Memorabilia

Wintry sun washed the library with its pale, grayish light. He could feel the darkness sneaking amongst the domes: lurking between the ancient books like a wolf waiting for its prey. Madam Finch sat at the librarian escritoire, reading an old book. Blind, Remus thought, to the library's whispers. But not him. The magical scar on his neck throbbed with a strange pain. Yet, maybe he was only remembering the post factum pain? Memory had the peculiar capability to heal old scar tissues of oblivion.

Murky light outlined Sirius' profile against the darkness. James stood beside him, and Peter behind them. Remus watched the play from beyond the nearest aisle and allowed the guilt to nibble its way through him. Severus Snape sat not far away from them and worked diligently on his homework assignments.

Sirius raised his wand. Locks of raven black hair fell on his forehead, his pale face gleaming with vitality. Even back then he thought Sirius Black was impossibly beautiful. So lively, that the darkness could not touch him. Maybe it was the notion that nothing of the darkness which cleaved to Remus against his will would be able to touch Sirius, that drew him to the boy in the first place.

Sirius managed a simple elevating charm, causing the water glass that stood on Snape's desk to hover in the air.

Remus held his breath.

A feminine, annoyed voice cut through the silence.

-"Sirius Black! I'd suggest you rethink whatever it is you're doing!"

Oh, yes, he mused. Lily Evans, always on time. Snape raised his head and saw the four marauders standing just behind him. Remus remembered the hatred in Snape's eyes. Hatred that strum a single note, hollow and screeching, somewhere in the depths of Remus' soul and left him even more helpless. An hour later he found himself strolling on the Hogwarts' lawns, a cool wind slapping his face and disheveling his honey colored hair. Slanted sunrays glinted upon the silver strands he failed to conceal.

Two years earlier, Sirius caught him unready. He dragged Remus in front of the big mirror in their dormitory, and asked him why silver hanks should be entwined in the hair of a thirteen-year-old boy.

Remus was silent. Black's eyes: huge, shimmering, gypsy's eyes, were staring at him from the mirror. Remus noticed the sadness and concern that was filling them.

"I know," Sirius said, at last.

Remus clenched his teeth angrily. The animalistic, primitive rage of the wolf - the wolf that never completely left him - had always successfully defended Remus against his own helplessness.

-"Know what?"

Sirius reached over and crudely pulled away Remus' shirt, exposing the magical scar burning on the curve of the other boy's neck.

-"Know you're a werewolf," Sirius answered coldly.

He wasn't ready for the horror that filled him. His muscles tensed with the inhuman, existential fear of the animal that knows it has been trapped. Remus quieted. A second later, he shook Sirius off him, shoving Black so hard that the other boy had been plastered against the wall.

"S...Sirius?" Perplexed, Remus watched his friend lying on the floor, his mane of dark hair hiding his beautiful features. He kneeled, shaking Sirius, overwhelmed by another kind of fear: like the hornet's larva, eating its way out of the ladybug's insides in which his mother laid it. "Black! Sirius! Answer me!"

The fist explosion in his face made Remus curl up in a ball. He cursed, fighting Sirius, who leaned above him and pinned him to the hard, cool floor.

-"What the hell did you think you were doing??" Sirius growled.

"Fuck you, Sirius. And get your filthy paws off me," Remus spat. "I have to go packing."

"Packing!? What the hell are you talking about?"

"To pack my stuff. So I can leave Hogwarts after they expel me."

"Why should anyone expel you!?"

Remus moaned.

-"After you've told them I'm a werewolf. Sirius, I can't breath like that."

"Tell them??" Sirius asked, astounded.

"Yes! What parent did you think would agree to have their children learning with a werewolf?"

Sirius blinked.

-"I don't know...- why exactly do you- you think I told everybody, right? Is that what you think? I should break your nose just for thinking so, Remus, you bloody idiot-"

"You... you didn't tell them?"

The laughter coming from Sirius' direction made Remus rise up with astonishment. Black sprawled on the floor beside Remus, his body tangling with spasms of hysterical laughter.

-"You're an idiot Remus. Just an idiot. You know that?"

Remus clenched his fists, suppressing the urge to beat Sirius senseless.

-"Thank you. Really thank you." He rose to his feet, and then kicked Sirius, who made him stumble.

"Idiot," Sirius grumbled. "You're my best friend Lupin. Why the hell, did you think I would hand you over to them?"

Remus closed his eyes, fighting to hold back the tears. The magical scar in the curve of his neck burned with crazy throbs of pain. "Because I... Because I... I..."

"That's what you think of me?"

"No, Sirius. Shit. I'm-"

"Sorry?" Sirius suggested with scorn. He shrugged, stood up, and offered his hand to Remus who was still lying on the floor. "Come on."

He caught Sirius' outstretched hand.

"You're shaking," Sirius said dryly.

"No, I'm not."

"You're shaking." The word echoed in his mind, years later.

"No, I'm not." The same answer. Again.

Sirius was standing in front of him, his shoulders slumped and his face paler then its usual ivory.

"I'm sorry Moony."

Remus turned his face.

-"You're always sorry."

"I... you know Snape! You know how he can be! Look at me, damn you- I was angry, I talked before thinking-"

"You always talk before you think!" Remus barked furiously.

