Ophelia's Lilies

i've been looking at pictures but i don't know why

'cause it's not the same

- world without sundays, it's just started to rain

* * * * *

"Stay close to us, Remus," his mother said, catching hold of his arm for the twentieth time or so. "It's a big museum. I don't want you wandering off and getting lost."

"Yes, Mummy," Remus replied dutifully, sticking the fingers of his good hand into his mouth. But there were so many big rooms to explore! He'd never been to London before, and the city itself was enough to make his eyes go round as saucers, but this place was just so pretty! All these big pictures, so much prettier than anything he could accomplish with his finger paints, prettier even than when Daddy showed him how to make multicolored sparks come out of the end of his wand.

His brief spurt of obedience ended a few seconds later, as he caught a glimpse of a painting in the next room. In a flash, he had twisted out of his mother's grip and sprinted through the doorway to get to the new picture.

"Remus!" his mother shouted, until she realized that he wasn't going any further.

"Well, what do you expect?" his father remarked good-naturedly. "Bring a five-year-old into the National Gallery, he's bound to get a little overexcited. At least he's not bored."

Indeed, Remus was standing awestruck in front of the picture. It was a relatively large one, painted mainly in shades of green and blue, with the faintest blushes of pink. There was a bridge curving elegantly over a pond -- but not like any pond that Remus knew; this one was a living mass of plants and flowers, so that he could hardly tell there was supposed to be water underneath. Green grasses sprung up around the edges of the pond, and the bridge was framed by trees. It was more than pretty; it was beautiful, a word Remus reserved only for the most special things.

"'Water-Lily Pond,'" his father read off the plaque next to the picture, coming up from behind Remus. "Claude Monet. Well, at least the kid's got taste."

"Do you like the picture, Remus?" his mother asked, bending down to his level.

"It's beautiful," Remus said, voice soft and reverent. "Can we go there?"

"I don't think that pond is in London, honey," his mother told him gently.

Remus didn't take his eyes off the painting. "I bet there aren't any bad dogs there," he said wistfully.

His parents exchanged a look. "Come on, Remus," his father said heavily, reaching down to grasp Remus's good hand. His other hand was still wrapped up in bandages. Better not to talk about it too much now, though. Better to keep Remus busy, occupy his mind with all the sights of London and all the paintings in all the museums in the world.

"Bad dog!" he had been screaming when they found him, crying and clutching his bleeding hand, but afterwards Remus had heard the doctors at St. Mungo's talking. Werewolf, he thought, and tried to drown the word in water lilies.

* * * * *

"Moony," Sirius said, his voice warning of impending doom, "I'm bored."

"Uncultured swine," Remus replied casually, resisting the urge to grab Sirius's arm and physically drag him through the museum. Not that he'd be able to, probably, but it was a pleasant thought.

"Dog, actually," Sirius corrected. "Come on, Moony, gawking at Muggle pictures is way up there on my list of Most Boring Things Ever. Slightly better than actually listening to one of Binns's lectures, but less interesting than, say, watching grass grow."

Remus rolled his eyes. "I'm expanding your cultural horizons."

"You're trying to bore me to death."

"Oh, for goodness' sake, Sirius, can't you stop complaining for five minutes?" Remus snapped. "This was my favorite place in London when I was a kid."

"You were a deprived child."

"You were a depraved child."

"Amen to that," Sirius grinned. "So, what boring dead Muggle painted this one, Moony?"

"Monet," Remus said shortly. "This one's my favorite, actually."

Sirius actually paused for a second to study it. "It's a pond."

"Did you work that out for yourself, or were you just reading the plaque? Because that was surprisingly insightful for you. I'm impressed."

Sirius did not deign to respond. He flipped Remus the bird instead.

Remus experienced a brief, intense desire that the pond were real so that he could shove Sirius into it. He decided to try to raise the tone of the conversation instead. "I like to think that it's the pond Ophelia drowned in. All those flowers."

"Ophelia? Is she another dead Muggle?"

"No," Remus sighed. "Well, yes, sort of, but she wasn't real. She was in Hamlet."

Sirius stared at him blankly.

"Shakespeare?"

Another blank stare.

