World of Blue

A World of Blue

Rosin Dubh

WARNING: Contains non-explicit slash, gratuitous consumption of absinthe, Dark Magic, graphic violence, a very evil Mary Sue, and spoilers for OotP. If you're still with me, read on.

When did the day with all its light

Turn into night?

When all the world seemed to sing

Why, why did you go?

David Lynch, Questions in a World of Blue

+ + +

Had Remus Lupin sobered up, he might have reconsidered the whole thing.

Necromancy was known, after all, as among the darkest of the Dark Arts, and there were reasons why the wizarding world feared it. Remus knew that, of course, and he knew that good wizards did not practice it, nor did they seek out its practitioners. And in times like these, with everything that was at stake, and particularly for a member of the illustrious (if underground) Order of the Phoenix, a moral standard was especially important.

But Remus Lupin was not sober; far from it. He had been staring down his eighth flask of Firewhisky at the Serpent's Tail, wondering if the resulting state of drunkenness would be worth the inevitable, and brutal, hang over.

He decided that it would be.

The woman at the other end of the bar was watching him; she had been watching him since Firewhisky Number Five, and he could feel her eyes on him still. He had glanced at her briefly, once, as he scanned the Serpent's Tail upon entry, and promptly forgot she was there. She was typical of the Knockturn Alley crowd -- decrepit, morose, and probably harmless. The last thing he cared about right now was a woman.

But she was watching him, and as he drained the flask, she sidled over across the stools. It took Remus a moment to focus his blurring vision on her, and he tried to recollect if he had seen her before. He hadn't.

"Come here often?" he drawled. The woman frowned. She was sipping brilliant green absinthe through a long straw, regarding him with heavy-lidded yellow eyes. Besides the eyes (which were, despite all he'd seen, mildly disturbing), she was quite beautiful -- porcelain-pale, her black hair a stark contrast to her dress of old, yellowed lace that draped over the bar stool and almost to the muddy floor.

She raised her lips from the straw. "When I am called," she replied in a hushed whisper, "I come here."

Remus decided that his drink was more interesting, and returned his attention to it. The woman continued to stare at him.

"I've seen you before," she said after awhile.

"I've come here," Remus said, "On occasion."

"Do your friends know?"

Only after he replied, "They don't," did he realize what a strange question that was.

She finished the last, languid sips of the absinthe, and rose to her feet. Standing, she leaned in close so that she breathed in his ear, "I have heard the voices from beyond the veil. Follow me if you wish to hear them too."

And then she was gone. Remus didn't see her leave, but he felt a shiver travel the length of his body, the bar suddenly cold and dark.

And were he sober, he would have known exactly what that meant, and not to follow. In truth, even drunk, he knew better, but the temptation was too great.

Remus slapped down four Galleons on the counter and stumbled out the door into Knockturn Alley.

+

He saw her at the end of the street, and started running. "Wait!"

Her lips (red as blood) pursed in a half-smile. She gestured to a door of rotting wood.

By the time he reached the door, she was gone, as if she had slid out of existence. But he tried the great, brass knob, and found the door unlocked.

He pulled it open, and entered a room lit by scattered groupings of white candles. Tiny bird skeletons were posed on ornate perches in a series of alcoves. In the center of the room, tubes from a giant hookah draped themselves over red velvet cushions like the tentacles of an octopus. The woman herself sat in a high-backed chair, looking in her lace dress and white stockings like a Victorian child's doll.

"Who are you?" Remus asked.

"I am Persephone Dell'Arta," she replied, "Perhaps we can chat for awhile."

+

"You have lost someone recently," Persephone was saying. Remus had found a large skull mounted above the fireplace, and he was trying to determine what sort of animal it had belonged to.

"Is it that obvious?"

"I'll make us some tea." She drifted into the next room, leaving him alone to examine the skull -- a dragon? No, too small. Perhaps a horse... Remus squinted, already beginning to regret his drinking escapade. There was a flash of light and Persephone had returned with what looked like a little girl's tea set.

