Title: "Delay"
Author: monimala
Fandom: HP-OoTP
Rating/Classification: PG, S/R, angst.
Disclaimer: Nope. J.K. Rowling owns all.
Summary: Death cannot stop true love. Or the longest day of Remus Lupin's life.
No one takes notice of him, the shabbily dressed man who disappears into the nothingness between houses. His joints are stiff. He doesn't quite bend at the knees and elbows. He walks like an old man, or someone who's
drunk too much firewhiskey, teetering unsteadily.
He hits the wall several times, as if he's forgotten its existence. "Sorry," he says, hoarsely, to the base of the stairs, and the word rips at his throat like a blade.
There is noise. Tinny, distant shrieks from the portrait that hangs
only a few feet away. "Blood traitor! Half-breed! Abomination! Filthy beast!"
The house is empty. He knows not to whom she speaks. Not to her loyal servant, Kreacher. Surely not to the hippogriff tethered in the topmost
bedroom.
Certainly not to him.
Because he isn't here.
He's anywhere but here.
He's at St. Mungo's with Kingsley, making sure Tonks will be all right. She smiles weakly, as he leaves the ward, the bright color fading from her hair, turning it dark.
He's at Hogwarts, catching Molly and Arthur in the corridor outside the
hospital wing. He pats Molly on the shoulder as she clutches him and weeps, reminding her that her children will heal. That Harry will survive this as he's survived so much else.
No.
He's back at the Department of Mysteries. Alone. After all the others
have Apparated, and the Death Eaters have been taken to Azkaban. He is on
the dais, tugging at the veil, chiding at the sheer, tattered, cloth, "Come on. That's enough. You can come back." He taps his foot, impatiently, speaking over the unintelligible whispers. "Harry's in a right state, you know. I...I had to hold him back. But he broke away. He actually went after Bellatrix. F-foolish boy. Couldn't he see I was only trying to protect him? I know I told him you were gone...I know I did...but, really, you ought to come out now."
The laughter rings out and he appears, sweeping his hair back, no less
arrogant than their school days. "Can't take a joke, old Moony? You weren't really thinking I'd let that cow Bella kill me, were you? You really think I'd leave?"
"No. No, of course not." And he laughs, too, helpless against the spark in Sirius's eyes. "You always come back."
Always.
"Sorry," he says, colliding with the screaming portrait, crumpling into
a heap on the threadbare rug beneath it.
They left the bed unmade this morning, the sheets rumpled comfortably
like their life together.
They were playing a game of wizard's chess this afternoon. He knows the board is still set up by the fire in the kitchen. Half the pieces strewn
about and broken, the other half frozen in check.
"Sorry," he says again, as he covers his face with his hands, as his shoulders begin to heave.
They never kiss in front of others. Too many years of old-fashioned
British repression and propriety. "We do not snog. We throb with sincere
longing," James used to laugh, just as he was hooking an arm around Lily's waist and drawing her close. So, they throbbed in the doorway of Grimmauld
Place, just before leaving for the Ministry. Fingers lacing, squeezing, their eyes communicating what their lips could repeat later.
"Be careful."
"Why would I want to be *careful*, Remus?"
"Well, then. At the least, stay alive."
"You know I'll always come home."
Always.
Sirius always comes back to him.
He has nothing left now but time.
He will wait.
After he weeps.
--end--
June 27, 2004.