"Oh, god, you really are hopeless."

Sirius shook his head sadly. "I know your mother's a Muggle, Moony, but you really shouldn't let it show so much. It's tragic."

"You're tragic," Remus muttered.

"Anyway," Sirius went on, "the pond is lovely, really, but are you really planning on spending the rest of this absolutely gorgeous summer day in a moldy old museum? Because I'm not."

"This museum is not moldy," Remus protested.

"All museums are moldy," Sirius said loftily. "And if you spend too much time in them, you'll be moldy, too."

"I am not moldy!"

Sirius gave him a sympathetic look. "I'm afraid you are, Moony."

"I took a bath this morning."

"Growing behind your ears, it is."

"Shut up."

"Moldy Moony."

"For goodness' sakes, Padfoot, we're sixteen, not five."

"Age is no excuse for mildew."

"I," Remus said huffily, "am going to stand in front of this painting all bloody day, and you can just bugger off."

Sirius grinned broadly. "Can I, now."

"Yes."

In one swift, fluid movement, Sirius yanked Remus away from the painting and had him pressed up against the wall. "Tell me to bugger off again," he breathed, lips practically touching Remus's ear.

"Er," Remus said awkwardly, feeling his face heat up. "That's cheating."

"I know," Sirius agreed with a wicked grin, and planted a very dog-like kiss on Remus's ear before releasing him. He turned and walked away, the picture of innocence, while Remus grimaced and wiped off his soggy ear.

The water-lily pond seemed to ripple temptingly, enticing Remus to follow poor Ophelia. His face was probably precisely the same shade of pink as those lilies.

"Oh, you can just bugger off, too," he told it crossly, and jogged off after his most irritating semi-canine friend.

* * * * *

Half an hour before closing time on an unimportant Tuesday, the National Gallery was nearly empty. The only people anywhere near the Monet gallery were a few bored security guards and a shabbily-dressed youngish man with a scarred face. The scars initially drew some attention from a vaguely curious guard, but the man was utterly unremarkable otherwise, absorbed in Monet's 'Water-Lily Pond,' and the guard soon lost interest.

A few minutes later, another young man entered, much less shabby looking and with an air of urgency that caught the guard's attention for a few moments - until the newcomer shot him a pointedly scathing look, at which the guard (an elderly fellow looking forward to a nice, quiet retirement) decided that these two gentlemen posed no great threat to society and therefore required no further scrutiny. In fact, they were so very respectable that he could certainly leave them alone in the room for a few minutes, and he'd needed to pop over to the loo, anyway. He turned and ambled away.

"Nice charm," Remus remarked blandly. "I assume you've got your wand in the exceptionally large pockets of that overcoat?"

"Well, you may think surrounding yourself with Muggles makes you perfectly safe, but I've learned to be a bit more cautious," James replied sharply. "Muggles can talk as much as wizards, you know."

"I know," Remus said. "But I did the best I could, under the circumstances. We shouldn't be meeting at all, the way the war is going."

"Yes, but I needed to talk to you, and damn it, Voldemort doesn't control every facet of my life yet." A life in hiding did not suit James, apparently.

"You don't have much choice," Remus said gently. "You've got him scared, you and Lily. And after what he did to the Longbottoms--"

"I know! Do you think I don't know?!"

"Lower your voice," Remus snapped, then carefully composed himself. "Be careful, James."

"Listen," James said, lowering his voice, "there's something I think I should tell you."

Remus reached out to the painting as though to trace the curve of the bridge, then stopped himself, aware of the Muggle security guards lurking in the corners. He didn't look at James. "No."

"It's about our Secret Keeper--"

"Stop, James." Remus's voice was quiet, but something in it made James shut his mouth abruptly. Too bad he'd never perfected the technique as a prefect in school, Remus thought, a little wildly, but then, Sirius had been the only person James ever listened to back then. Not so anymore, apparently. "Does Sirius know you're meeting me?"

James looked down, running a hand through his permanently tousled hair. "No."

"He keeps your secrets; he's the person you and Lily trust more than anyone else in the world," Remus said calmly. "And as long as he doesn't trust me, you shouldn't, either."