"What were you doing in Knockturn Alley? You don't seem like the type."

"I'm not," Remus said.

"You were trying to forget."

"No," he said, then added, "Maybe a little."

"Why should you forget? Death is such a great injustice, particularly the death of someone young."

"I don't want to talk about it."

Her smile exposed very white, very sharp little teeth.

"Of course you don't. You want to talk to him."

Remus felt a thrill of fear, and of hope. "You can do that?"

"The veil is very thin here. The voices are all around us."

He could sense the haze of drunkenness beginning to leave him with just suggestion that he could talk to Sirius one time, even if it was the last time. "I…" He couldn't form words. "I'll do anything," he managed finally, "Will you help me talk to him?"

"No." She answered so abruptly that he wasn't sure at first that he'd heard right.

Remus cursed under his breath. "Then why tempt me? Why lead me here in the first place?" It occurred to him then that he'd never even glanced at her arm, draped as it was in layers of lace. She was probably a Death Eater. She had lured him here to kill him -- and he couldn't say he objected to her plan.

"You didn't come here for a chat." She raised a teacup to her lips. He did the same, but his tea seemed to have gone cold.

"I don't know why I..."

"Of course you do." Persephone's voice remained quiet, but he could detect a tone of impatience. "This world is full of phony seers, mediums who claim they can talk to the dead. Did you think me to be one of those?"

"No." Chagrined, he tried to avoid the yellow gaze.

"I approached you in that bar because I could feel your longing, your grief. It is pure sweetness to me. I could be sustained for a hundred years on the barest whisper of your pain. I want to take that pain from you and give you something in return." She had flung her cup aside and crossed the room in the time it took him to capture a breath and release it.

"I can bring him back, Remus," she said.

+

"Let me see your arm." Remus said.

She answered with that same teasing, sharp smile, but she slowly uncurled her arm and opened her palm. He roughly shoved the sleeve of her dress almost to her shoulder, but the white skin was unmarked.

"There is more than good and evil in this world," Persephone said.

"I wouldn't want to guess what you are," he replied.

"Do you believe me?"

"It's not like I haven't heard of the dead returning,"

Remus said, "It's just that it's not usually a good thing."

Persephone laughed. "There is a price, of course.

There is always a price. But I think you'd be willing to pay it." She clasped his hand with a strength that belied her small stature. "Are you willing, Remus?"

He didn't bother asking how she knew his name; he was sure that she'd been following him for some time.

Nor did he ask what the price was; he couldn't imagine one he would not have been willing to pay.

He did not defer to his inebriated condition. Temptation was temptation, and he couldn't refuse.

"I'm willing," he told her.

+

She didn't immediately release his hand. Instead, she held it in both of hers, tracing old scars from nights spent running under a pale, full moon.

"Blood, flesh, and bone," she murmured, "You understand, I'm sure."

"I'd expect nothing less," he said.

She held up his hand, staring at his fingers in the flickering candlelight. "You were his lover. Now that's interesting. And it will make it easier; it can all come from the same place." She led him to a large iron cauldron in the corner of the room -- "Wait here" -- and slipped back into the kitchen.

He understood, in a dull, half-drunken sort of way, what was expected of him. He didn't flinch, not even when he saw that the knife she carried when she returned was made of silver. What was his own life now, after all?

"Hold out your hand," Persephone said. He obeyed, and she stared at his fingers. "Did you know," she said, "That it was once believed that a vein in the left ring finger flowed directly into the heart? That's why Muggles wear their wedding bands on that finger. Isn't that interesting?"

"Quite," Remus said.

"Now, hold still," she told him.

It took three blows for her little silver knife to sever the ring finger on his left hand. It didn't even hurt, not at first. On the first strike, she said, "Flesh of a lover." On the second, she said, "Blood of a lover." On the third, "Bone of a lover," and his finger was somehow no longer on his hand, somewhere inside the cauldron, gone forever.

