Fic: Any Gift of True Caring

[paulamcg]

Title: Any Gift of True Caring
Author: paulamcg
Pairing: (Past) Remus/Sirius, Remus/OMC
Summary: In November 1985, when he has almost managed to forget those he's lost and himself as well, Remus can't help being rescued by someone who wants at least what's left of his body.
Word Count: 13 800
Rating: R
Warnings/Contains: Grief, PTSD, homelessness, angst, hurt/comfort, sex, artists, werewolf mates, dreams and nightmares, memories, music, healing.
Notes: (There are two alternating povs in this fic.) Like each of my fics, this story can be read separately, even though it belongs to a series and to the consistent whole formed by all my fanworks.

A Gift, a story set in Paris and four years after the fateful Halloween, and dealing with the beginning of Remus's healing, was my second short fic about him, and I first published it in autumn 2004. A year ago, when making an AO3 series of my stories about the Lost Years, I couldn't be satisfied with the style of that fic. Now I've finally finished the complete rewrite of this story, and justtoarguewithyou has checked the text. I'm grateful to her, and to those lovely readers who have given their love to my drifting Remus over the years, and those who want to meet him here now and perhaps let me know.


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Any Gift of True Caring



Walk… Just… across the river. There’s less wind after the bridge. Just walk and…

The briefcase hits... the side of a bench? That’s a place to… sit down. Let go of the handle.

These fingers are numb. The worn fabric of the sweatshirt cuff tears further when pulled over the hand. With arms folded, hands buried in armpits, bending forward, then lower… to end up reaching to lift the case up, after all. Better hold it in lap, over the holes in the knees of these filthy trousers. Why still carry it along? To know there’s still… him – that he’s still someone.

Professor R. J. Lupin, the gold letters stamped on the leather pronounce. Refusing to peel off, they force him to remember. He needs to stare at the letters, because if he tries to look away now that he’s too weary and wretched to focus on the meaningless figures of strangers passing and leaving phrases of French to hang in the crisp twilight air and fill his head if not his stomach with delicious dinners awaiting at cosy, warm bistros… If he tries not to see what he’s left with, he’ll see too clearly more than that.

His merciless visual memory will paint the vivid image of another hand under his, covering the name and the joke of a title, so as to postpone the surprise for a moment. Long, slender fingers.

With some mud under the nails. But that is the hand on a different day, a summer’s day, not on a day that's…

Cold. His eyes have closed, as sleep’s too tempting. All right, he lets them rest a bit, but thinks only about places where to lay down what’s left of his body, and sleep. Sunny sheltered spots, and now perhaps when the rain’s stopped… But no, there was no heat in the fiery November sunset, and the last warmth disappears with the veils of mist that rise as they rose from the gutters of Knockturn Alley at home…

Was that alley home? There was a time when he thought he had no other, but back then there were some people he had still not lost.

And he gave up his pride and… He was so cold then, colder than he’d been in early ‘79 in the crummy room with no heating, where he was sitting on his mattress, with the silly, expensive gift on his knee – on their knees – and he had to be delighted and stop thinking what he’d have needed the money for, and then the hands were on his shoulders like so often the paws… And, anyway, a cunning plan was to take him to a warmer place, where he’d teach his first private French lessons.

French, of all things. Perhaps that was why he ended up an art student here four years later, homeless here another two years later. Not before, because he knew not to do this to himself, as he did this right after his parents had been… But back then just for a week, as the December cold defeated him into seeking shelter in the flat – empty because of an Order mission, but anyway, moving in, finally, to the place he’d yearned to be invited to share.

And perhaps that’s why he’s come to the Latin Quarter, but here he’s never accepted the key and the Unsealing Charm – with no one ever again accepted such closeness. In any case there’s not much pride left, and no strength to wander away or to do anything to end it all, just wait for the end or someone still… Maybe he’ll stay right here, where the cold’s covering him with its invisible sheet, and he’ll disappear, and with him the last threat of remembering that hand, that smile, or any gift of true caring.



The reds and the yellows of the Tuileries trees keep flashing across my brilliant mind. Amber and gamboge, scarlet and lurid are burning in the chill flow of the Seine still when I’ve risen up above it to stride along the Pont Neuf.

It’s been a long, brisk walk, and I’m almost sweating, though I need to adjust the scarf around my neck, and I praise my beard for the protecting part of my face against the wintry wind. After all this exercise, I can reward myself with a heavy meal, not worrying about the bulk of my body bloating... just like my vanity ever since the successful exhibition.

There’ll be new paintings, extraordinary ones for sure. The gardens are far too ordered, of course, and I’m glad those formal images have already disintegrated. That’s how my creative mind has always worked. It turns everything upside down, and the ravishments of my brush transform it all further, beyond anything seen before. I never thought it could possibly be otherwise, until I had to answer him that no, not every werewolf has an accurate visual memory, such an uncanny ability that his art teachers in England had admired… Remus’s.

Now, there’s something my memory’s treasured. Someone I see as an intact image in my mind almost every day. Remus with shadows beneath his warm amber eyes, his melancholy smile, his thin wrists poking out from under the sleeves he’s folded so as to hide the frayed cuffs.

I don’t let that picture change, because cruel distortion is what my mind would do. He wouldn’t bloom into my happy partner, but just as every autumn leaf turns into – not a flower, as Camus said, but – a knife rising from frigid waters to threaten these solitary, hunched figures on the bridge, he’ll be one of them, a vagrant, lost…

And now it’s happened. That’s him. Suddenly found right here, recognised without doubt from a few yards’ distance. Or have his features emerged from my deep unrelenting desire, for a sadistic trick of my mind to attach them on another ragged tramp?

I have to stop and take some slow breaths, inhaling the real tones of the whole of this scene. Touch the railing, anchor myself to this chilly gloom. No, it’s not a product of my imagination.

Even the colours are as original as they can be, so subtly changed that it hurts more than my exaggeration would. His hair, hanging down to his shoulders, must be unwashed, as it hardly reveals its copper undertones despite the orange-yellow streetlight. And the green of the same old jumper – worn thin and with holes in the elbows, so that I discern the equally familiar sweatshirt through it – is muted with filth, stained. Yes, there’s even the leather briefcase on his knees, the curious sign of better days, which he never agreed to talk about. After I’ve tried to reassure myself that he must have gone home last spring when the scholarship wasn’t extended, he’s suddenly here, and…

And I’m just standing still, assessing the shades of colours while he’s… huddled on that bench, asleep, without a jacket even. Now I’m rushing towards him…

Losing sight of him when there’s a group of youngsters instead, laughing, jostling, I almost panic. But here he is in front of me.

Perhaps having been shoved or kicked awake, he’s staring up at me. Now I can hardly look at his face. This is all too real.

He’s trembling. He barely manages a grip on the side of the briefcase, and I hurry to first help him hold it, but perhaps he thinks I’m the one trying to take it from him. I steady it, pressing my hand over this hand of his, and his skin is awfully cold, the other hand still in the shelter of his armpit.

“I’m…” About to mention my name, I wonder if I’d embarrass him further with such an assumption that he’s not in the state to even recognise me – perhaps, in turn, to believe I’m real. “I’m glad…” But is it appropriate to be glad when he… ? “You’re back here, Remus,” I finally manage.

And that seems to work, as if I’d just helped him become aware of where he is. Even who he is? When I venture a look at his head, he’s nodding slowly.

“Would you like to…?” I’ve sat down beside him, so close that I can sense his shivering.

Is it only an involuntary shudder, or has he just shaken his head?

“Remus, I want,” I start more decisively, and I resort to making it short and clear, as I doubt he can properly register my words. “I want you… with me.”

And I’m struck by the simple truth in that, and by the selfish joy I feel when calculating that in this awful state he can no longer reject me. But I’m sure he also wants me to help him, or he wouldn’t have come to this neighbourhood. Perhaps he’s even been to my door and stayed here hoping that I’ll find him. Oh God, I want him… and he must get straight to my warm bed, or perhaps first to a hot bath, and I’ve already got a hard-on.

