The Closer the Tides Bend

It was a night near the moon's height. He needed no lunar chart to tell him this. The ache in his bones, the pull of Luna's hands against the tides of the soul, which ran so much deeper, so much further than they should. He should not have lived this long, they told him, and it was punishment for succeeding.

Every month was like this. Long, and filled with aches beyond measure.

The closer the tides bent to full, the more restless his nights were. There had been a time, once, when that would have been eased by the comfort of another. That time had been spent at this school, slipping from a bed swathed in red, and losing himself in a world filled with blue satin and black hair.

Black hair, grey eyes, a nose that was slightly too long, these were the things he remembered. That was only part of it, mingling with those cheekbones that rose high and seemed to peer at him through the skin, proving the other boy to be all lines and angles.

Still, there had been comfort there. At the time, he had thought that comfort to be never wavering, and to last as long as he had breath. Unfortunately, he had chosen wrongly in who he placed that trust, only to have it bend too far before breaking. That was a time long since passed, and the closer the tides bend to the full moon, the more likely he is to forget. The more likely he is to mourn the loss of something that might never have truly been his.

He kicked the blankets away and rose from the bed. Remus then reached for robes that had seen many better days than these. They were caught as threadbare as he felt on nights like these, but they were deep and comfortable, which was what he told others when they asked him about their condition. It was easier that way, on his pride if nothing else, since he knew full well he no longer had the funds to buy new robes.

Even if he had the money, he would resist, for shopping for such things was not a priority. Thick texts filled with information that previously was hidden from his mind, now that was the thing he considered more important, so he would take his books and relish in the scent of them, while allowing the condition of his robes to go unchecked.

His feet went bare as he pushed his way out of the Professors quarters he had managed to receive for this period of time. He knew by heart where he was going, because he had seen it too many times before. He among all of the Marauders had known by instinct where this thing was, and had led them all to it once. Now he was the only one left, and he was the only one who wished to see, so he made his way through corridors bent and twisted by stone and time.

They had found the Mirror of Erised before, but that had been years ago, and he was certain Dumbledore had chosen to have the mirror moved. In fact, the old man had warned him as such when he had first hired him on again. He had known of these predilections, and accepted them in equal measure. He had moved them, the old man admitted, because of a need to protect the very child he was now being brought to protect.

A wry grin distorted his face; a werewolf as a protector. The very irony would have left him laughing once, but now it was necessity, as he was the only one left who had known the child, who had sworn to protect him.

Finally, after corridors worth of wandering, he found the room. He pushed aside the old voices of memory that waltzed through his mind and pushed himself through the doorway. To the centre of the room, where rested a tall, oblong object covered by cloth. The cloth proved to be no obstacle as he pulled it off and away, to reveal the mirror that held the heart's own desire.

The desire so very deep that it could not be faced in the light of day, but only now, in the darkest hours, with the moon tilting toward full, and the light flowing across the floor of the room. This was the only time to visit the Mirror of Erised. The only time when it would work as designed.

Some things weren't meant to be faced in the light of day.

He stepped full into the mirror's glare, and found an image that started out blurry, only to ripple into clarity. Both hands reached out for the edges of the mirror, holding on tight to the only thing solid as his heart seemed to wrench out of his chest at the sight in front of him. He had known that flat once. He had known it extremely well, with all its quirks, such as the two wizards occupying it.

That had been his flat, once. Their flat, once.

He was sitting on the sofa, legs spread, and his hands resting between them. He watched as his mirror-self looked up at the other wizard standing before him. He heard the murmur, the proclamation of Sirius's innocence from his own lips, with explanations of how things had turned about. He knew full well what he would have been feeling, faced with that, for he was feeling it now. A nearly painful rush of hope flooded him, and he closed his eyes. He gritted his teeth against it, and reminded himself it wasn't real, that it hadn't happened.

It didn't make the dream stop, it didn't make the desire disappear, or the hope fade.

Then that voice, that sinfully familiar voice, told him that they could save Lily and James, together. They could stop it before it all fell apart, but it would take both of them together. Together, he muttered, they could accomplish anything, and Remus didn't even try to hide the pain anymore. The hardest to take was the truth of the statement.

They could have, then. Then Sirius had betrayed them and everything had gone wrong.

When the other wizard had heard his acceptance in the scene before him, he had pulled him up and kissed him, snogged him hard. It was then that he made himself release his hands from around the mirror, as they had grasped it tight enough to nearly break the frame. Then he turned away from it, because there were just some things that were too much to take. He walked away from the mirror, and the howl of the wolf behind his own mind.

He shook his head, trying to shake the images from his mind in the process. It was a fantasy, a dream, and if it's his own deepest desire, then it was only that. There was no way for it to happen.

It was too bad those beautiful dreams had to break.

It was too bad the truth would never be that simple.