Forever.

Remus howled in pain, staggering away from the woman and her accursed cauldron. Cradling his injured hand against his chest, he slammed against the wall and slid to the ground. He could feel the silver spike through his veins, bearing death as it traced its way towards his heart, and he closed his eyes, waiting for the end.

He could feel Persephone beside him, wrapping something around his hand. "There, there," she scolded, "You're not dying, Remus. Just keep the pressure on, and the bleeding will stop, eventually."

He could barely breathe through the pain, but he forced his eyes to open. She was holding a white cloth -- already stained red -- against his maimed hand. And she wasn't lying -- the brief contact with silver wouldn't kill him, he wasn't dying. Remus smiled grimly and asked, "What now?"

"Now," she said, "You go home. You can use my fireplace, if you'd like. Should one of your friends inquire, tell them that you hurt yourself while out running in wolf form. But I doubt your friends will be by tonight."

"And then?" he asked.

"Tomorrow," Persephone said, "You come see me."

+

The bleeding had slowed to a sluggish crawl by the time Remus stumbled out of his own fireplace and onto the dusty boards of his shack. The pain was no less, though, a constant, throbbing ache that reminded him of its presence with every heartbeat. Too exhausted to undress, he collapsed on his bed and fell asleep.

He dreamt that Sirius was sitting at the foot of his bed, a faint, silver form with no more substance than Nearly-Headless Nick. Remus reached out to him, his hand still dripping blood, but Sirius was just out of reach.

+

Remus didn't wake up until the afternoon. There were no owls from the Order, and since the Ministry had dictated that he would be unemployed until there was an upheaval in the government, nothing was preventing him from returning to Knockturn Alley.

Already dreading what he would see, Remus slowly unwrapped the cloth that Persephone had bound around his hand. The wound no longer bled, but an angry red scar gashed across his skin where his finger had once been, the finger that had been with him all his life and now lay at the bottom of a cauldron somewhere. He couldn't even bury it.

He couldn't bury Sirius.

But a dark kind of resolve had come over him; maybe he couldn't bury the finger, but perhaps he could see his lover again. He changed into a threadbare robe and with his good hand, threw down a cloud of Floo Powder to take him to Knockturn Alley.

He found Persephone Dell'Arta at the Serpent's Tail. Although it was only two o' clock, she was already halfway through a tall glass of absinthe.

"I was wondering when you'd turn up," she said.

"I've made it this far," he said, "I can't very well back out now, can I?"

She stood and motioned for him to follow. He thought that they would have gone back to the strange little room with the skulls and candles, but she was heading for the back of the pub to a private booth. He sat across from her, watching her drink and wishing that he had a drink of his own.

"Do you like absinthe, Remus?"

"I haven't drank it in a very long time," he admitted.

"There are so few bars that serve the genuine article," Persephone mused, "Fortunately, this is one of them." She took another slow sip, and asked, "How is your hand?"

She sounded concerned -- he hadn't expected that. "Er...fine," he said.

"No, it's not," Persephone said with a ghost of a smile, "And it probably never will be. You carry a little bit of death with you now, in your blood."

It would be a small price to pay, he thought, but he knew it wouldn't be the only one.

As if reading his thoughts, Persephone said, "Of course there's more to it than that. If all it took was someone's finger, people would be resurrecting each other all over the place."

"Just tell me what I need to do."

A look of contemplation crossed Persephone's face. She reached for something within the folds of her dress, hesitated for a moment, and then took it and placed it on the table. It was a small flask, the sort one might use at school for handing in Potions samples.

"What is it?" Remus asked, but Persephone's attention was diverted by the elderly waiter shuffling past their table.

"Two glasses of absinthe, please," Persephone said.

"It's two in the afternoon!" Remus protested.

The yellow eyes sparkled with a hint of laughter. "All the better. You'll be needing an early start."

