*

The Equivalent of Coffee
Winner of the Shrieking Shack's "A Very Wolfie Christmas" One-Shot FanFiction Contest, December 2010.
{ Mood; Exhausted }

His hair is pink, and his eyes are bright blue. His grandmother tells him his mother loved the two colours. He sits on his bed, arms round his knees, and then he picks the book. It is thick and brown, and like a wound that cannot heal, a complicated clasp that cannot fasten. He flips it open, places it in his lap.

He knows the story by heart, now.

*

“Come here, Moony old boy.”

Sixteen-year old Remus looked up from the book he was buried in, and his eyes twinkled as he waved to Sirius and James, two tall boys who stood at the other end of the lake, arms full of sneaky snowballs. In the background, rose a fortress – snow packed in with magic, and topped with a big, red apple Peter had offered as a decorative suggestion.

“Come here!” he called back.

“It’s Christmas Eve, Moony!” Sirius tutted. “Don’t be a spoilsport, and please don’t read books. We should head out to Hogsmeade. You know how awesome the new pub they opened last year, is.”

“The Pink Underpants, you mean?” Remus asked, doubling over with laughter as a flood of memories chose that moment to break down all dams of constraint.

“Do NOT remind me of its name,” James hollered. “I would rather not … have the knowledge that I tend to visit a place associated with my Unmentionables.”

“Shut it!” Sirius grinned.

“Remember the last time we visited it, Padfoot?” James replied. “You had too much firewhisky, and jumped on the table and sang twenty-three verses of the song, ‘I Look Like a Veela, and am Proud of My Hair’ –”

“That song only has twenty verses!” Sirius interrupted, indignant. “I might be aware of how amazingly handsome I am, but that doesn’t mean –”

“Then you must have made the last three up,” Remus interjected. Sirius thwacked a snowball at him, and it caught him full in the face. He grinned at his two best mates through a mouthful of snow.

“I think the snowball loves Moony,” Sirius sniggered. “It might marry him any instant, now.”

Remus grinned. “You can make fun of me, if you like,” he said, rather shiftily. “But Professor Sherlot set us a test, the day after the Christmas holidays, in case you don’t remember. You are … going to need my help.”

“WHAT?”



Two in the morning. One lamp, one coffee-machine, one thick Transfiguration book – and four sixth years, crouched over its pages, far, far into Christmas night.

*

His hair changes colour from pink to bright purple. It is a cheerful hue, and he pulls at a tuft in front, then laughs in delight. His smile widens, and he turns to the next page.

*

“I see.”

It was cold, and the Second War had arrived in a pack of lies. The Ministry fed these to the papers and the papers, in turn, to the people. Remus Lupin’s brows furrowed as he thought of this, and his companion bit her lip.

“I asked for an answer, Remus,” she said quietly. They walked in step, and her hair was violet, bright like a spark of the stars, like quiet splendor, and her eyes shone with an iridescent blue. Unlike his plain, brown cloak, she wore gentle dress robes, but they made a magnificent couple, two people that complemented each other better than fire and red-hot blazes.

Better than star and light.

“I said that I see,” he replied dryly.

She stopped walking, and turned around. Her eyes had filled up with hurt, with sudden hurt that stunned him, made him feel like he had never felt before – like a traitor to his own self, like a heartless man. “How can you?” she asked, and the sparkle of her eyes seemed to evaporate, like spirit or ether or something even more volatile. “Remus, how can you?”

“You don’t get it, Tonks,” he said angrily. “I’m a werewolf, not – you don’t know what it feels like! I would be danger to you, to –” No, he could not make her understand. She was pretty, she was vibrant, and she had a future in front of her. What, who, was he?

How could he knowingly, willingly ruin her?

She took a step backwards. “You’re so selfish,” she said quietly, and tears sprang in her eyes. “You’re so selfish, Remus. You think you have it so bad, you pity yourself, you don’t care for me –”

“How can you say that?” He asked, stung. “Do you think I would pull away from you each time, if I didn’t care? Do you –”

“Remus,” she whispered, taking his hands in hers. They were warm, better than butterbeer, and his arms rose against his own will, rose to wrap her frame and – and then he tore away, a wild look in his eyes, his heart pounding against his chest.

“No. I can’t –”

He tore away, tore away like mad, and he was gone. Had left, left in nothing but the swish of a plain cloak, the whistle of the coldest winds of the year as they kicked up into a storm that rushed past in a haze of bitter chill.

There were tears in her eyes.

*

His hair changes colour, again. It is now a muddy green, like brackish seawater, and he buries his head in the book. He doesn’t like the next part. But he raises his head again, and flips the page.

*

He had had an exhausting day. Far in the distance, a clock struck a deep, slow midnight, and Remus raised his head. His eyes were weary, but sleep was no neighbour, tonight.

The doorbell rang, and he glanced at his wristwatch. A member of the Order, of that he had no doubt – if they had managed to get past the protections of the garden, they could not be anything but friends. But if they had a task for him now, he knew he would not be up to it. In silence, he rose from the sofa. His shoes crunched on the floor, and the noise was heavy in the darkness.