Now he allows me to take the briefcase, and to pull him up by the hand. He’s so unsteady on his feet that I lift an arm around his shoulders to support him, and he wraps his both arms back tight around himself.

It’s a strife to walk with him, and perhaps we’d better… Yes, half-way to the entrance to the Magic Quarter, there’s my favourite Muggle haunt, where, indeed, I planned to dine. And Remus must be hungry. Of course! How could I… I dare not think about how long it must be since he’s had a proper meal, or anything to eat.

Struggling to steady him again, right in front of the restaurant, I look down at our feet, and this brings me just closer to stumbling. While I can no longer ignore the smell of his dirty clothes and skin, it’s just too much to see the flimsy canvas shoes, dark, like the tatters of his trouser legs, perhaps not only due to filth, but drenched, too.

Lifting my chin, I breathe deeply over his head, then bend to press my lips to his temple. “Let’s go first in here, have a rest and something to eat,” I say, picturing my voice – with the defiant tone I have the strength for choosing – as a brushstroke to wipe away all hesitation.

Nobody will stop me. I stride in and head for a corner table, confident that so far I’m easily hiding his slight frame from the sight of other patrons and the waiters.

And thank God for the rare booth seating they have here. I guide Remus to slide down onto the scarlet velvety bench, where there’s even a side for him to lean against – and to partly conceal him.

Am I constructing a scene unlike my depictions of hurt, depositing him into the warmth of a comforting womb? No, or I’m failing. In this setting, still hunched and with his eyes closed, he looks perhaps even more miserable than out in the cold.

I’m afraid he’s about to curl up in a fetus position and sleep. Myself I feel lightheaded from the stench and the efforts of dragging him here, and I grab the edge of the table when getting seated opposite to him.

Hearing him draw in a shuddering breath, I look across in time to catch something akin a smile on his gaunt, dirty face. Now he opens eyes like flames, and I want to fuck him and cry. But his gaze shifts from me to this table set with silver cutlery on a pure white cloth, and down to his lap.

He’s turning his head in panic, struggling to get up.

“What? Don’t…”

“Loo.” He’s… actually said a word, which I finally comprehend.

Fortunately the door to the gents is just next to our booth.

“Over there.” I’m pointing, and reaching out to help him, but I end up only brushing the tatters of his sleeve – and still half-seated when he’s made it on his own: escaped behind that door.

“Good evening, Mr Reno!” Jean-Claude’s arrived at my elbow, having perhaps tried to choose the right moment.

He moves to stand with his back towards the gents and Remus’s seat, and discreetly gives some more time for me to overcome my confusion. “A pleasure to see you here again. Congratulations on your exhibition!”

“Thank you, Jean-Claude.”

“Would you like to order now for both yourself and your…” Jean-Claude’s holding out the leather-bound menu.

“Colleague. Yes, please. A three-course meal. You know my preferences, and I trust your recommendation.”

“I recommend that the two of you… start with a soup.”



Just lean against this closed door now. Get this breathing settled first. This swirling head, filling with images of marble washstands, gleaming mirrors… and cutlery, and blinding tablecloths and a warm bearded face, and with sweet and salty scents, smells of grease and bread and spices.

This is a dream. A nightmare. No, the warmth is real, and hurts the fingers, no more mercifully numb.

Now lurch forward, turning aside, away from the assaulting movements in images of ragged fellows. Just sink onto a toilet lid and press aching hands against this stomach, where hope’s left hunger to settle as pain.

What were those words? You’re back... Back here. The smells were real. Here there is hope… for the stomach. To get rid of the gas inside only after having a bite of something first, though. First getting up… and facing…

Clutching the side of the basin, facing the gold-framed mirror and… himself. No, not the face.

He focuses on his stinging, clumsy hands, and manages to turn on the luxurious tap, which allows him to choose the best, soothing, healing temperature.



Relief has relaxed my muscles, and my fingers play lazily on a piece I’ve torn off the bread which my ever-polite Jean-Claude brought in a basket a while ago. He’s serving me and my quite as respectable colleague, who’s just… in a bit more need of a meal than most customers here.

I catch myself smiling at one of my treasured images from last year: Remus, with a rare grin, wolfing down the sandwiches I made on an evening before the rise of the moon we’d share. Now he’s back, and Jean-Claude has welcomed him… And made me forget he might have fainted in the gents!

With some bread still clutched in my fist, I hurry to the door. But I open it only a crack.

He’s leaning against the washstand, holding ruddy, swollen hands in a basin half filled with water. He’s not washing them, just standing with his eyes closed, and I suspect he’s asleep again – until he startles me by suddenly jerking a leg, then easing off one shoe with the other foot. He fails with the other shoe, and needs to bend down, and also peels off both socks, which are, indeed, wet and mere rags anyway. When he struggles to lift a foot under the tap, I turn my eyes to his face. The last thing I see before I can’t bear more, is him biting his lip when there must be too warm water running over the coldest part of his body.

“Occupied. All occupied,” I say to the baffled patron I find in front of me, having closed the door quietly and turned away, nauseous.

I’d better stand in watch. This way all’s well. I’m handling this, with Jean-Claude, my ally.

I mustn’t get nervous and nibble at this piece of bread without realising what I’m doing. Perhaps I should go in, after all, and offer my help. Or respect his privacy?

Through a narrow crack I catch an image which makes my cock twitch. He’s taken off his jumper and sweatshirt, and now, pulling a faded t-shirt over his head, he’s revealing those endearing shoulder blades like wings – my angel’s! I could go in, seal the door with my wand, and fuck him now.

But my eyes wander too low. His feet… He’s wrapped them in linen towels. Yes, he’s really making use of all the luxuries in this men’s room. Another couple of towels are stuffed inside his wretched shoes. What the hell!

Why’s he doing all this? Now he’s washing with soap that rag of a shirt, or just the armpits, squeezing the water out carefully. With some shuffling steps he reaches a radiator, and he spreads the shirt over it. As he sways on a spot for a moment, I realise he’s still shivering, and he’s hardly got any strength to go on. He must know too well to do these things whenever he’s got the chance. Does he not comprehend I’m taking him home with me? Or does he not want…

Now he’s washing his face, rubbing the bar of soap in his hands, and spreading the foam on his arms and his chest, too. Even washing his hair!

When he’s drying his head with another small towel, I can’t help staring at the too visible lines of ribs. I’ve always been attracted to the frailty of his human body, just as my heavy wolf must be to his nimble one.

But this can’t be good. He must be seriously malnourished. And some of what I thought was grime has not washed off. There are bruises on his sides – and around his neck, and that means he’s had to use the chain. Of course, he must have been on the streets for months, and with no chance to get anywhere inside with privacy at the full moon…

I’ve barely started checking his skin for new scars when he shuffles to the radiator and quickly pulls the t-shirt on. His movements look impatient now. He doesn’t separate the jumper and the sweatshirt, but puts them on as he’s taken them off, together, struggling a bit with the various holes in the sleeves. With none of his meticulousness left, he rips the towels from around his feet and from his shoes, and throws them towards the laundry basket while pushing his bare feet into the shoes, not bothering to get the heels in.

But when he casts a final – and perhaps the first proper – look at himself in the mirror, he sighs, and with fingers combs his hair back and behind the ears. Finally, he deftly folds the cuffs of his shirts, assesses the impression achieved, then with painstaking care rolls the sleeves up, above his bony elbows. This…

Perhaps all this he’s done in order to look as neat as possible when seen in my company.



Better now. Better even if thrown out back to… But the stomach, which has been pestering him, doesn’t agree to give up the hope.

And there the man is still, and real: Jean Reno sitting at the intimidatingly fancy restaurant table, meeting his eyes as soon as he cautiously opens the door. Jean’s teeth flash in a smile, too soon covered with a fist, and behind it, is there a kiss or biting of a lip?

Never mind. When approaching the seat opposite, he must concentrate on his balance. Perhaps he should have put the shoes on properly, but they’re hardly dry, and maybe he’ll dare take them off under the table.

He flops down into the red smoothness of the booth. Warm and comfortable – the booth is. He still isn’t. He’s barely himself, and he barely knows if he wants to be. But he can’t help wanting to eat.

