roamed the earth as basically two people in one body. They had two sets of arms, two sets of legs, two faces peering out of one giant head-"

"So they could watch all around them while they talked or read or whatever?" Sirius guessed.

"Right. Don't interrupt," Remus instructed fondly, then continued, "They had the features of two separate bodies created into one being, but they shared a soul." He glanced at the book again, then resumed speaking. "But they never knew anything about love."

"Why not?"

"It was the days before the origin of love."

"The origin of love? Love had an origin?"

"Right...that's part of what this particular myth is about. See, there were three sexes then, one that looked like the men - they were called the Children of the Sun. And similar to them were the Children of the Earth - they were like two girls rolled up in one. And the Children of the Moon were both, part earth and part sun - they were a man and a woman sharing a body."

"Remus," Sirius announced, "that's weird."

"No, it's not, it's poetic. Remember, this is the origin of love. It'll make sense, just listen." Remus was smiling now, talking about something he loved so well; and Sirius decided that he could endure any weird myths if it made his friend happy.

"But the gods grew quite scared of their strength and defiance. The people were becoming too great, so the gods decided to cut them down somehow. So Zeus took his lightning bolts and cut them in half and - oh, listen to this, the book says it better." Remus raised the book so he could see it better and read, "And then storm clouds gathered above like great balls of fire, and fire shot down from the sky in bolts like shining blades of a knife. And it ripped through the flesh of the Children of the Sun and the Moon and the Earth."

Sirius stared. "That's awful! They killed all those people?"

"No," Remus said, the smile fading, "the gods cut them in half. Into two separate beings - that's how we ended up in these bodies today. They sewed the wound up to a hole - here - " He pointed to his stomach through his robes, to where his navel would have been. "That's supposed to remind us of the price we've paid. And the people were scattered, so they didn't know where their other halves were. They say if we're not careful, the gods will cut us down again."

Despite the grave message, Sirius couldn't help his laughter. "That's ridiculous, Remus! We'd be hopping around on one foot, and looking through one eye..."

"But we used to be two people in one body, and we've learned to survive on our own now," Remus pointed out. "Imagine. It would be like...if you and I used to share a body. We were one person. And now we've been split into two beings, ourselves, and we have to wander the earth to find each other."

"Why? Why do they have to find each other again?" Sirius asked, feeling like he was missing the obvious, but rather enjoying the idea that he and Remus might have shared the same body.

"Because they each have half of the same soul. They're quite literally soulmates," Remus answered. "And that's the origin of love."

That was an astounding thought, Sirius suddenly realized - that two people, who had lived together for so long, would suddenly be split in half and left without each other. "That's terrible," he breathed, struck by the enormity of the story.

"Exactly."

"How is that love?"

"It's love because..." Remus took a deep breath, searching for an explanation. "Because they were lost and separated, and they - we - spend our whole lives searching for the one who will complete us. We care enough, we need them enough, to do anything to find them. And we're not whole until we're with them."

"But - that's not love. That's selfish. You're looking for them to satisfy yourself!" Sirius objected.

"It was the origin of all love, I suppose," the tawny-haired boy mused. "Self-love, love of and respect for the deities, romantic love..."

Silence took over for a moment, before Sirius admitted, "That's deep, Remus."

"It is," he agreed. Then, sniffling one last time, he added sheepishly, "Thanks for listening to me ramble."

"Thanks for sharing it with me," Sirius countered, and Remus blushed. He went on, "So...that's what was upsetting you?"

"Sort of...well, yes. It was."

"...Moony? D'you think you've met your soulmate yet?"

Remus blinked a few times, then looked away. "I... well... but..." he stammered.

"But...?" Sirius wasn't sure what else he wanted to ask, but he knew there was more to it. "But, well, you-"

Unfortunately, James chose that moment to interrupt them, opening the door and sighing in relief when he saw them in the dormitory. "Oy, Pads, Moony, will you come down here? Lily and I can't agree on what the bridesmaids should wear, and we need you two to put in an opinion, considering you'll be escorting them for the evening."

Sirius groaned. "Oh, gods, James, do we really have to go through this again? You've planned three separate weddings already!"

'Only the best for my Lily, Sirius," James replied, grinning, and approached them to pull his best friends off the bed. "C'mon, the sooner you go down there, the sooner it'll be over with."

"Okay, we're coming!" Remus laughed, standing up and grabbing Sirius's hand. "Sirius, let's just get it over with," he said lightly.

"Right. We'll talk more later?" Sirius asked, looking at him expectantly.

"Er...sure." Remus shrugged, then smiled. "If you like."

"I do like."

"Will you two come on?!" James exclaimed in exasperation. "Honestly! Lily's about to go mad trying to plan the wedding, I really need some help down here before she goes off on me!"

"Alright, I guess we'd better save you from the wrath of your Lily-flower," Sirius replied, smirking. "Wouldn't want your soulmate to kill you before the wedding. I'm sure that planning such nonsense was the origin of homicide."

"Origin of homicide? What?" James repeated, confused.

Remus and Sirius glanced at each other and laughed. "Right. Time to prevent a murder, Pads," Remus laughed, and the two boys followed James down to the common room.