"He's prejudiced, Remus. Deny it all he will, he's still got hundred of generations of pureblood breeding inside him, and with things so bad these days, it's all he has to fall back on. And you know what purebloods think about werewolves."

"He's right, isn't he?" Remus remarked in even tones. "We're wild; no, worse, we're monsters. We can't control our bodies, and what's more, we can't even control our minds. We've been hunted and prejudiced against for thousands of years, and if Voldemort were to offer me his personal protection from a life of fear and persecution, would I be able to turn him down? Even if it meant that one night a month my madness was turned against innocent people--"

"You wouldn't," James said. "I know you, Moony."

"So does Sirius," Remus said heavily. "And you should listen to him. Besides, if Voldemort can't turn me, he'll kill me - probably only after he's gotten every last scrap of information out of me. I can't hide like the rest of you, James. All Voldemort has to do is listen for a Shrieking Shack when there's a full moon. I can't tell you how many different houses have become haunted these past few months, because at least I know better than to go back to the same place twice. And every month, it gets harder." He hesitated, then - "The Death Eaters killed my parents last week." He was surprised at how easy it was to say it.

That came as a shock, Remus could tell. "What? I didn't know--"

Remus shrugged, forcing iron control into his voice. He hadn't had a chance to grieve yet; he didn't know when he would, but now was not the time. "Not many people did. Research types, you know; kept to themselves mostly, always did. I guess they were looking into something Voldemort would rather be left alone, or maybe he was trying to use them to get to me. I'll never know."

"I'm sorry," James said awkwardly. "They... they were nice people."

"Yes," Remus agreed quietly. "They were."

"What are you going to do now?" James's voice was flat. He'd given up. Good, Remus thought, not without a trace of sadness. It's best for all of us.

"My cousin's a Squib," Remus told him. "He works at the docks. He can smuggle me across the channel to Calais, and once I'm on the continent, I'll be able to disappear. I can't tell you where I'm going because I don't know yet; maybe east, beyond the Muggles' Iron Curtain, or maybe overseas to America or Brazil. The full moon was two nights ago, so I've a little time before I need to find another haunted house." He smiled bitterly.

James nodded mutely. "I'd ask you to write, but..."

"I'd rather not risk it, anyway," Remus said. "I'm sorry you wasted your time coming here, James, but I really don't think you should tell me whatever it was you were planning to. Especially not if it concerned secrets."

"Yeah," James said. He stepped away from Remus, awkwardly. "Well, take care, then."

"You, too," Remus replied. "Give my love to Lily and Harry, and tell Sirius... no, don't tell Sirius anything. Never mind."

"Right." James looked around, eventually glancing at the painting in front of them. "Nice picture," he offered, then turned and shuffled out, doing his best to avoid attracting the attention of any Muggles.

"Yes," Remus told the empty air. "It is." He imagined standing on the footbridge over the water-lily pond, looking out into the swirling blues and greens and pinks of the landscape. It was like a farewell, he thought, finally pulling himself away. He wondered if he'd ever see the painting again.

James wouldn't, because two weeks later, he and Lily were dead.

* * * * *

Paintings never change, but the people who look at them do. The water-lily pond had remained constant for a century, but no two people saw it the same way.

Remus was Remus when he was five or sixteen or twenty-three or nearly forty, but he wasn't the same person every time. A scared little boy saw the pond as a haven, a magical world where life was perfect and unchanging and there were no bad dogs and happily ever after was as real as waking up tomorrow morning. A studious teenager saw the painting as an example of his own overwhelming worldliness, something else to talk about in a pretentious tone of voice and pride his ever so sophisticated self for appreciating. A worried young man wasn't so very different from the little boy in his yearning to escape, but he was too old to believe in magic, and he knew the painting was just that: a pretty picture.

And the Remus who had to meet Harry at platform 9 and ¾ in seventy-two minutes - he stared into the painting and saw its ghosts. There were his parents, barely visible on the bridge, and Sirius hidden and smirking behind a tree, and James and Lily laughing and splashing each other with water and flowers, and poor Ophelia, obscured underwater by plants and murk, water lilies tangled in her hair.

*

The picture described can be seen online here: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/largeImage?collectionSection=work&workNumber=NG4240