Once in a Blue Moon

CHAPTER 14

1 September - Hogwarts - evening

He sat in his chamber - the only light coming from the fire and looked at the box on the table in front of him. It was unopened and bore a scrap of parchment on it with the words "Love like ours comes but once in a blue moon" on it.

He couldn't open it. Couldn't bear to see her last gift to him. The final move in a game they had played last year.

His smile was bitter - he had intended the game to end that night. To show himself and his feelings in public. To hell with Dumbledore.

To end the emptiness.

Instead, Voldemort had managed to destroy it all. Again. Now he had a reason to live. To kill Voldemort.

He had left immediately, and spent the summer searching out pockets of Voldemort's supporters.

The wolf in him had done dreadful things that summer.

He sighed again. There was no way he could face the feast that night. To be there with everybody knowing. He looked at the notes on his desk - ready for his first class the next morning.

A knock on his door startled him. He opened it, to find a house elf standing there, with a tray containing a cup of tea, a rose and a piece of parchment.

The elf walked past him and placed the items on the table.

His eyes narrowed as he went towards the table. Somebody was making a joke - and he was not pleased. Then he saw the writing, and his heart stopped. He knew that handwriting - and he noticed that the rose was not fresh, but pressed. He picked it up with the parchment, which had written on it the words: "The first rose."

The man dropped the rose and wrenched open the door - running barefoot towards the Great Hall.

The sorting had finished, and the feast had begun. The hall was buzzing with noise, and the students were surprised to see him enter looking as he did.

She was sitting at the high table - in a chair he knew as well as his own chambers.

He saw Dumbledore smiling at him and looked again at Pilar - who was smiling and holding a blue moon rose to her face.

The whole school held it's breath as Pilar rose and came down from the table. Running towards him - and in his mind, he slipped back to that day so many years ago.

As then, he grabbed her and spun her round - but this time he was crying that she was alive. He held her close as Dumbledore stood.

"Glad you could join us, Professor. I believe you know Professor de Lisle, our new Potions teacher."

He heard the familiar laughter gurgle up, only to be almost immediately stopped as the woman in his arms started to cough.

"But I saw you die," he said, "You took the blade meant for me."

"Silly," she said gently, "You're taller than me. Your heart is higher than mine. It missed - just. It's been a long healing though, and I've some way to go. Which is why I asked the Headmaster if I could swap classes - I'm not up to anything really strenuous yet."

"Which I was only too happy to do," put in Dumbledore. "I'm afraid that the students know your story as well. I couldn't keep it from them."

"And I gave my permission," said Pilar. "But it's not over yet. Why didn't you open that box?" she asked.

"Well, there was no time, and afterwards, I couldn't bring myself to do it" he replied, smoothing her hair back from her face.

Her blue eyes caught him and held him. "If you had, you would have found the truth," she said.

"Truth?"

"The truth of my love. The final move in our game."

"But I knew," he said, "And I had intended to end the game myself that day. In public."

"How?" she demanded.

"Does it matter now?" he asked.

"Yes! More than ever it matters. The past still holds us - it needs to be ended and there is only one way to end it. Tell the truth now, and set us free."

Remus J. Lupin, the werewolf, forever the outsider, took her face gently in his hands and looked down at her. He saw the small lines around her eyes. The lines of pain on her face - and the hardness in her soul, and knew that they were mirrored in him.

"I love you," he said, "I have loved you for many years, and don't ever want to let you go again. You are my life."

At these words, Dumbledore stood and opened the box he was holding. A box Remus recognised - and wondered how Dumbledore had gotten it here. He lifted out a clear glowing ball. From inside it, a light grew and grew, and the two people before him looked at it.

Remus marvelled at the ball. "A Heartstone," he said wonderingly. "The Heartstone you formed when you separated us."

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "The Heartstone that I used to make sure that you could not come together again unless at my instigation. But I have brought you back together, and I now return that which was taken from you," he said. "The truth has set you free," he said, flinging it to the stone floor at their feet.

The ball burst, and the light swirled around them. In it were visible two forms - a man and a woman. Clearly recognisable as the younger selves of the two before them.

Pilar and Remus reached out to their younger selves and everybody watched, as they were absorbed.

The school watched as lines lifted from their faces - and they looked their ages and no more. The hardness in their souls vanished, as the truth of their love filled them once again.

The promise Dumbledore had seen in them all those years ago was now visible to everybody. The couple stood before him - radiant in their love, and strong in their power.

Remus held Pilar as if he would never let her go. And looked at Dumbledore. "Is it truly over?" he asked.

"Yes."

"So now all we have to do is defeat Voldemort."

"Yes."

Pilar looked up at her lover and smiled. "But we get to have this night first," she said, as the light from the blue moon streamed down from the enchanted sky above.

EPILOGUE

Halloween - Hogwarts

Years afterward, both Pilar and Remus always said that their wedding day was a blur. However, both remembered with fondness an interlude on the stairs outside the great hall that day.

Remus held his wife in his arms - still in a daze, hardly believing that they could now spend the rest of their lives together.

Pilar relaxed against him and sighed - remembering the New Year's Eve when they had first sat there. She sighed again.

"All right, Love?" he asked.

She sat up and looked at him. "I was remembering my surprise party," she said softly. Remus smiled - he remembered that evening as well. "I had been in such despair all day," she said, "Thinking that you didn't love me any more. And when you kissed me - I knew that in spite of the hard words, that what we have is more precious than anything that had happened in the past. And I loved you so desperately. You are my life," she finished simply.

Lupin simply held her closer - kissing her tenderly. Nothing would ever separate them now.