The Curse and the Blessing

There would have been a time when hearing voices would have had Remus Lupin checking into St. Mungo's.

That was a different time.

He had been younger then, and more innocent to the ways the world could cheat you of all that mattered. He had known from a young age that he would face prejudice, but doesn't everyone in their own way face the same thing? Snap judgements frequently were made just based upon what you looked like, where you came from, how much money your family made or how pure their blood was, much less the deeper things. Much less the things that marked one as more different than any of those things ever could, so different that even the body changed at the height of the moon, and those who once were friends would become prey. So yes, Remus Lupin had been prepared well for the cruelties of simple prejudice.

At least prejudice at its core was simple. However, when it led to a war where people died, where blood was spilled based upon that and nothing more, simple prejudice stopped being so simple. That was when he started to realise just how cruel the world could be, how it could rend everything he thought to be true to shreds and lies, and how it could strip him of everything that had kept him alive to that moment. Even after he discovered it, Remus thought he would survive, that he could survive the death of his friends, the betrayal of his lover, and being left alone in the world. In that, he was right. He fared much better than many could ever have imagined, but survival had its cost.

When one's entire existance is based upon simple survival, it is a simple thing to forget what it means to actually live.

Sirius Black swept into his life like the wildest of storms on the darkest of nights. Like those storms, he was something terrifying at times, wonderous at others, and had the habit of entirely reshaping everything that surrounded him.

Just when Remus was content to just continue surviving, appearing when and where he was needed only to disappear again, Sirius turned his world upside down once again. He had been content to believe the obvious, that Sirius had been the one to turn, to betray them all, to slaughter friends and innocents in the street, and laugh maniacally as they took him away. It was one thing for those who never knew him to hear that laugh haunting their sleep when he was on the loose, but Remus knew well what that very laugh sounded like, and it woke him from dreams that burned like the finest firewhisky against the back of his throat.

For the briefest of times, he remembered. Stolen moments reminded him what it was like to live, then the war started in earnest again, and those moments became fewer and farther between. Each time he returned to find Sirius closer to breaking than the time before, and he would put him back together with sharp tones, with arms and hands, with lips and tongue and body. Then he would have to leave again on another bloody mission, and return to have to do the same all over again, filling the times between with arguments with Dumbledore on the absolute stupidity of keeping the man prisoner such as he was.

Then the world proved its ultimate cruelty, by stealing him away in a fashion so final that he could do nothing but hold Harry back. Part of his mind was desperately trying to save James' son, Sirius' godson, the only thing any of them had left. At the time, it was all numb shock, and nothing was sinking in. Even while that shock was setting in, the rest of his mind -- annoyingly logical and cynical -- reminded him that Harry was the only way of saving the wizarding world from Voldemort.

That is, if one believed that prophecy the Order held as their Holy Grail. Remus wasn't as certain he believed it, but he held his silence when it was obvious he was one of the few that actually doubted the truth of it. There was no empirical evidence for such, since after all, the source of the prophecy wasn't known for her accuracy. That left him in the company of one still thought by many to be a traitor -- their spy -- and since their prejudice against him was already obvious in some ways, he thought it best to remain silent.

By the time he was to see Harry off with the rest of the Order, the numb shock had left him, leaving him only with the apathy of deep depression. His mind, having spent years in the mode of pure survival, found that the patterns were easy to fall back into. In its way, the patterns were like the grooves of the old Beatles records that scattered about the Potters' first flat, the records that Lily loved and James collected for her whenever possible because even after they wed, James would do anything for her.

Shortly after the full moon, when he was laying in the room that he had shared with Sirius during the moments they could spare themselves, was when it started. In the beginning, it was easy to ignore the voice that he heard in his head, the same one that held that same firewhisky-burn that he had always associated with Sirius' voice, his laughter, and his entire being. In some ways, he thrived upon being an abasion, whether in the best of ways, or in the worst.

Remus thought that voice a symptom of his grief and ignored it.

Yet, without truly realising it, he started to follow some of the advice that he was given. There was a whisper about how he should take better care of himself, start eating again, and he did. To start with, it was all by rote; that voice made a whisper of suggestion and without thinking, he did it. Over time, Remus found himself balanced precariously on the edge of that fence between survival and actually living. While he could hear Sirius' voice urging him over the edge, he clung to the fence. He couldn't stand the pain of actually living again, not while there was a war on, not when there was still so much left to lose.

You didn't lose me, Moony, he would hear in frustrated tones when he started thinking that way. If you lost me, would I still be here?

Yes, he would think back. You're just enough of a bastard to torment me so.

He could hear that laugh again, and then the voice would be gone for a time. At least he would be given that much peace, and he would go back to the missions, the occasional letters to Harry, and other things to fill the time until the next battle. Only during those battles did he recognise how important it was to hear that voice, suggesting spells and hexes, warnings about the moves that the enemy would make, and the best way to defeat them.

Sirius always had been their strategist, even before everything became so deadly serious.

By the time he acknowledged to himself that he was hearing the voice of a dead man, Remus somehow thought it would be too late to do anything for it. After all the time of it being there, he wasn't certain what he would do without it, as some days, that was the only thing keeping him anywhere close to sane, so he fought -- they fought -- to keep both of them as safe as possible.

If he survived past the war, perhaps he would see about removing Sirius from his mind.

Perhaps.