He could still sense the wolf's hunger. The foreign, intoxicating sweetness of human flesh had been carried to his sensitive snout. The wolf rose up and tried to gore his way out of the shrieking shack. The boy who was the wolf locked the shack, before the full moon had risen and changed his form. The wolf growled. The scent maddened him. The scent enraged the wolf's blood with swirl of endorphins. Frustrated, he shoved against the door, howling and scratching. Blind to the pain caused by the wood chips that tore into his flesh, stabbing his sensitive paws.

"I'm sorry, Remus!"

Sirius was definitely sorry. Sirius was always sorry when something went wrong. Sirius had always been sorry when he got everyone into trouble, and always charmed his way out of these troubles. He was sorry now, too, after he revealed his best friend's secret and almost drove this friend to commit a murder.

'How could you?' he asked himself voicelessly. "How could I be so innocent and trust you? To think someone like me can be more than an excuse to get into trouble for someone like you.'

Sirius loved to think of himself as a werewolf's friend. And Remus knew Sirius. Life was an everlasting shot of adrenaline for the tall, handsome boy. He never halted to think. He never halted to feel. He never halted long enough to enable the plain routine of everyday life to defile his breath-taking beauty. To lock him in a transparent cage of rules and regulations that was natural to every other person. 'You're a pricking idiot, Lupin.' Remus cursed himself. 'Sirius Black is not meant for anybody, especially not for a creature like you.'

Sirius bit his lips, his voice sore and raw with restrained emotions.

-"You're shaking Remus."

"Look at me!" He cried at last. "The hell with you. Look at me!"

Remus had tiredly lifted his gaze. Sirius' face sharpened, then blurred.

Shit.

Black's eyes wavered with pain. Remus noticed a thin arc of molten gold rimming the dark irises.

-"I'm sorry."

Remus swallowed hard, reaching his hand to shift a stray lock that fell on Sirius' face.

Then Sirius kissed him. Soft lips brushed Remus' mouth: feather light, almost non-substantial touch.

"Sirius..." Exhausted, he let his eyes shut and collapsed against the wall.

Sirius' fingers gently hovered on his face, skimming down the curve of his jaw, and lower, to the place where a high-pitched collar concealed a half-moon of scar tissue.

-"Can I...?"

Remus nodded.

Sirius extended his hand, skimming a single finger along the magical wound. Iron-hot, metallic pain shot from the scar, like tens of sharpened claws reaching to tear Remus' skin.

Pain.

The full moon was a magical scar against the night's sky. He ran. Ran. The moon silvered his fur, and the wolf ran. Away from the thoughts that haunted him. Away from the searing pain. The pain did not belong to him. The pain belonged to the human. The pain belonged to the slender man whose face whitened when he heard the terrible news.

...James...

...Lily...

...James... the name floated on the edge of the wolf's cognition. James. The name was empty. Meaningless. Powerless in the wolf's world.

James...

...Prongs

The wolf thought of a golden, magnificent stag, easily maneuvering in the depth of the forbidden forest. The wolf remembered the stag's scent. He halted, raising his eyes to gaze at the moon.

An abysmal howl, full of grieving, broke out of the wolf's chest. He threw his head, the moon's silvery light glinting in his dark eyes, and howled again. Somewhere in the distance, another wolf halted and listened to his brother's sorrowful wail. The moon cast its pale light upon the forbidden forest. Amongst the treetops echoed the heartbreaking howls of his brother wolves.

Sirius... Long, sobbing howl was ripped off the wolf's lungs. ...Padfoot.

How could you...?

He remembered a huge dog shoving him playfully. Rubbing its moistened snout against the wolf. The wolf remembered the dog's wild run; the scent of his fur. He remembered a callused palm on a lean shoulder. Ripples of night colored hair splashed on his abdomen. The wolf and the dog, running. Running. Above a hollow, moss covered trunk. Along a clearing upholstered with dry leafs that cracked under their paws. Under a full, expressionless, moon.

When he woke up in the shrieking shack three days afterwards, the human's throat was sore.

Remus was lying on the dusty floor. Golden sunlight washed over his naked body; illuminated the old scars, illuminating the new scars. The rusty scent of congealed blood tickled his nostrils. The taste of betrayal filled his mouth with abstract, tragic bitterness. One he swore never to feel again. Bitterness that resurrected the hand-puppets theatre of his childhood.

Sirius Black was impossibly beautiful... he thought silently.

So lively, that the darkness could not touch him...

Sirius Black is not meant for anybody, especially not for a creature like you...

He did not understand. He did not even pretend to understand. All he wanted was to shut down the mocking voices that ripped his heart like glass fragments. The parquet floor of the shrieking shack was contaminated with ancient blood. Remus felt the blood flooding his body, leaking out of ripped-up vessels, streaming in his abdomen's cavity and trickling down his face as salty tears. Memories of blood realized in his head, and he let them materialize and then flow away.

Helpless.

Hopeless.

Later, on the train that carried him away, to a life without James and Lily and Peter - to a life deprived of Sirius Black - Remus remembered one morning of prankster. He remembered a beautiful boy who raised his wand in order to parachute a glass of water on a sworn enemy's head. Green landscape splashed against the windowpanes, and Remus laughed bitterly. Laughed. Laughed... Laughed...

~Fin~