Lifting his gaze back towards the bearded face, he’s distracted by a white linen napkin folded into a fan. Now, perhaps due to having used so many almost identical towels, his hand has already snatched it.

“I’m sorry.” He’s managed a whole phrase and perhaps half a grin, too.

“Not at all.” Jean’s voice, almost as hoarse, seems to continue only with an effort, “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Remus corrects himself obediently just when an equally white bowl of soup appears where the fan was, and a scent of… saffron wraps his mind with its luminous yellow-orange caress.

He still succeeds in telling his hands to spread the napkin to cover his thighs. It’s big enough to reach over the shameful knees, and this helps the make-believe that he’s clean and worthy of this treat. A glance confirms that Jean’s starting to spoon the…

“Bouillabasse,” someone else has just said, “with the broth served first.” A waiter’s already walking away.

Blinking back tears, and trying not to bend too close over the herb-scented heat that’s rising from the bowl, he grabs the spoon and dips it in the golden brown soup. When the heavenly taste has filled his mouth, he manages to feel secure enough, as he’s cupped his left hand around the hot bowl. He’s still shaking, and unable to eat as fast as he’d like to.

A broad hand‘s reaching across the table, making him hurry to take another spoonful. But the hand brings only closer the scents of toasted bread and... mustard, perhaps, and cheese.

“Let me drop one piece like this into your soup, too. Now when it’s got soggy, eat it with your spoon. Yes, like that. Delicious, isn’t it?”

He’s missed the simple bliss of bread in his mouth, and now… To be eating it like this! He keeps spooning, and munching, and finally tending to his stomach, and this bowl’s still not emptying.



He doesn’t seem to even notice that I’m watching him, and helping him so much with his eating. I’ve now fed almost all the bread with rouille to him. Should I order more? Or is it so that you mustn’t eat suddenly too much after… I’d like to wipe out whatever awful things he’s been through.

Having finally focused on emptying my bowl, I hear the spoon scrape the bottom of his – and him belch, although the sound’s partly muffled by the napkin, which he’s lifted to his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he says – again – and, having placed the napkin next to his bowl, he bends sideways, as if trying to see something under the table before pushing himself up.

And now he truly alarms me by starting to shuffle towards the gents.

But he glances back and gives me a proper grin. “Just a minute this time. Promise.”

I’m no longer startled by Jean-Claude’s arrival at the same moment. He’s bringing the large platter brimming with fish and seafood, potatoes, tomatoes, celery…

“Everything all right?” he asks casually while pouring more wine into my glass and taking in perhaps with relief that Remus has not even touched his.

I merely nod and gesture for him to go on and fill our plates for us. After finishing these generous portions we should be ready for home and bed. Just… better order straight away my Armagnac and… some dessert with chocolate in it for Remus.



When he’s eased himself back onto the scarlet velvet, with his stomach well on the way to recovery and ready for more, he’s bound to get fixated at the amazing abundance of food in front of him, and he almost fails to register the pale gold glinting somewhere beyond. Jean’s holding a big stemmed glass up for… Oh, toasting. And indeed, there’s the scent of wine, too. He locates his glass, and now also trusts his fingers to have a sure grip.

“… Reunion,” Jean’s saying.

There's such a fine aroma to savour, hardly any smell of alcohol...

Now Jean bends his handsome head closer, doing his best to secure attention for himself. “Listen, Remus. You’re coming home with me. As soon as you’re ready, but now just take your time with this, and a small dessert.”

“Thank you.” Can this phrase suffice when there’s no clarity of mind for figuring out what else Jean expects?

It’s irresistible to allow his body the relief from fear of returning out there. Even now he’s still – or again – cold, unable to stop frequent shudders, and there’s a pressure behind his eyes. The warm food is blissful in his mouth, and he keeps eating as fast as he can when the fork and the knife are heavy in his hands, and he’s afraid Jean’s voice explaining something about exhibitions is about to lull him to sleep.

A light touch on his left hand startles him to opening his eyes – and to sitting up straighter just in time for the not quite empty plate to be replaced with a smaller one… with a delicate little artwork of ice-cream and berries and chocolate.

Now the pressure threatens to turn into tears. What is this that Jean’s doing for him… doing to… him? He should be someone else so as not to feel this is too much… like condemning him back to life.



His feet are cold. Only his feet, and it’s all right. He’s lying in a soft, warm bed, with a duvet up to his left ear, and there’s another body pressed against his. Of course there is, because a bed like this can’t be his. There's an arm across his waist, and a chest against his back. There're thighs against his arse, and he needs only to move his feet a bit backwards, and they’re between someone’s legs, getting warmer.

If he opens his eyes… But not yet. Now he can simply be... here.

There's a whisper in his ear. “You're here...” Sirius is repeating what...

“You are here?” Sirius is sitting on the toilet lid, shivering and pulling the quilt tighter around himself. “What are you doing here?”

“Giving you a bath.”

Now don't look away, don't look for soap, just hurry and kneel to take off Sirius's drenched shoes.

The water's left running to fill the tub, and the quilt is still on the couch and a tin of soup in his hands when there's a sound of the charms being broken and the lock opened, and it's Sirius arriving from his mission – wounded? No, but exhausted, wretched as if he, too, had been living on the streets for a week, and now almost falling in through the doorway, then breathing out, “Don't wake me,” when Remus's arms and the quilt are wrapped around him.

Now the arm on Remus's waist shifts and, “What are you doing here?” is repeated with a chuckle.

When he now, with his head resting on a fluffy pillow, opens his eyes, he can see into the living room, and there’s the twinkle of stars decorating the tree, and of a beneficial crescent moon on the top, just like every December since Sirius bought this flat with the money inherited from the old bugger, and he started hoping Sirius would want to and dare share it with him. Yesterday he felt defeated enough to move in without an invitation, as there was nowhere else. And Sirius is not disappointed with his lack of spirit. If this were a dream at the end of their nightmares, Sirius wouldn't want to be woken.

The duvet is being pulled down from his ear, and his left shoulder, too, is being exposed to... what makes him shiver. A draft of air and a moist touch of lips, which trace his first, worst, fatal scar. Turning onto his back, he's tempted to keep his eyes filled with the Christmas lights, not to open them again, not to any November gloom.

Still alive, he's come and stayed where he'll be taken care of. He can't help it. He's been guilty of surviving, but he's receiving this gift.

Sirius's luminous eyes are more mesmerising than ever. The beautiful face is so near that the features should be blurred, but no, every line is almost too clear, as if he'd preserved them all by painting them painstakingly so as to reach perfection.

He's here where Sirius loves him, and he hears Sirius's enticing voice say, “I know what you love doing whenever you're here. Now after the bath and the soup and the sleep, we should both be in the shape for a proper shag.”

There's warm skin against the whole length of his naked body, and a pulsing cock searching for his, pressing against his hip, now against his groin. He's closed his eyes, lifting a hand to pull Sirius's head ever closer, feeling the breath on his face, smelling... the wine, and...

And when his face is brushed by – not Sirius's stubble, but – the furry softness of a full beard, his eyes open in Jean's studio.



Just as I'm about to press my lips on his beautiful mouth, his body jerks and there's terror in his suddenly wide eyes.

“I'm sorry.” I back off, forcing my body to separate from his, and wrapping a hand around my throbbing cock. “I thought you were awake.”

I honestly did – after I couldn't resist kissing his bite scar, and he turned and gave me a smile, like another sign of us belonging together.

“It's all...” he mumbles. “Thank you.”

He seems still unable to utter more than those phrases, choosing them randomly. Now fed and clean and rested – having slept until the pale sun has climbed across my atelier's windows – he must still be weak, even delirious.

“May I...?” Letting go of my cock, I raise the hand, indicating that I'd like to feel his forehead for fever.

“Of course. I don't mind if you...” He closes his eyes and draws a shuddering breath, but continues firmly, “Do anything to me when I'm asleep. If you want.” Perhaps an afterthought makes him still frown.

That's not what I want. I hope not. At least that's not all I want. I want him to become and stay my partner, fully here with me.



