Happy Birthday, Pale Moonlite!
Jun. 3rd, 2010 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kelly_chamblissA brief, belated, beta-less, bad-but-I-only-had-a-couple-hours-to-write-it birthday ficlet for the brilliant, beautiful, brainy pale_moonlite
Remus Lupin on his 34th birthday...
March 10, 1994
Remus Lupin stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom of his teacher's quarters at Hogwarts. He wasn't looking at himself; he wasn't really looking at anything at all. He didn't need the mirror to tell him, either by its snarky words or by his own reflection, that he looked at least two decades older than his 34 years -- and a hard two decades they appeared to have been, too.
Thirty-four. He was 34 years old today. How had that happened? Part of him was astounded to think that he'd made it so far: few werewolves lived more than a decade or so beyond their first biting. Yet here he was, still breathing, still caring, still fighting for the good as best he was able.
Still changing with every moon.
Another part of him was shocked at how quickly the years had passed. Sometimes he still woke with a start, certain that he was late for Transfiguration, cursing James for not having called to him, realising only slowly that he wasn't a student any longer, but a professor, with his own private suite and office.
In the days when he had been a student, he'd never given a thought to professors' personal lives or rooms. If he'd been asked, he'd probably have agreed that the teachers had to live somewhere, but then again, he wouldn't have been completely surprised to hear that they were simply put away after class and dinner and detention, transfigured into desks or blackboards and left in a classroom overnight until it was time to transform them back into teachers again.
He'd been so young then. They all had, of course, he and his Marauder friends. So young and so sure of themselves and so completely ignorant of everything that mattered. Prongs and Wormtail and Padfoot. They hadn't been nice boys, or kind boys; they had hurt more people than they'd helped. He knew that now. But he had loved them. Still loved them, in fact -- his Prongs and his Wormtail. And his Padfoot.
Now James and Peter were dead, and there was only Sirius left. Only Sirius, who was out there somewhere, desperate and on the run, and neither he nor Remus had been boys for a very long time.
Shaking his head as if he could possibly shake away his memories, Remus finally focused on his face in the mirror and scowled at himself. Then he watched his lips move into a shamefaced half-grin as he gave up the scowl as a bad job. Severus Snape might offer a grimace that could terrify at fifty paces; Minerva McGonagall might possess a glare that could silence the entire Great Hall, but the best that he, Remus, could muster in the scowl department was a sort of worried frown.
He pushed his hair off his forehead and barely noticed when it fell back again, the thinning strands framing tired eyes. He was thinking of how Padfoot had liked to muss his hair, back in the days before it (and so many things) had turned grey.
Padfoot had liked a lot of things about him then, and Remus had liked. . .no, had loved him in return. They had joined bodies and spirits and selves and had known each other with a knowing that lived in the bone, a knowing that transcended even the most of plausible tales of betrayal and murder.
Remus knew. That's why he had never really been able to believe that Padfoot had killed Peter and a dozen Muggles or had forsaken James and Lily. His head might believe it, his reason might accept it.
But his heart never would.
Well. There was no time for regrets, birthday or no birthday. There was work to be done -- work that Remus loved, that he was unendingly grateful to Dumbledore for providing. He'd best get on with it.
He splashed water on his face and then Summoned a towel. He'd go to his classes; he'd oversee the afternoon's gobstones tournament. In the evening he'd give Harry his regular lesson in fending off dementors, and he'd do his best to forget that on this day sixteen years ago, a wickedly-grinning Sirius Black had appeared at his flat to announce that they were going out for a birthday dinner. And had then Apparated them both to the island of Mykonos.
They'd eaten inky seafood stew and thick bread in a tiny cafe on the waterfront. They'd drunk much more ouzo than had been good for them. And they'd made love on the chilly sand, protected by the warmth of a charm and each other's arms.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The day proceeded as uneventfully as Remus could have wished. No one mentioned his birthday. Lunch and dinner passed without the eruption of sparklers and cake that marked students' birthdays, and no banners and balloons and champagne appeared in the staff room, the way they had done for Fliltwick. ("Albus periodically decides that we need to suffer through a celebration," Minerva had told Remus dryly, as the balloons had turned into smiling faces that sang a cheerful birthday song.)
Still, Dumbledore did twinkle at him a little more brightly than usual over dinner. So when Remus retired to his rooms at the end of the day, he wasn't altogether surprised to see a gaily-wrapped package occupying the table in his sitting room.
There was no message or card, not even the phoenix feather by which Dumbledore often "signed" himself. Still, Remus couldn't imagine who else would give him a present; no one else at the school could know it was his birthday, and no one outside the school would care.
He touched his wand to the box cautiously; anonymous gifts weren't always to be trusted, and he'd be stupid not to check for hexes or jinxes. The present could be almost anything.