“Remus.”

He opened the door, and she stepped in without a word, turned to him with quiet eyes.

“Merry Christmas, Remus.”

“Merry Christmas,” he replied dryly. He pushed aside a bunch of moth-eaten curtains, and switched on an electric light. In the faint illumination, he saw her face, thin but resolute underneath her shock of muddy-green hair. For a moment, both of them were silent, then he cleared his throat, and shuffled his feet.

“What do you want, Tonks?”

“I wanted to wish you a merry Christmas. Or is that against your laws, too?”

“I don’t want you here!” He flared. His tones were angry, angry like they never were with anyone, but her. “Go away, Tonks, this is not your place. You have a future ahead of you –”

“Remus –” She took a step closer, but he roughly pushed her away.

“Don’t,” he said, as if pained.

“I only wanted to talk to you!” She shouted. “Can’t I even stand near you, Remus?”

“No!” He shouted back. “Get away from me, this is not your place. Get away – now.”

“You can’t drive me away,” she said quietly. Then she had shoved him aside, and stepped away. “You can’t drive me away, Remus. You can’t drive me away because I love you!”

The door shut behind her with a bang, and he collapsed into a sofa. Collapsed as if tension brought out the signs of pre-mature age in the strength within him, collapsed as if he was no more.

*

His hair turns a blackish-green, and it now the colour of dirty spinach, a dreary shade to behold. He runs a hand over the book, and it feels like a scab, the mark of an injury. Then he closes his eyes, and turns over to the next leaf.

*

“To Sirius Black.”

“To Sirius Black!” A bunch of voices chorused back, and Remus raised his goblet to his lips. In the backdrop of the Second War, in the aftermath of events that would go down history as one of its most terrible times, it was hard to be cheerful, but the little party made use of this Christmas to remember its warriors, those that had sacrificed their lives for the cause of virtue.

“To Alastor Moody.”

“To Alastor Moody,” he repeated, and then he turned away, a lump in his throat. The memories came back, sweet, silent memories of many things, and he sank into a chair, his head buried in his arms. Time and strife had hardened Remus Lupin but, at that moment, he felt like a little child, like a tiny kitten left to die in the cold.

“Remus?”

She touched his arm, and he looked up to give her a small smile. “Hey, Tonks.” Then he buried his head in his arms again, and his frame shook as if with the effort of constraint, the effort not to cry, to shout out loud.

“Remus!”

He looked up, and his eyes were dry in a way that made her wish they were not. “Cry,” she said, and she grabbed him by the shoulders, and shook him hard. “You don’t need to bottle it Remus, I can’t see you this way – Remus, please –”

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, and then he wrapped his arms around her, wrapped them until he was warm, warm to the point where tragedy was as far away as it was close, and his heart seemed fit to burst with fire.

She placed her head on his chest. He felt her heart flutter against his own and then, very quietly, he kissed the top of her head, and closed his eyes.

*

His hair is no longer dirty. Its shade is pink, a pale pink that is too light to be a colour of vibrancy, but too pretty to be a colour of tragedy. He swallows the lump that rises in his throat, and lowers his eyes back to the book.

*

Remus Lupin’s heart was on fire. It pounded in his chest, pounded like never before. Outside the walls of the castle, waited Voldemort himself and, as giant spiders crawled up the sides of the turrets, he ducked a blaze of fiery light.

“Tonks – get out of the way!”

She whirled around, in time to avoid a curse. His heart thudded worse, not for himself, but for her. Then she had been swept out of sight, and he was outnumbered four to one. He sent a death eater flying throw the air, another reeling backwards, but two more assaulted him, and he knew it was useless, knew it was time to make one, final effort.


“AVADA KEDAVRA!”

She turned round at the death eater’s cry. Her heart squeezed, she gave a little scream of terror – and then she had thrown caution to the winds, and was running, running like mad towards him. He looked up, she saw he had no wand, and their eyes met. For one, brief silent second, for one second of sheen and beauty and splendor, their eyes met - and then her arms wrapped around him, and his around her.

“I love you,” she whispered. “Remus –”

He placed a finger on her lips. “I love you, too. I love you more than my life, Tonks.”

They went down together.

*

His hair is a pale, black-gray; a sticky, dreadful sort of colour. He wants to rip the book into pieces, but it breathes in memories, in the silence of beauty he can not comprehend – perhaps never will.

“Teddy,” Andromeda Tonks calls. “It’s time for dinner, where are you?”

His eyes fill with tears and, for a long time, he looks at the book. Then he slips his feet into his carpet slippers, and extinguishes the last lamp in the room.


*

Notes: Written for the Remus Lupin Fan Club's "A Very Wolfie Christmas" One-Shot FanFiction Contest, December 2010. The theme was Remus Lupin + Christmas. What I originally wrote was, predictably, over the 2000-word limit, set for the contest. I had to chop down the story a whole lot, and can not help but think it lost much of its beauty. But, hopefully, the essence remains.