The sky behind the tall windows is as white as the sheet of aquarelle paper he's attached to the worn, smooth top of Jean's table. For lack of Muggle masking tape, he's used Spellotape, running the tip of his wand carefully along the edges, so that whatever he'll manage to paint will be framed with an even border, but that's the only touch of magic there'll be in his working today.

All the pieces of furniture here are real, permanent, not conjured. They are few only because they've been selected just for those comforts and functions Jean appreciates. This is no dingy bedsit. Besides the huge bed, there's an antique armchair by the fireplace, and because Jean prefers restaurants, he's got no use for a kitchen, and this sturdy table hasn't been used for anything but his art projects – until this past week, when Jean has ordered or brought the meals home.

Remus is perhaps still too tired... to care to wonder whether Jean has done that due to embarrassment about his company or worry about his health. Perhaps if he cared either way, he'd rather hope for the former explanation. At least Jean hasn't bought any new clothes for him – if not given back his rags either, just let him borrow these trousers, held up with a leather belt, and this big maroon jumper, which is like a woollen tent for him to huddle inside, hiding his ugly, gaunt body.

Now finally Jean has agreed that Remus doesn't need to spend most of the day in bed. But Remus has declined the extravagant offer of any among the enchanted canvases prepared for major paintings.

This morning Jean has set a new canvas for himself on a second easel and stood mainly behind that one, although he's far from finished with the surrealistic landscape that depicts golden and bloody knives rising from a river. At least when painting, Jean doesn't talk to Remus, telling him absurd stories, babbling, and trying – and failing – not to ask questions. He keeps peeking from behind his easel, as if to check that Remus is fit enough for working, but he must be too absorbed in his own work to ask even if Remus needs anything.

He doesn't. He dips the sponge in the bowl of water, and starts wetting the paper and glancing up so as to assess the shades of white in the overcast sky. Perhaps he should stand up and walk over to the window, and have a look at the roofs or out to the city skyline – instead of resurrecting views from the past.

Without his full awareness, his left hand has grabbed a paint brush. Startled, he feels like cursing the uncanny sensitivity in himself he can't understand.

He's sometimes been ashamed of his unusual type of not-quite-ambidexterity – the way he's naturally always, as far back as he can remember, drawn and painted with the left hand but written and used his wand with the right – and relieved after learning from Jean that it is not a common werewolf trait any more than his accurate visual memory is. It's been an extra gift or burden that the left hand channels emotions even when he'd rather keep them in check.

Having moved the brush to the other hand, he manages to examine it objectively. The bristles are quirrell hair, of course, not squirrel, and the handle moulds itself magically to fit his hand. These must be the only kind of paint brushes Jean buys now after his successful debut, so that it's not possible here to paint in the simplest, Muggle way.

Remus hasn't got that much against using magic as such. It's just that the luxurious materials and equipment remind him too vividly of the presents he used to accept from... He hasn't held an expensive paint brush like this since... At least now he's only borrowing one.

When the crimson of his first tentative line is spreading on the moist paper, his connection to the colour brings back an echo of the solace and the wonder felt by a wounded five-year-old, who hardly comprehended who and what he now was – what his name was, and that there had been a change. He's never reached any memory of the borderline itself, which he can still only imagine as drawn in blood red. And he can't remember anything before it, or ever being anyone or anything else.

Just as his life, as he knows it, started with the slow and incomplete healing of those wounds, and with learning to draw and paint, perhaps it's starting anew now. And there's nothing unduly melodramatic about that thought. He is reborn every month, after all, when his human body is returned to him as a renewed treasure.

A bloody sunrise at the setting of the cruel moon heralds better days for almost full four weeks. This is what he can depict on this paper without more details of memories.



My progress on The Tuileries Blades has been slow, and now, too, I only stare at that canvas beside the one I'm trying to get started with. I've played with the shades and the shapes of the trees – or what used to be trees – making them sharper and eerie in what could be their reflection. But before adding the darkest element, the hunched, windswept figures in between, I need to reach their inner glow, the burning life wrapped around them, or perhaps peeking through holes in them. With this medium, I could add the light on top, and that's how I first envisioned this work when striding along that bridge.

But now it doesn't feel right to do that. Perhaps I should have picked watercolours instead of oils. Trust Remus to make me think about that fragile medium. Only he can make me hesitant like this. Also to sketch the lines for a portrait, erase and sketch again.

He must think I'm not talking to him because I concentrate on my work. But it's because I've begun to suspect he'd rather not listen to me. And now that he's agreed to paint, I mustn't bother him.

He's smiling. I knew that playing with colours would make him feel better.

Still, do I know him? Achieving a real, moving portrait, and something beyond that – which is my ambition: an extraordinary piece of art – is not possible if I don't. Is that the reason I want him fully mine?

Having rinsed the paint brush carefully enough, he seems to hurry to put it aside, and balls his left hand into a fist for a moment. What is that – hurting? He sighs and leans back in his chair, now with his arms folded.

Such a quick aquarelle can hardly be anything special, but I can't resist leaving my work, stepping around the easel, and walking over to him. With my fingers sneaking under the hair that curls down at his neck, and sliding to touch his right collarbone, as the oversized jumper has slipped to reveal that one after he's made sure to cover the other shoulder... I've got distracted, and I must force myself to look at the painting.

A feeble, conventional sunset landscape, or less than that, hardly finished. I don't slight him as an artist, on the contrary. I know he can do better.

“Lovely.” He is. “You shouldn't exhaust yourself by continuing now. Later perhaps paint a still life.”

My focus has shifted to his face, and I catch the sad lopsided smile before he mutters the art term in French, “Nature morte.”

“Now let's lie down. Soon you can take a nap while I'm getting our lunch from Jean-Claude. But first...”

He lets me pull him up. And as I end up tugging at a cuff, so that his hand slips higher up the wide sleeve, he lifts his both arms and helps me take off the jumper.

Before his disappearance, he never acted like this. He used to guide me to stroke his skin only by pushing my hands under his clothes, and even that only on a couple of days before and after the full moon, when our kind seem to share the desperate need for touch. Only then did he fuck me and let me fuck him – not too close to the transformation, though, of course not.

When our moon was about to rise, he'd undress at the last moment, turning his back to me and dismissing any suggestion that we stay next to each other, let alone hold each other when transforming. I dare hope this will have changed, too, and the waxing almost half moon on yesterday's clear late afternoon sky made me giddy with anticipation.

I run my palms down the scars over his ribs, and he's barely flinching.

After I took off his rags and helped him in the shower, then joined him in a bath, he must know there's no need left for modesty in any sense. He's continued to offer his body for me to look at and touch, and I can't get enough of it. Is that the reason why I've advised him to stay in bed for days?

The purpose of dressing him in my clothes? Is it to undress him again, now without that nauseating stench that made my skin crawl as if I had been as filthy as he was?

Oddly enough, I've become further aroused by the memory of that repulsion. I enjoy easing open the shiny buckle, though I hardly need to nudge at the belt in order to make the trousers slide down his narrow hips.

And I'm on my knees. On a crazy whim of lust and love, I've knelt to caress his balls and to kiss his hardening cock.

He gasps, and his both hands grip my hair. “Bed.” His old eloquence has still not returned.



Throwing himself onto the silk sheets still crumpled after their previous round, Remus watches Jean undress in a hurry. He settles on his left side, so as to offer Jean a comfortable position for both giving and receiving a hand-job and a blow-job. His gaze follows the trail of curly hairs, which leads over Jean's soft, prosperous belly to the thick bush and the eager, confident cock.

Since the first morning Remus has been determined to keep his eyes open when they're having sex. For several days he found it hard, because he was so fatigued and – he must confess to himself – tempted not only by sleep but also by fantasies, which sometimes evolved into beautiful dreams made of pieces of banished memories, and replaced his nightmares. But the healthier he gets, the more compelled he feels to live only in this moment.

Now having welcomed one of the wide thighs as a pillow to lay his head on, he takes a firm grip of the cock with his right hand and seeks eye contact with Jean when licking the precome. He's hurried to offer the service first, and knows that Jean will savour receiving it and, postponing focus on his genitals, in turn, keep moving the strong, sensitive hands as wide over his skin as they can reach.