Something in those innocent words -- no doubt meant as an attempt at levity, Remus told himself -- made him shiver. Still, he wasn't about to decline any diversion. Since his first encounter with Persephone, his heart had been hammering madly.

The waiter returned with absinthe in a bottle, two glasses, and a bowl of sugar cubes. Remus watched Persephone strain liquid from the bottle through the sugar and into her glass, the dull olive transforming into shimmering green. He followed her example when she had finished.

"I can think of few vices as exquisite as this one," Persephone said, "Perhaps love..."

He drank. It tasted of liquorice and wormwood, and he felt it burn all the way down his throat.

"Did you go to Hogwarts?" she asked. He nodded absentmindedly, caught up in the way the burn seemed to spread throughout his body.

"I went to Durmstrang," her voice pleasant, "It's a much more difficult curriculum, I gather. We had classes six days a week, and it was all in German. But I think we learned more, in the end..."

He wanted to tell her to get on with it, but somehow his mouth wouldn't work. There seemed to be a green cast to everything -- no, he corrected himself -- it was more of a green sound, or smell; everything was vibrating emerald. Remus giggled at the thought. Only belatedly did he realize that it was the first time he'd laughed since Sirius died.

Sirius. Be serious, he told himself, then giggled again.

"You have no alcohol tolerance," Persephone observed.

"Tonight's a full moon," Remus said, "I always get...strange around this time." He blinked, trying to clear the green fog from his eyes. "What do I need to do?"

"It shouldn't be hard," Persephone's voice lowered, and she removed the stopper of her flask. What she poured onto her fingers didn't look like a potion -- more like a powder -- and she leaned forward across the table to press her fingers against his forehead. "You are marked now, Remus Lupin," she continued in the same quiet tone, "You will be able to find her."

"Her?"

"Bellatrix Lestrange," Persephone spoke slowly, as if to a child or an idiot, "The woman who killed your lover."

"Why would I need to find her?" And not tonight, he thought in a sudden panic -- tonight is the full moon.

"Remus," Persephone said gently, "Isn't it obvious?"

"I'm not a killer."

"You're a good man," she said, "But your wolf, like all wolves, is a killer."

Remus swallowed hard. The absinthe-drunkenness was no longer at all pleasant.

"Sirius wouldn't want it this way."

This time, Persephone's laugh was a harsh cackle. "Remus, Remus. He died for his rashness, his anger, his impatience. He would do the same in your place." Finishing her drink, she stood up to leave. "If you decide to go through with this, bring back her ashes and meet me here again when the moon wanes."

+

He could feel the change beginning. For the last few years, he had locked himself in a cage behind his shack every month. He missed running underneath an open sky, but it couldn't be helped.

Now, consumed with grief and pain, Remus had his hand on the cage door and his head bowed. He knew what he would have done once. He knew what he was expected to do. But somehow, he couldn't open the door.

This isn't just for me, he thought, Bellatrix Lestrange deserves to die. She's a Death Eater -- she's tortured and killed and no prison will hold her. This is what the Order would want.

But he was not a murderer.

A faint thrill -- the call to the hunt -- coursed through the length of his body. This was his last chance to turn back -- to remain on the side of the light. He had to make a choice.

He chose...

+

And Remus became the wolf.

This time he was focused. The wolf-brain commanded him, urged him on to tear, to kill, but it would not be distracted by the myriad scents and noises of the London streets.

He was surrounded by prey, but they held no interest. He padded along the sidewalk, ignoring the human stares.

"...nice doggy..."

"...could bite stay away..."

He understood biting. He understood the feeling of rending flesh from bone.

He could smell her, the prey. Rage consumed the wolf-brain. The absence of its pack-mates was palpable.

The wolf saw in black and white. The tattoo on her arm burned through her sleeve.

He followed her as she slipped into a dark alley, silent. Both of them hunters. She sensed him, turned around.

There was a stick in her hand. The wolf growled.

"...stupefy!..." the blast missed, then, "...avada kev–"

He leapt for her throat before she could finish.

