Disclaimer: All characters from the Harry Potter universe belong to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Scholastic Inc., AOL/Time Warner and associated companies. No offence, legal or otherwise, is intended by the online publication of this story. Neither is profit. Make love, not lawsuits!
Notes: An alternative universe. What if Remus were the one imprisoned, and Sirius the one on the outside? Quotes taken from Jack London's The Call of the Wild and White Fang. Both are novels any wolf-person knows and loves well.
No Longer Bound
by
* * *
2000 - Summer
The house is just as you remember it, only brighter--even more flowers at the front as James gets carried away with his research. You walk down the garden path slowly, feeling the magic of forced natural growth ripple around you. It teases the hair on your arms, lifts your spirits. Only when your eyes fall on James' new addition to the garden, an explosion of color by the side fence, do your feet stop as if frozen.
Lupins.
A beautiful haze of lupins, their strangely intense non-scent rising in the air, enveloping you like a mist. Like skin. Remus. They are a deep, vicious purple, the color of bruises--but their edges lighten to a pink so painfully delicate that you want to take the flowers in your hands and crush them, until your fingers are stained with the sweet blood of their sap, and those soft petals are torn silk against your skin. You think of Remus' long back, summer-bronzed, all those years ago, stretching out by the Great Lake. You remember each indentation of that back, even though you never touched it--not without layers of cloth in between, and only in jest. Each sweat-slicked hollow of it, and--
'Sirius?'
Your breath freezes in your throat, but you don't turn around. 'Yes?'
There is laughter in Lily's voice. 'I know James does wonderful work on the garden, but really, you should come in.' But then her gaze must have found the flowers you are staring at, because she says, more quietly, 'How is Remus?'
Your hands are slick with sweat in your pockets.
'Fine,' you say, still not turning around. 'He's fine.'
* * *
2000 - Winter
When they let you visit him it's winter again, and cold, and your fingers fold numb in your pocket around Dumbledore's note. Your boots leave crescent-shaped scars in the snow as you trudge across the central grounds, to that office with its small window all gold and light. All hope. It's ridiculous, of course, that the light should seem hopeful. It's a prison, after all--a prison where they keep him, well-fed with warm tea and food, but prison nonetheless.
* * *
2001 - Summer
They scrutinize your permission slip, signed by Dumbledore and stamped by the Ministry. The werewolf's guardian, yes. The only one allowed to visit him.
'Mr Black.'
You turn to see a young nurse, gold-nibbed quill tucked behind her ear. A new one again. She smiles at you, and you find your mouth curling in response--but it must look more like a snarl, because her own smile wavers.
'I... I'm here to take you to Mr Lupin, sir. If you'd... follow me?'
* * *
2001 - Winter
His room is in the lycanthropy ward, of course. You blink to see the sign--it's still so odd, to think of Remus here, to think...
* * *
2002 - Summer
'Sirius.'
His smile is warm, tired--same as always. The light dusting of grey on his temples makes him look more weary, and yet kinder somehow. Kind wolf.
'Remus.'
You stare at him through the wards--you can't touch him, of course--they won't allow a certified werewolf within bite-range of anybody. His own hands are folded quietly in his lap, as if he knows he can't touch you either.
'... How are things?'
He's speaking. Asking. Such a pointless question, and he knows it, but it's strange what a compulsion courtesy is, even through electrocution wards and a year-long wall of silence.
'As usual.' You fidget--this is ridiculous. 'Albus is still trying to get the Ministry to repeal the Were Treaty--if you--'
'Sirius.'
Your head snaps up. 'Yes?'
'Let's not talk about that.'
There is an uncomfortable silence. 'Okay.'
His fingers aren't calm anymore--are plucking restlessly at his trousers. The same ones they made him wear last time, you realize. The same pattern--lines of dark grey and blue. 'How is James? And Lily?'
Back to safe ground. 'Bickering, as usual.' He smiles at that. 'You know how it is. I can't visit without seeing another fight--and then they're making up, of course, no more than two days afterwards.'
Remus chuckles. 'The path of true love never did run smooth.'
For a moment his eyes flicker up to you--unnervingly sharp amber--but then they've moved away again, and the beat of shock in your chest echoes like a scream. The path...
You don't wait for him to ask you this time. The book's there, heavy in your knapsack, and so close to the very last chapter. You reach for it quickly. Before Remus says anything else. Before he makes it worse.
* * *
2002 - Winter
'Did you bring the book?'
Through the pounding in your ears, you manage to nod. Pull it out from your knapsack. The same ritual--year after year, whenever you visit. A few minutes of barely tolerable small-talk--James, Lily, politics--and then the book--the reading. The only thing you can give him here... The only glimpse of freedom. You don't leave the book for him to read, you don't leave it at St Mungo's. Because you know it won't mean the same thing to him--what it means when you read it to him, a man who's seen what he's seen, has run bare-paw along the gullies of the Forbidden Forest, has sniffed fur and growled and licked wounds clean in a stream's glittering shallow.
The wolf in his eyes still shines golden when you read him these lines. It shines now--as you open the book, caress its pages--glance up at him before beginning to read. You don't need to tell him this is the last chapter--how, after years of reading, you have finally come to the end. He knows it--because he knows this book, backwards and forwards, from when both of you were young. When he lay sun-bronzed by the lake, and you read to him...