Remus can't help craving these caresses after months of starving in this sense, too. He also enjoys being not only allowed but desired to touch intimately someone else's body – a human body, albeit only another werewolf's. And the final pleasure of fucking Jean's hand and mouth and arse is sure to stop him from thinking about anything beyond.



When I'm striding down the streets, even on my way back with the take-away containers, my own words still sound in my head like too clear shadowless shapes in a naive picture.

“You're so good to me,” I said with a blissful sigh, rolling out of bed reluctantly but still eager enough to fetch the meal. “You're amazing. And I want to take care of you. I think I love you.”

And Remus just kept gazing up at me. I bent to pull the duvet over his body – slowly enough to register once again how much his bruises had faded, and that the fresh scar on his right forearm still shone angry red as a reminder of how infected the wound had been, and how bad a job I'd done, trying to heal it when I'd finally noticed it in that first bath. Unable to think what else to say, I wanted to kiss his mouth, as if I hadn't expected him to reply, but I pressed my lips on that scar, instead.

Impatient, I've walked fast and got breathless by the time I reach my building. That must be enough exercise for today, and I Apparate up to my landing. Unsealing the door with a voiceless spell, I hope not to wake him.

But the bed is empty.

He's left me! The nausea rises towards my contracting throat.

But now I spot him standing in the corner, facing the bookshelf, dressed in my trousers and jumper but barefoot. And he's not even preparing to escape, just standing still like in the gents at the restaurant.

“What is it?” Approaching him cautiously, I pass by the table so as to place the food there.

He's holding one of my new albums, the double album, and staring at the picture on the cover.

“Do you know what it is?” I realise that he's never told me as much about himself as whether he's had any Muggle or Muggleborn friends, or otherwise got familiar with Muggle devices.

He nods, and closes his eyes. “Jim.”

That still doesn't tell me whether he's only read the name on the album, or... Is it even mentioned on the cover?

But as I gently touch his arm, he turns his head towards me, and looking at my face, starts talking both calmly and fluently for the first time since I found him. “I noticed only now that you have some vinyl records here. But you don't have a record player, do you?”

“Yes. I bought one.” And forgot all about it. “After I started selling paintings at that exhibition.” Not long before he came back, and since then I've had no mind to remember that... “I've still not listened to any of those albums I bought then.”

I move aside the couple of large empty canvases leaning against the low shelf where I've placed the device.

As I see him slide out a disc, I venture to ask, although I've learnt that he likes questions even less than before his disappearance, “Do you know how to use this thing?”

“One of... a witch in my year and my House at Hogwarts taught me soon after we left school. Also invented a charm to protect a record player against magical disturbance. Even before that, she made me fond of Muggle music as she sang and played her guitar. Introduced these musicians to me. Jim Morrison was one of my favourites.” His eyes and hands are now focused on the gramophone, but his warm voice makes me feel he's fully present with me – finally. “What a coincidence that you've got something by the Doors.”

That's a new popular album among many others I chose randomly. Perhaps I'd better not say that, so as not to undo what may have been achieved thanks to his idea that we've got this interest in common. Or is he suddenly relaxed and happy simply because he understands that I love him – as I've now uttered the word?

“I'm so glad, if you like it.” Maybe it's important I keep making my likes and wishes clear enough. “Also if it makes you feel like telling me something about... Anything.”

“Let's just listen to this while eating.”



The moon and the stars in the tree are extinguished. His Pads is gone. No, it's just too dark.

And then again not too dark. Blue flames are leaping along the balcony railing. The handsome figure – long legs and a delicious arse in tight jeans – is a silhoutte in the doorway. In the darkness Sirius won't mind fingers wriggled into a back pocket.

But now there's black fur under his hands, the dog's head in his lap. Their other friends are around, drinking Firecider, smoking, arguing about solstice traditions.

“I can't remember,” is the only response he can give to the one who's asked about the local goblins' magic of flames.

But here there's too much he's failed to forget. Also too much he wanted to keep. The twinkle in the eyes now coloured turquoise.

“Not tonight. I'm not marrying you yet. We've got our lifetimes to... have other fun first. Tonight, we should entice the delaying dawn,” she says, turning back to him while allowing James to hug her. “Let's try...”

“Try to set the night on fire,” he sings as a response, and Padfoot's ear, now pressed against his chest, twitches.

“Girl, we couldn't get much higher!" The appropriately high-pitched and off-key tenor belongs to Peter, who grips Lily's both hands, and starts twirling with her.

Now if he looks down, he won't resist kissing Sirius, who's asked him not to do it in the presence of even their closest friends. There's been another painless change, and his hands reach bare skin on the neck and under the hem of the shirt.

“Come on, baby, light my…” he sings, scrambling up, pulling Sirius with him. “I'll keep you on your feet. Two feet! Don't change!"

Now he's crouched to shake his body in the rhythm of the music. Leaping up, he's Jim Morrison. Sirius has lost his balance, and the two of them collide, hip bone to crotch.

James pushes past them. "Propose to me! Okay? When you are ready!" He's kissing Lily.

And Sirius is about to turn and, for the first time not caring who can see them kissing...

But he's changed again, and their love's become a funeral pyre, as he's become a snarling beast. A murderous beast, mad, laughing.



Yesterday Remus let me wrap my arm around his shoulders when we were walking to the restaurant. Still, after he's now leant against me on this seat in the rush-hour crowd in the metro, he suddenly pulls back. Could it be just because I laughed too loud?

“Sorry...” he says, placing his gloved hand on my knee.

As our eyes meet, he grins, and even chuckles softly. I'm almost sure that we share the understanding that it's got amusing, how he still tends to repeat that phrase.

By the end of the second week of his recuperation, I've got used to enjoying his more fluent talk, but also to asking as few questions as possible, particularly not whether he wants something or not, because he's too likely to tell me no. Now that I deem him finally strong enough for a long outing like this, I'm keeping our destination a surprise, having only checked as early as a week ago that he had not made any pilgrimage like this before.

Exiting Philippe Auguste station to the pale orange morning sunshine, we start walking hand in hand. I believe he's not only doing a favour for me, because he makes our arms swing, and there's cheerfulness in his gait.

Maybe it's just that, after the hard months, he's now able to feel good outdoors again – and perhaps only with help from our handholding. This solidity of our contact can reassure him that I'll be there to take care of him.

Before his disappearance, I sometimes caught him savouring simple pleasures, like the coo of pigeons and sharing the last piece of his croissant with them. Back then, of course, he wouldn't do sharing like this... wouldn't hold hands with anyone, and he even explained that he was over with romance. Can I hope that now enough time has passed since whatever heartbreak he'd suffered? I refuse to suspect that all our shagging and even these public demonstrations of affection are due to his gratefulness alone.

“I'm glad you now want...” I start, squeezing his hand.

“We... some gay wizards back home when, you know, we were at war... They dreamt of this freedom to live openly, of coming to Paris after the end...”

This is the closest he's ever got to talking about their war. After the very first month of our acquaintance, two years ago, I gave up ever mentioning it, despite my interest in politics, besides his personal background. Oddly enough, only now does it occur to me that he may have lost both family and friends, and his partner among them. Is he finally ready to talk about his loss? And was it wise and kind to bring him to...

“Cemetery?” He sounds incredulous, but he doesn't stop or even slow down when we reach Porte du Repos. “You're taking me to a cemetery?” Yes, definitely more curious than disappointed or upset.

“I hope it won't remind you of your civil war or...” I've blurted out, and it's my turn to feel the need to say, “I'm sorry. I just wanted to show you a famous grave – someone's who died in '71.”



Of course. At that moment Remus remembered reading about Jim Morrison having died in Paris and been buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery. And no, walking past graves and towards that particular one yesterday didn't make the grief for those who died ten years later more acute. Visiting a cemetery hand in hand with Jean on a shiny November morning just painted a more achingly real picture of him alone, who continued to survive.

Placing another disc on Jean's turntable, Remus feels some passing discomfort. It's a feeling of being assaulted... by the augmenting coercion for gratefulness.