The ecstasy of hot blood filled the wolf's mouth. She beat at him with failing strength. He saw in black and white and red.

The woman made a cry like a wounded animal. A prey-cry. Disgust leaked into the wolf-brain. A hunter should die like a hunter, not a cornered rabbit.

He went in for the kill.

+

Remus awoke with a corpse in his arms.

He didn't feel any Darker. His left hand still hurt horribly, but there was no mark, no burn on his arm. He had taken a life, and he thought that he should be changed somehow, but he wasn't.

Give it time, he told himself.

He could vaguely remember the night before, but even still, he was shocked at the sight of what his wolf-self had done. Almost as an afterthought, he felt Bellatrix's ruined neck for a pulse, but it confirmed only what he knew already.

The tattered remains of his robes were stiff with the dead woman's blood, and he rose to his feet with difficulty. His guilt wouldn't bring her back -- and he was startled that he didn't feel that guilty.

Perhaps this was what becoming Dark felt like. Little by little, a change one didn't feel, until there was nothing left at all.

He wrapped her in a black plastic bag that he found in a dumpster and lifted her over one shoulder. In death, she was quite light, and the journey home was not difficult at all.

He burned the body in his backyard. The shack was guarded with several protection spells, and his Muggle neighbours noticed nothing.

+

Remus collected the ashes in a glass jar. For the next two days, he locked himself in the cage, ignoring the wolf's blood thirst and thwarted joy.

When Remus dreamt, he saw with his wolf-eyes. He ran beside a silver dog, beneath the silver moon.

+

When the moon waned, Remus took the glass jar and returned to the Serpent's Tail. He had to wait for almost an hour before Persephone floated inside. This time, she expressed no surprise at all that he had come.

"Do you have the ashes?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied.

"Don't look so glum, Remus," Persephone said, "Just think of how you'd feel if you had to kill someone innocent."

"I'd rather not," Remus said. But he couldn't help but think that he would, if that was what he had to do.

"Come home with me," Persephone said.

+

She put the ashes in the cauldron where -- presumably -- his finger was. He didn't look inside to check. Instead, he sat down among the red velvet pillows and stared into the eyes of the strange, unidentifiable skull.

"It's a Thestral," Persephone said, following his gaze.

"I thought it looked familiar," he replied.

"I find them quite beautiful," she said, "Don't you?"

"I'm afraid not," he said apologetically.

Persephone shrugged. "To each his own."

He watched her stir the cauldron in silence.

"Well?" he said after a pause.

"Well?" she echoed.

"There's something else, isn't there?"

She stopped stirring, and made her graceful way to where he was sitting. She knelt on the floor in front of him and took both his hands in hers.

"Poor Remus," she said softly, "You seem so tired."

'Spit it out," his voice a trace of the wolf's growl, "I've already killed. What more must I do?"

"Tell me about him."

He blinked, as if startled with a flash of light. "Pardon?"

"Tell me the story of your life together. And apart, if need be, but tell me what sort of man he was, what kind of man he made you."

"And that's all?"

Persephone said, "That's all. More or less."

So Remus leaned back against the red velvet cushions, and began to tell his story.

+

He told Persephone about the day he had met Sirius Black on the train to Hogwarts, how they had fought off two bigger boys who were making fun of Remus' tattered clothes, and how they had decided to be friends forever.

He told her about the night they had taken Waldo's Wake Up Pills to study for an exam and ended up spending three sleepless days together laughing uncontrollably.

He told her about how Sirius' eyes had looked when he had cornered Remus during the first day of the new moon and murmured, "Remi, I know what you are."

And he told her about the joy of the wolf and the dog as they wrestled each other in the tall grass.

And afterwards, lying in each other's arms while the morning squeezed past the distant hills and Sirius saying, "Moony, I think I'm falling in love with you."

+

He told her about the prank in the Shrieking Shack, and how Sirius had begged for forgiveness. And how, after a night alone in his bed, unable to sleep without the other's warmth, Remus had given it to him.