But it wasn't. It wasn't jinxed, nor was it "anything." It was a bottle of ouzo.
And Remus stood motionless, cradling it, long after the wrapping had Vanished.
pale_moonliteRemus Lupin on his 34th birthday...
March 10, 1994
Remus Lupin stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom of his teacher's quarters at Hogwarts. He wasn't looking at himself; he wasn't really looking at anything at all. He didn't need the mirror to tell him, either by its snarky words or by his own reflection, that he looked at least two decades older than his 34 years -- and a hard two decades they appeared to have been, too.
Thirty-four. He was 34 years old today. How had that happened? Part of him was astounded to think that he'd made it so far: few werewolves lived more than a decade or so beyond their first biting. Yet here he was, still breathing, still caring, still fighting for the good as best he was able.
Still changing with every moon.
Another part of him was shocked at how quickly the years had passed. Sometimes he still woke with a start, certain that he was late for Transfiguration, cursing James for not having called to him, realising only slowly that he wasn't a student any longer, but a professor, with his own private suite and office.
In the days when he had been a student, he'd never given a thought to professors' personal lives or rooms. If he'd been asked, he'd probably have agreed that the teachers had to live somewhere, but then again, he wouldn't have been completely surprised to hear that they were simply put away after class and dinner and detention, transfigured into desks or blackboards and left in a classroom overnight until it was time to transform them back into teachers again.
He'd been so young then. They all had, of course, he and his Marauder friends. So young and so sure of themselves and so completely ignorant of everything that mattered. Prongs and Wormtail and Padfoot. They hadn't been nice boys, or kind boys; they had hurt more people than they'd helped. He knew that now. But he had loved them. Still loved them, in fact -- his Prongs and his Wormtail. And his Padfoot.
Now James and Peter were dead, and there was only Sirius left. Only Sirius, who was out there somewhere, desperate and on the run, and neither he nor Remus had been boys for a very long time.
Shaking his head as if he could possibly shake away his memories, Remus finally focused on his face in the mirror and scowled at himself. Then he watched his lips move into a shamefaced half-grin as he gave up the scowl as a bad job. Severus Snape might offer a grimace that could terrify at fifty paces; Minerva McGonagall might possess a glare that could silence the entire Great Hall, but the best that he, Remus, could muster in the scowl department was a sort of worried frown.
He pushed his hair off his forehead and barely noticed when it fell back again, the thinning strands framing tired eyes. He was thinking of how Padfoot had liked to muss his hair, back in the days before it (and so many things) had turned grey.
Padfoot had liked a lot of things about him then, and Remus had liked. . .no, had loved him in return. They had joined bodies and spirits and selves and had known each other with a knowing that lived in the bone, a knowing that transcended even the most of plausible tales of betrayal and murder.
Remus knew. That's why he had never really been able to believe that Padfoot had killed Peter and a dozen Muggles or had forsaken James and Lily. His head might believe it, his reason might accept it.
But his heart never would.
Well. There was no time for regrets, birthday or no birthday. There was work to be done -- work that Remus loved, that he was unendingly grateful to Dumbledore for providing. He'd best get on with it.
He splashed water on his face and then Summoned a towel. He'd go to his classes; he'd oversee the afternoon's gobstones tournament. In the evening he'd give Harry his regular lesson in fending off dementors, and he'd do his best to forget that on this day sixteen years ago, a wickedly-grinning Sirius Black had appeared at his flat to announce that they were going out for a birthday dinner. And had then Apparated them both to the island of Mykonos.
They'd eaten inky seafood stew and thick bread in a tiny cafe on the waterfront. They'd drunk much more ouzo than had been good for them. And they'd made love on the chilly sand, protected by the warmth of a charm and each other's arms.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The day proceeded as uneventfully as Remus could have wished. No one mentioned his birthday. Lunch and dinner passed without the eruption of sparklers and cake that marked students' birthdays, and no banners and balloons and champagne appeared in the staff room, the way they had done for Fliltwick. ("Albus periodically decides that we need to suffer through a celebration," Minerva had told Remus dryly, as the balloons had turned into smiling faces that sang a cheerful birthday song.)
Still, Dumbledore did twinkle at him a little more brightly than usual over dinner. So when Remus retired to his rooms at the end of the day, he wasn't altogether surprised to see a gaily-wrapped package occupying the table in his sitting room.
There was no message or card, not even the phoenix feather by which Dumbledore often "signed" himself. Still, Remus couldn't imagine who else would give him a present; no one else at the school could know it was his birthday, and no one outside the school would care.
He touched his wand to the box cautiously; anonymous gifts weren't always to be trusted, and he'd be stupid not to check for hexes or jinxes. The present could be almost anything.
But it wasn't. It wasn't jinxed, nor was it "anything." It was a bottle of ouzo.
And Remus stood motionless, cradling it, long after the wrapping had Vanished.