He keeps accepting more pleasures as gifts. Now that Jean asks no more about the quality canvas than he did about the pudding at the first meal, Remus catches himself receiving all the presents and favours without strength to protest.

Besides, while he's begun to suspect that enjoying what he's being offered is a return gift appreciated by Jean, he feels it's his obligation to give something more, too, so as to thank him for...

Yes, he's compelled to thank Jean for rescuing him from his appalling state, even though, when without any direction or will to go on, he had done it all to himself almost on purpose. Inexplicably, Jean seemed happy to find him, and he couldn't help being saved and allowing whatever his savior wanted from him.

This art student mate wants him to paint again, too. Therefore he's played with the watercolours for a week, and now he's walking over to the canvas that's been primed and placed for him on the easel closest to the windows.

After Jean's talked about love, there's a need to give something else in return. Something other than love, of course.

Remus's love was reserved for those who are no more, and it's disappeared with them. What's left, condemned to go on, is this frail, precarious, part-human body, which insists on preserving itself, and which is wanted by another.

If Jean imagines Remus is worth as much as love, it can perhaps be paid for by sharing some more interests, relearning to talk, and being as pleasant company as possible.

The small record collection was the first thing that caught Remus's eye after Jean's disturbing confession. A familiar face, the picture of the object of his childish idolising ages ago, brought back the ability to say something, and to come up with such words that could please Jean.

Surprisingly, now the risk of approaching unspeakable issues thrills Remus, as long as resorting to such frivolous topics as old hit songs can keep a distance from real moments in past lives.

Listening to side three, too, of this double album on one of the days that followed, when he was gradually less quiet and more active even though he still stayed inside the flat, Remus failed to lift the needle before the last song. He let Riders on the Storm bring back the image of thunderclouds, and that is now the onset for his first oil painting.

With this medium, starting from the dark is a good thing, isn't it? Holding the palette knife in his right hand, which feels reliable now that the infected wound in this arm is completely healed – just in time for his next chance to maul himself... No, Jean will save him from the worst of that, too, if not from all darkness.

Just holding the knife, as one of Jean's enchanted glass palettes remains hovering exactly where he needs it next to him, Remus continues the work of mixing various tones of blue-grey. Bracing himself, he finally lets his left hand grab a warthog brush of equally high quality, so as to start recreating the ominous sky over the world where dreams were soon to be shattered.



Against the unfinished background of mounting clouds... and of the emptying beach, which is there again, although he can't remember painting it at all, now a fiery flag's streaming across his eyes. It's Lily's hair, of course. She's back for him to hold for a moment. Hard to hold on to, due to the huge round shape revealed by the translucent fabric – and that loose dress is her sails, filling with wind. She'll be gone. Mother. His...

He's already lost his, and dad, and home. He's got family in these friends, but the rising storm's ended the rare shared day at the seaside, and torn them to their separate ways, apart.

There's one body he's got his pressed against, now even in public, with the excuse of riding the motorbike. Why... did it need to be painted black and named Grim? The omen of...

Now the two of them are unseen, traversed by the light, rising towards the thunderclouds, merged into them. Disillusioned, here they are. And Remus is singing in an invisible ear.

“Our lives will never end... There's a killer...”

“We'd better be quiet.” Is it the killer who – suddenly too serious – says that?

But Remus goes on because... “Gotta love your man.”

Did the rain lash down, drenching them? Did they land where the road that had turned into a stream crossed a real river?

This bridge above them must have been drawn by their shared dreaming. One of those in romantic Paris, it arches like a solid rainbow, enclosing them in a warm and bright haven. The damp towel spread on the ground has become a most comfortable bed, and he's no longer shivering. There's a flicker of reddish light behind his lids, and his man has become more confident in caresses, and willing to take his cock deeper.



“This morning I just couldn't resist...” With the excuse of stoking the fire, I've come to kneel down beside him.

“It's all right.” He's staring at the flames, sitting very close to them on the hearthrug, which makes me worry that he's got cold when painting next to the open window.

Yet, he's pushing the sleeves of the jumper up to the elbows. That could be a sign of nervousness, which, in turn, could be due to the imminent transformation pain, too. I hope he believes it's true that until today I haven't tried again to start fucking him without waiting for him to wake up – even though on that first day he gave me the permission to do anything to him while he's asleep.

This time he stirred slowly and wasn't visibly startled. I could barely sense when he realised I wasn't someone from his past. And we satisfied each other beautifully after that.

“I understand,” he adds just when I've guessed he prefers not talking about sex, “that you didn't want to waste any time, because penetration would be less pleasant for so many hours before the early moonrise. Instead...”

Instead of spelling out his thought, he reaches out and touches my face with his fingertips. Shifting closer, he moves his hand behind my back, slips it under my shirt and up towards my shoulders, so that the length of his forearm brushes against my bare skin. He must mean that he is willing to share such physical closeness that we can enjoy now – at least some of those caresses that our kin crave badly tonight.

Grateful, and relieved that my impatience this morning hasn't necessarily spoiled my chances for what I've dared hope, I lay my head on his chest, and speak with my mouth against his collarbone. “You know I always wanted... Ever since we recognised each other and you agreed to come...”

Back then Remus told me that he accepted my invitation because his goblin landlady would charge him extra for sealing him within secure walls once every month. And because in my cellar there was a small window, which – even when charmed soundproof – would let a bird in. He used to hope that, among those pigeons he fed, he'd encounter a magical bird who'd want to join him at the time of his transformation.

He'd have preferred the company of an animal to touching another werewolf. And I couldn't blame him, after he'd told me that a bird, a cat or even a rat could soothe his wolf's mind and make it less violent. And that he'd never even met any werewolves before – except the one who bit him, of course.

It's not surprising that Remus has developed internalised phobia of his own kind. Myself, I've always avoided packs, and it was hard to convince him that I'd spent calm enough full-moon nights with some solitary werewolves, one at a time. On the basis of how he'd got to know me at the Enchanted Art Academy, he must have concluded that I was a decent bloke, if probably only an exception.

He even explained that he didn't reject me because of any deficiency in my humanity. A mate had talked to him about being not less, but more than human – while he doubted he should have trusted that source, he said. He did not want that much closeness, or anything like a love affair with any full human either – ever again. If the last words had not slipped out, I might have thought he'd always been reserved and the type not for romance.

Now I manage to wait and let Remus take the initiative for each step in intimacy. And to my joy, he tugs at my shirt, and when I remain as passive as possible and merely allow him to, he goes on... Yes, he's undressing me!

And there's still ample daylight behind our windows, still only the first ache of change in our bones. While this late-November full moon will hasten above the horizon before five, even a quarter of an hour before sunset, there is some time left of the short day for us to spend on preparing each other by confirming the value of these human bodies.

Remus does want more than before. He's guiding my hands not under his clothes but to remove them together with him.

Now he's presssing my face against his bare chest. This time our imaginations can't succeed in erasing these oldest claw marks, no matter how tender the kisses with which I trail them. I catch myself not even wishing otherwise. Tonight these as well as our bite scars help bind us together.

Stroking his skin with my palms, with my fingers drawing lines and circles all across, as if his still endearingly gaunt form were a masterpiece I've just shaped, and rubbing my cock against a buttock, a hip, a shoulder blade, I find my mind lost in his body or mine or both. Yes, these two entwined, and I've only followed his lead when he's twirled us into one. We've come together, and just gone on with the frottage...

Until a shared tremble alerts me to waves of pain. Our bodies are now, of course, too unstable for Apparating. But it's not too late for managing down the stairs together.

Having reached out for my wand, I Summon our bathrobes.

“Better hurry to the cellar,” I mutter between convulsions that twist my insides, and wrapping him in a robe, I struggle to add, “You are magnificent at this... Hard to believe you've shared only... with animals before.”

Does he shake his head as a response, or is it only an involuntary jerk?

As we're limping along the stairwell, and he's clutching my arm while I'm clutching the balustrade, he must focus fully on controlling his gait. “No...” He's taken me unawares by starting a delayed reply in any case, perhaps with no careful consideration. “Not only with animals. With ani... magi.”