* * *
2003 - Summer
'In the summers there is one visitor, however, to that valley, of which the Yeehats do not know. It is a great, gloriously coated wolf, like, and yet unlike, all other wolves. He crosses alone from the smiling timber land and comes down into an open space among the trees. Here a yellow stream flows from rotted moose-hide sacks and sinks into the ground, with long grasses growing through it and vegetable mold overrunning it and hiding its yellow from the sun; and here he muses for a time, howling once, long and mournfully, ere he departs.
'But he is not always alone. When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows or throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack...'
His fingers are still on the grey-blue trousers. The last echoes of your voice fade from the room, but he's not looking at you--his eyes are far away, gleaming amber-gold, focused on the window beyond your shoulder. You know that the wards stop him, but you can see his soul outside already, paws swift and rough, warm grass beneath, running far out across the field.
'The last lines.'
His voice startles you. You stop staring at his mouth--which looked so free, for a moment, almost smiling.
'Yes.' The last lines.
The silence is intolerable. He won't say anything more to you--won't look at you--and you wish again that you could touch him, through the wards--run your palm along those smooth shoulders and that flawlessly shaven chin.
When you leave him he's still sitting there, facing the window--only his eyes are closed now, and he looks like any ordinary man, tired, trapped, unable to get away. There is no wolf-shine to his eyes when they're closed. For a moment you remember the scent of him, that night you'd slept by the lake--that scent of musk and fur and water--earth and sweat and leaves. You don't want to think what he must feel like now, confined to a room with barren walls, pale feet pacing, pacing... no song of bird or bone to sing through his ears, to crack across his jaws.
* * *
2003 - Winter
You are at James' and Lily's house when you get the news. The fire is warm and your feet sink into the carpet, listening to them banter as you cradle your wine. It is no surprise when there is a tap on the kitchen window--the evening post, no doubt.
James comes to sit next to you, still talking, as Lily moves off to open the window.
Something strikes you as wrong when she falls suddenly silent.
There are a few moments of quiet, in which James looks mildly surprised and glances towards the kitchen. 'Lily?'
A sudden sobbing sound.
'Lily?' James is up now, heading towards the kitchen, glancing worriedly back at you.
There is a cold stone in the pit of your stomach--and suddenly you know--suddenly you know what has happened.
It comes as no surprise, five minutes later, when you hear James' shout and the smashing of glass. When you walk to the kitchen and see Lily kneeling on the floor, crying, rocking back and forth as she holds a crumpled parchment in her hands. James is still shouting no he can't he wouldn't he CAN'T, and the owl perches calmly on the window-sill, blue Ministry ribbon tied about its leg.
You don't think if you're being gentle as you pry the letter from Lily's fingers. You don't think if you're being kind, when you smooth the letter over the kitchen counter as James crouches next to her, putting his arms around her loosely. Not tight at all. Not tight.
You don't think about what the words mean, as you read them.
Four days ago, a week before your scheduled visit, Remus Lupin killed himself. He convinced a new nurse to let him perform his toilette alone--and when she'd returned to his room a few hours later, to re-check the wards, she'd found him prone on the floor of his room. Eyes a dull, sightless amber--blood pooling beneath him from cuts to his throat with razor blades.
* * *
2004 - Summer
Remus didn't leave you any letters. Not you--not anyone. Not James or Lily or even, heaven forbid, Peter. Not Dumbledore. Not the fucking Ministry, still caught over the uproar of a werewolf's death--civil libertarians popping out of every corner now, demanding better treatment for were prisoners. Rita Skeeter penning vengeful articles with glee. How many owls have you gotten, requesting interviews? How many cameras have flashed as you step out of your home? The werewolf's guardian, you hear them whisper. And sometimes: The werewolf's lover.
None of it makes any difference. The Ministry shows no sign of budging on its policies, and this craze will die down too. Just as you will soon be able to look at trees, at grass, at free things without flinching. It's all too much--and it's all too pointless--and it's all--
The book lies heavy in your knapsack.
The book you would have read to him--would have started reading to him, now that the other one had finished.
A single candle-lamp lights your desk against the summer night. It's far too warm for this time of year, and your glass of chilled coffee slides wetly with condensation beneath your fingers. A quiet hoot from the corner tells you that your owl is asleep.
Slowly, slowly, your hands reach for it. Trace along the cloth of its binding, this work of an odd Muggle writer obsessed with wolves. Its pages filled with rough wilderness and swift currents--sounds and visions that you fed Remus on, every visit you paid him for so many years.
A cricket chirps outside, and the lamp's light flickers over the yellow page. You run your fingers over it and breathe in its old ink--pronounce the title hoarsely. Your voice comes out unpractised, rough--not the smooth baritone you know he loved. How long has it been since you've spoken to anyone?
It doesn't matter. You can't explain to yourself why you open the book now, to the page you most wanted to read to him. Why you feel as if you're not alone, in this small house of yours--why you feel as if there's a pair of amber eyes, distant and fixed on the window, smooth shoulders warm beneath a thin cotton shirt, willing ears listening to your voice as you begin to read.
'Night came on, and a full moon rose high over the trees into the sky, lighting the land till it lay bathed in ghostly day... The last tie was broken. Man and the claims of man no longer bound him.'
That sense of company fades with your words, and you realize how ridiculous you are--reading a book to a dead man, to a dead wolf, to a soul trapped between the two that you had loved--that perhaps, in your folly, you still love.
No longer bound, the wind whispers. A sudden gust of it rushes past the window and onto the book, riffling its pages wildly. You don't cast a charm to protect the lamp. A few moments of cool breeze, in which you close your eyes.
When you open them, the lamp's gone out.