Hereafter

People keep things. Photographs, letters, notes, ticket stubs, receipts - all the odds and ends that make a record of what you've done, and when, and most importantly, with whom. Remus Lupin uses them as tinder.

It's not that he ever made a conscious decision to destroy them. It's just that when he finds them, slipped into the pages in his books, or crumpled in the corner of a trunk, he can't see any reason to keep them.

He doesn't need a photograph to remember the way James' hair stood out in an untidy mess. He doesn't need the letter congratulating him to remember how proud he was of being named a prefect.

He doesn't want the slightly pathetic, slightly naughty postcards Peter always sent from the seaside. He tries not to think about the anxious, eager boy who'd sent them, or the fretful, nervous man he'd barely had time to become.

He doesn't want the dozens of notes and letters in Sirius' hand, heavy strokes of black ink that sprawl across the page. And he certainly doesn't want to remember the confident, charming boy who wrote them, or the arrogant, treacherous man rotting in Azkaban.

And so, one by one, he's consigned them to the fire, watched them curl and burn, knowing that their destruction won't make a bit of difference in what he does and doesn't remember. Occasionally, he comes across something he feels he has to save. The formal portrait of his parents, in which his mother keeps straightening his father's collar, is in the photo album he never looks at. The last letter he ever got from Lily (six sentences, five of them about Harry) is inside the cover of a book of poetry he never reads.

After ten years and a dozen moves, he's surprised when he still finds things. Like this.

It has tumbled out of a book, and at first glance it is nothing significant - a card from a chocolate frog - the sort of thing you grab as a bookmark if you're in a rush.

The memory comes back in a rush that makes his breath catch in his chest. He's surprised, though he's not sure if he's surprised by the force with which he remembers, or the fact that he forgot in the first place.

It had been the day after the full moon. It had been a particularly unpleasant transformation (and that, Remus thinks, is saying something). He had spent it alone. James had been with Lily, who they had just learned was expecting Harry. Peter had been off with one of the Prewett brothers on Order business (Remus can never remember if it was Fabian or Gideon). And Sirius - Sirius had sent an owl with a note that just read, "Sorry I can't make it tonight. Catch up to you when I can. S.B." It had not been signed "Padfoot." That Remus remembers, even if he burned the note eight years ago.

Remus had spent the night in some place very small and very dark. He wasn't sure what its original purpose had been - a wine cellar maybe. He'd found the door unlocked when he'd woken up, bloody and bruised, and human again. Whoever had unlocked the door (Sirius? Peter?) had not stuck around or tried to wake him.

He was tired and hungry and sore when he reached the dismal little shack the Order used. (James' insistence on calling it the "Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Dark Lord Resistance Front" had not made it any grander). He'd been hoping to find Sirius - though he doesn't like to admit it, even all these years later - but the place seemed deserted. Something had upset the easy balance he and Sirius had always had. Remus tried talking to James about it once, but either James had been so distracted by Lily and the coming baby that he hadn't noticed, or nothing had changed in James and Sirius' friendship.

Remus wandered, distracted, into the kitchen. There was usually food in the cupboards - bread, fruit, sweets, biscuits - the sorts of things that can sit out for hours or days, unattended, and not spoil. He was about to start rummaging through the cupboards when he sensed that he was not alone. He spun around, wand out and ready.

"If I were going to curse you, Lupin," said the woman in the corner, "you'd already be dead. You were hardly being cautious. Or stealthy."

Remus sheepishly put his wand back in his pocket. "Sorry. I was buried in thought."

"Good way to get yourself buried in the churchyard these days," Marlene McKinnon said, setting aside the book she was reading. She looks him up and down, eyes cool and appraising. "Do I want to know what happened to the other guy?" she asked, indicating the scratches on his face, the bite mark on his arm, the blood that trickled down to his wrist from a cut on his elbow that he kept reopening.

"I got him," was all Remus said. He opened the drawer in which they stored the bandages.

"Do you need help?"

"I've got it, thanks." He wrapped up his elbow, and looked around the kitchen. "Tea?"

"That would be lovely, thank you," Marlene said.

"No, I meant, is there any tea?"

"There will be if you make some."

"Right." He put the kettle on, and she went back to her book.

"What are you reading?" he asked, though he hated it when people did that to him. But he was sort of desperate for human interaction just then. Marlene almost managed to mask her sigh as she handed him the book.

"Shakespeare's Tragedies. Really? Why?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, getting up to make the tea.

"Seems an odd time to read tragic Muggle plays, doesn't it?"

"You don't really think William Shakespeare was all Muggle, do you?"

"Never thought about it," Remus admitted. "But still, isn't there enough tragedy right now without reading more? If you must read Shakespeare, why not do the comedies? Midsummer. Or Comedy of Errors."

"I finished them last week." She took the book back, handed him a cup of tea. "I've always said I wanted to read all of Shakespeare before I died. And so I thought I had better get on it, since that could be tomorrow, after all."

Remus started slightly. He knew they could all die at any time, but he'd never heard anyone refer to it so matter-of-factly before.

"Were you looking for someone?" she asked. "Because I'm the only one here."

Yes. "No. Not anyone in particular, that is. Just checking in. You?"

"Supposed to be meeting Edgar, but he's late." There was a pause, and Remus suspected they were both wondering if Edgar Bones was tardy late or dead late.

"Chocolate frog?" she asked, breaking the silence. "Someone left a couple in the cupboard."

"Sure. You want one, too?"

"Thanks."

He tossed it across the room to her, and for a moment the only sound was the rustling of packages opening. Then she asked, "Who'd you get?"

"Paracelsus. Again. You have it?"

"I've had it for thirty years," she said, laughing, "but I think Miranda needs it, if you don't want it."

"Take it," he said. "What about you?"

"Queen Maeve. Must have a dozen of her at home. They need some new cards."

"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Marlene," Edgar Bones said, hurrying into the kitchen. "Ran into a bit of trouble on the way."

"Are you all right?"

"Yes."

"Good. Let's get this done, then, shall we? It's Imogen's birthday; I promised I'd try to be home in time for dinner." She turned to Remus. "Thanks for Paracelsus, Miranda will be thrilled. And do read some Shakespeare when you get a chance."

Remus was left alone with his cooling tea. He looked around the kitchen, and then decided to see if Lily and James felt like having company for dinner. He could pick up something to take along. Wine, maybe. He poured the rest of the tea into the sink, and set off. James and Lily were not home. Remus went back to his flat, drank the entire bottle of wine, and fell asleep on his couch.

Marlene had made it home for dinner that night. The Death Eaters had killed them at the kitchen table - Marlene, her husband, both girls, leaving the candles burning on Imogen's cake, melted wax making rivers through the icing. Three days later, Remus found the book of tragedies in the kitchen, page still marked with the Queen Maeve card. He opened to the page she'd left off on and read:

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.

Remus slammed the book shut, dropped it on the counter. But he took the card with him. And two years later, Remus bought a complete set of Shakespeare in a rummage shop, forty perfectly matched volumes, red cloth bindings, titles stamped in gold.

Since then, he's read and reread thirty-six plays (thirty-seven if you count Two Noble Kinsmen), all 154 sonnets, and the four long poems, but he's never opened Macbeth.

Remus looks at Maeve, smiling up from the card that has fallen to the floor, and he looks at the fire in the grate. He hesitates for a moment, picks up the card, and crosses to the bookcase. He pulls Macbeth from its place between Love's Labour's Lost and Measure for Measure, and slips the card inside the front cover. He holds the book for a long moment, runs his fingers over the title, and then hurls the book into the fireplace and watches it burn.