His shape's shifting at a nauseating speed. He's losing his... Now the thick, warm fur is all gone. While his bare skin's already shivering, his ears, still keen for a moment, hurt both from the piercing and echoing howls and from being torn apart. Flesh and bone...

No, so as to bear the agony, he must squeeze his eyes shut, and focus on an ideal image of receiving his human body, a renewed gift.

The quick changes inside make him writhe – but not against the stone floor. There's skin against his, and he's swaying, pressed tight over something that's transforming as well, at a shared excruciating pace. Of course, the same body that held him also while growing hairy at moonrise.

As soon as they can stay still, only breathing hard, now side by side in a bit looser embrace, Remus bends his head back before opening his eyes. Yes, he manages to see past his companion and to scan the walls for the small window close to the ceiling. There's a strip of pale pink sky announcing a new-broken day, but this comforting sight is not accompanied by the familiar trickle of blood or any sting in wounds. The only pain Remus can feel is the pulsating remains of the torments of change. What else he senses is...

What he'd still like to deny or reject: the gift of touch. At least when these strong palms and deft, expressive fingers reach out in wider caresses, drawing the dimensions of his body, he knows naturally to repay by returning the favour.

To his surprise, he's not too weak for lifting an arm and controlling its movements. Against Jean's broad back and shoulder, he can feel the perfect structure of his fine wrist bones becoming nimble sooner than ever, and each of his fingers revelling in its path along the smooth skin. The reciprocity is serving them both doubly, and he's tempted to... or maybe he's already yielded to some primal, perhaps sub-human desire to embrace – yes, in every sense of the word, and through all his senses, to... Embrace the many-coloured beast!

That crazy phrase has risen from where it was once imprinted in his mind by another song. The saddest one, the only one sung by Stephen Stills alone, without his friends for harmonies, on the precious gift of an album with Our House as a promise for a shared home. Déjà Vu. Indeed, this emotion must have assaulted him before, but he's rejected its background. Over the past few years, he's just almost lost himself in the wish, worded in those lyrics, that his life would simply cease, and give him peace from the torment he's grown so weary of now when he's – not only tired of being poor, but also – so alone...

At this moment it should be easier to deny the memories than to reject the deepening camaraderie with a creature of the kind to which he hasn't wanted to admit he belongs. But this contact, which has brought him safe and sound through the long night of lost consciousness and lost humanity, makes him perhaps able to admit not only what he is, but also who he's been.

“Have you...” Jean's voice, only a bit hoarser than usual and still alien, or rather too similar to his own after his least hard full-moon nights, has startled him, and perhaps having felt him wince, Jean starts again, now not in the form of a question, “I guess you haven't shared the change with anyone like this before.”

“No, not with anyone quite like us.” The joy of hearing himself form words easily makes him go on without further thought, “Just with someone whom... I trusted. Who himself was more than human: a man and a dog.”

“An Animagus?”

Now that he's started talking about it, perhaps he'll manage to go through the whole story. Perhaps it'll help Jean understand that he's not capable of love, and perhaps Jean deserves these revelations, instead, as his return gift.

He's failed to respond, though. Jean, frowning a bit, looks at his face cautiously from the corner of his eye. Their hands have stopped. Immobile, Remus can't help a shudder, and he becomes aware of the cold.

“Let's get...” Jean mutters, starting to stand up.

He helps Remus to a sitting position and goes to fetch his wand and their bathrobes from the high shelf. Without hurrying to lift the impenetrable isolation charms from the walls, he takes care to first wrap the soft clean terry cloth and his arms around Remus.

“When you stay with me,” he says just when Remus realises how he's starting to get too used to these comforts, and to take them for granted, “we'll soon have no need for all the precautions.”



Hearing the light, cheerful tone of Remus's voice is the second best thing I could hope for to complete our day after the night shared as wolves. Having taken my advice and moved to sit more comfortably in the armchair by the fireplace, where he'll be warm enough although he's wearing only my silk dressing gown, he's still talking about food.

Not only about the meal I fetched while he was sleeping again in the afternoon. About some exotic dinners cooked in the '70s by that witch who was big on music, and also travelled to places like Palmyra as a Curse-Breaker, and something called benders at... somewhere called Wimpy Bar! I can hardly stop laughing at one name when there's another crazy one. And there's barely a whiff of wistfulness in his descriptions of how his friends used to sneak leftovers to him after parties, and to insist on ordering big portions for him when he tried to convince them that he'd already eaten. He talks about the food, not about the friends.

Perhaps the Doors will inspire him to continue and tell me more about that dog Animagus. Without asking him whether he'd like me to or not, I place the B side of the second record on the turntable. I don't think I've heard these songs yet, but the first one has a promising title, Touch Me.

The rhythm is faster than I expected and makes me feel like dancing despite the post-change stiffness in my limbs. I can't resist starting a striptease when stepping in front of him.

He lifts a hand to cover his mouth, then shifts it up over his eyes, letting out a hysterical giggle. But as I kneel between his legs, he begins to caress me, smiling. Yet, not singing along, although the lyrics are easy, even for me, to learn.

I'm going to love you/ Till the stars fall from the sky...



Why won't you tell me...

No, Jean can't possibly have chosen this particular song because of that line so as to encourage Remus to talk. Perhaps he doesn't expect him to, after all. It must be enough to keep kissing, and it would be easy to do that, and to untie this silk belt and move on to a thorough shagging.

Now that he's regained his body so miraculously unharmed, and it's actually hard to remember that it was already this healthy and well-fed before last night's transformations, Remus finds himself unable to play down the physical joy of being alive. He feels strong enough for recklessness, also for objecting to these declarations of endless love... Yes, in this second song, too.

After another three minutes it's time for the last two, those related to war – those he's avoided hearing. No matter how trivial it is that simple lyrics seem to refer to his untold story, he's determined to allow this music now to bring the hurt of his past just near enough, so that he'll succeed in wording it in a bit more personal way, because that will be fair to Jean.

“Now,” Remus says when Love Her Madly ends, “just listen!” And he catches himself adding, “Lay your head in my lap.”

He takes the blanket that's been folded on the armrest and spreads it over Jean, who's obeyed him and become still, sitting at his feet. Jim's singing is already telling them about hope that turned out unfounded for... the unknown soldier.

Wait until the war is over/ And we're both a little older...

And it's all over.

So as to bear the racing of his heart, Remus must force out some words. Now, just when The End starts, and before Jean gives up waiting for his story.

“This one,” Remus says, resorting to talking about the song, “We heard this one at the opening of Apocalypse Now. When the film was released at cinemas in London. It was in August '79, soon after the wedding.

“You know, that witch who brought all this music to us... She married one of my first three friends, and a year later they had a son. There were more friends, not quite that close, not aware of what I was, but still... Most of them were recruited that summer, the summer before I... lost my parents – '79, I mean – and killed by '82.”

I'll never look into your eyes again.

Burying his fingers in Jean's hair, Remus tries to stop his hands and his voice, too, from shaking. And to keep the head down on his lap, and Jean from looking up at his face.

Does Jean even care to know about all that? Perhaps just why Remus didn't want to be a closer friend to him, let alone his partner, and why he still...

Desperately in need of/ Some stranger's hand/ In a desperate land...

“I can't... have possibly wanted to be with you – because I haven't wanted to be me.” He hates sounding so awfully melodramatic. At least he's not confessing that he hasn't wanted to go on with this burden of life at all. “To be what we must be. But not only that. To remember who I used to be. A friend to my three Animagi. I made these great friends at school... Brilliant boys, they figured out, of course, what I was... but also how to help me. They volunteered to change, worked hard and illegally to become a rat, a stag and a dog for me, and they stood by me until...

“I should have helped them survive the war. But the dog... I loved him too much, and I didn't see... Or perhaps I didn't love him enough. He'd been abused at home, and it was hard for him to enjoy being touched, and I thought the two of us were healing each other. He ran away from that blood-purist family, became a brother to... James, who married Lily, and godfather to Harry, and in the end their Secret-Keeper.”