He told her how happy Sirius had been when James and Lily had named him as godfather to their son.

He told her about riding on Sirius' bike with the wind and the moonlight flowing through their hair, how it was like being the wolf without the pain and fear.

And he told her about the night that James and Lily had died, how he had gone searching for Sirius and wept for all he'd lost.

+

Remus told Persephone that in the moment he had realized that Sirius was innocent was the most beautiful moment of his life -- that he was free because Sirius was free.

He told her about his clandestine visits to 12 Grimmauld Place and making love while Kreacher and Mrs. Black complained loudly that the family was going to hell.

And at last, he told her about the gaping hole Sirius' death had opened in his heart, how life without the bright, burning flame of their love was like no life at all, how he would rather die than exist in this in-between place where death was all he had to look forward to. And for the first time since Sirius had died, Remus allowed himself to cry -- great, wracking sobs that shook his thin body. Persephone reached out to him, folded him in her arms, and kissed the top of his head.

"Sleep now, Remus," she whispered, "You've done well."

He looked up at her. In the haze of his tears, she looked like an angel.

He leaned in to kiss her, and tasted fire.

+

Persephone Dell'Arta waited for Remus to fall asleep. It didn't take long -- exhausted from the change to wolf-form and the stories he had told.

Her heart heavy, she made her way to the cauldron. The spell was nearly ready. She stirred together the blood, the flesh, the bone, the ashes, and finally, the single tear that rolled down her cheek.

It was always like this, she thought. The final step, the one that was hard for her. Remus Lupin would never know -- and just as well. The world did not need more necromancers.

She stirred, and she thought about bodies, and death, and sacrifice. She also thought of love, of life, and of longing.

And when she was finished, she bent down and placed one last, lingering kiss on the face of the man who she had come to love, to lose.

+

"Moony."

Remus fought to open his eyes against the weariness that demanded more sleep. He knew that voice. He knew...

"Paddy?"

A barking laugh -- he opened his eyes and found himself staring straight into the face of Sirius Black.

"Who else calls you Moony? Have you been drinking?"

Remus was afraid to look away, to blink, to discover that this was a dream or some absinthe-induced hallucination. "Where...what..."

Sirius waved a hand, a gesture to stop babbling. "You're at my house, mate. I found you passed out in Knockturn Alley -- care to explain what you were doing there in the first place? And what happened to your hand?"

"You were dead."

"You have been drinking, haven't you?"

"No...Paddy, you have to listen to me." And he told Sirius everything that had happened.

Sirius was silent for a moment, and then said, "Well, that does explain some things. Why don't we go upstairs?"

At a loss for words, Remus followed his lover up the creaking staircase.

Sirius was standing in front of the old tapestry, pointing at a name embossed with golden thread.

"Persephone Dell'Arta," Remus read, "1840 to 1875." He touched Sirius' arm with his good hand, trying to reassure himself that the other man was there, alive. "I suppose if I can believe in your resurrection I can believe that the necromancer who did it has been dead for several centuries."

"Oh, Moony," Sirius sighed, "I'm sorry about your hand."

He'd forgotten the pain -- it seemed so trivial, really, next to the warm, living body beside him. "Don't be," Remus said, "I'd cut off my head."

"Mmm," Sirius pulled him in for a searing kiss. "That wouldn't be any fun now, would it?"

"Are you really here?" Remus asked, "I mean, you're not going to...go away again?"

Sirius held him for a minute at arms' length. "I can't promise you much," he said, "I didn't exactly expect to die the first time, did I? Now don't cry, Moony," and he reached out to touch Remus' cheek. "As long as I'm here -- as long as either of us are here, I'm yours. I can promise you that."

Remus nodded. He wouldn't cry -- not now. There had been too much lost already, too much to make up for. He wouldn't cry when he could be kissing Sirius.

So he kissed Sirius, as the names of the dead fluttered on a fading tapestry behind them.