Now, of course, Jean, who's interested in foreign politics, can...“Recognise the names of...?”

“The Potters?” Jean's gasped, and he's trying to lift his head.

But Remus won't allow him to see the stupid flow of tears. This is all silly. Jean must think he's making it all up, insane, claiming to have known intimately the infamous...“

“Also Peter...” he forces himself to say, “Pettigrew, who was too brave and tried to catch...”

“The wizard who was godfather to the Boy Who Lived. The traitor. He was your... dog Animagus.”



You'll never follow me... This is the end.

The music from three nights ago still repeats in my head when I spoon him from behind under the covers, staring at the pale early-December morning behind the windows.

“Hush,” I said, sitting still at his feet, after his voice had broken and I'd made clear that I'd figured out what he'd decided to finally tell me.

I want to save him. At least I saved him from spelling it all out himself.

Since, right after I'd added to his revelations, he obviously didn't want me to turn my eyes to his, I took hold of his hands, promising that I wouldn't raise my head. Having managed to loosen their grip of my hair, I looked at and caressed them only, and kissed his fingers and palms and the scars up to his wrists.

Now he grabs my hands and presses them against his chest, drawing in a shuddering breath. Barely awake, perhaps he's now able to say a bit more again of what he needs to share with someone.

Perhaps he, too, is staring at his almost finished oil painting. I must admire the crazy rainbow-coloured segments of the shattered structure which he sketched the other day after once stopping to examine the Pont Neuf carefully. And it makes me smile that he's added some warm red glow on the lower right side of the picture, separating it with a sharp line from a wide streak of ice blue under the image of a bridge, and I believe the dancing shapes are two creatures as well as flames.

After yesterday morning's conversation, though, he only mixed more dark tones on his palette.

I don't think I found anything helpful to say when he explained how exactly one of our kind – and, of all places, in Britain, where discrimination against us is legal – had managed to break into the same social circles with full-human wizards and witches who fought as Aurors and as members of a respected clandestine order against the blood-purist movement. He'd got a chance for education, even higher education, and I called him fortunate, even though something like that is not so unusual here.

Mind, he'd been picked as the object of a secret experiment, and his choices and rights for earning a living had been seriously limited. But he'd made it – made and kept those friends, become one of them, even made it to that Order. Of course, he'd lost them at the end, and...

As he remains quiet, I start, “I'm sorry if yesterday...”

“You're right,” he cuts in. “I must be grateful. I got what I didn't deserve. I was even kept safe from battles. Violence was forbidden from me. It would have spoiled the experiment. Which had been arranged by the same bloody bugger who founded the Order, and he used me only for codebreaking tasks. And meaningless missions. Towards the end he just sent me away also because he suspected I was the traitor. That's why I survived unlike...”

“Almost all the people you loved. Your dog Animagus...” As I know the name of the infamous traitor, perhaps I can help him by being the first one of us to say it aloud. “Sirius Black... He's not dead, is he?”

“Worse than...” He squeezes my hands hard.

Yes, I've heard that much about the prison they have.

“Didn't get a trial,” he says, “And I didn't... do anything, not even apply for a permission to go to see... to ask why... The leader... Fucking Dumbledore! He advised me not to... not to reveal I was involved with... Said it would just make things worse for everyone. Harm his experiment, that's what counted! So I never... I'll never know what went wrong, and why... one of us, the Marauders, when I thought we all loved each other, why... Padfoot, my...” He lets go of my hands, and covers his face with his, so that I can hear only a muffled whisper, “Sirius.”

“You did,” I start, and I press my lips on his neck for a moment before continuing, “love each other.”

As I'm hugging him tight, and his frail form is shaking in sobs, I manage not to get too aroused, because I can't help wondering...

Disturbing thoughts emerge and tangle up. Back in late 1981 when I read in Le Monde Magique about the peace being restored in wizarding Britain, I was touched by the fates of those last, young victims. But their story was overshadowed by the significance of the Dark wizard's demise. Their tragedy was completed by the imprisonment of Black, who had betrayed – and caused the deaths of – all those who'd trusted him as their closest friend. That was, indeed, the end for all those lives, as Azkaban's horror – perhaps combined with his own regret – would soon make him lose the rest of his sanity. Who would care why he'd done it, what had perhaps forced him to do it, and whether he'd truly done it?

Now... I'm sure there should have been a trial – that someone should have fought for Black's right to argue his case. But I can't talk about this to Remus. He's already blaming himself for not doing anything, and even for simply surviving, as well as for having loved too little or too much.

I can only talk about love. “Keep that... alive,” I say haltingly. “How you used to love each other. How you... love them all.”



Having stepped past the easel to stand in front of the window while folding up the sleeves of the jumper, Remus scans the rooftops for any signs of pigeons. The afternoon must be still warm enough for them to stay foraging on pavements and in parks, and only at sunset will he glimpse them arriving in their winter homes in attics and roof ventilators.

On a whim he opens the window, and he catches himself starting to pull the cuffs over his hands, after all. The frigid wind passes through the loose weave of Jean's fancy jumper, but before closing the window again, he can't resist exposing the fingers of his left hand.

He's got no cigarettes, and that's not what he craves, despite the vivid memory of sharing a fag with his... Pads. However, he bends his thumb, and the other fingers over it, and focuses on the small space where he'd stick the end of the fag so as to light it with...

His humble trick of wandless magic! A shiver runs through him, as a bit of his body warmth transforms into a spark. No proper flame – just because there's no proper need. But this is how he'll light camp fires when...

When spring arrives, it'll be time to go on, and he'll go south. He needs to go, so as to continue to leave behind the past that he's now shared perhaps for his own benefit as well as for Jean's.

He's kept leaving it behind, but its shine from back there won't stop reaching him. Like the light of distant suns – of those, too, that died ages ago.

The window's banged closed, and Remus turns back towards his painting and the cosy room. The picture's almost completed, and instead of grabbing the paintbrush, he walks over to the bed and kneels down to reach for the briefcase shoved under it.

Yes, he will still carry this gift along, but today he only strokes the letters forming his name, which glows golden against the dark leather. The resurrected feel of a tender hand, of the slender fingers, warm when there's mud under the nails, and of the paws... These memories not buried too deep any longer can help him follow Jean's advice for the finishing touches.

He'll leave the painting as a present to Jean, who knows him too well. It'll be a relief to be on his own again, or at least to talk only to people who won't mention the name of...

“Sirius,” Jean's kept saying too easily. “The dog star, the brightest star. You know, the light we see in the moonless night sky has travelled from far in the past. And his... Yes, his light is still real.”

Yesterday Jean spelled out how he'd wanted to be the one to save Remus. And startled him by explaining that, instead, his... the friends he'd lost continued to do it. That they kept saving him because, of course, they'd all loved him.

Can it make sense? Their love is still in him, in the man he became thanks to them. What happened later... Whatever let the darkness in their midst... That can't undo the value of what was before. It's all still real, as long as he is alive and agrees to remember it.

“That's why,” Jean said at hopeful high noon when examining Remus's brushstrokes closely with unusual admiration, “your art can reach what's missing, if you add some light and warmth to the upper left corner. Right here where the story begins.”




Notes: The songs Remus (or Jean) pays particular attention to when listening to the compilation album The Best of The Doors (released in July 1985) are Light My Fire (on side one), Riders on the Storm (at the end of side three), and all those on side four: Touch Me, Love Her Madly, The Unknown Soldier, and The End, which was used in the opening scene of Coppola's film The Apocalypse Now (released in UK on 15th August 1979).

The song from Déjà Vu, an album by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (released in 1970), Remus remembers – in addition to Our House – is titled 4 + 20, and the parts of the lyrics by Stephen Stills he paraphrases in his mind are: … He was tired of being poor … Why am I so alone? … I embrace the many colored beast/ I grow weary of the torment/ Can there be no peace?/ And I find myself just wishing that my life would simply cease.

In its new incarnation, this story includes references to several of my fics set in the Marauders' Era: Turn the Night on Fire, Come to Rescue, Almost Dignified, Almost Dark Again and Freedom They Can Reach.