Our Empty Spaces

 

it's the season of grace coming out of the void
where a man is saved by a voice in the distance
--Vienna Teng, "The Atheist Christmas Carol"

 

 

That was surprisingly painless, Sirius thinks with remarkable presence of mind for someone who has just died.  He climbs to his feet, or attempts to, but runs into difficulty when he realizes that he no longer has feet — no longer has any semblance of a body, in fact.

 

Oh, he says, although it is really more of a vibration of thoughts than spoken words.  Well, then. 

 

For the first time, he notices that he isn’t seeing as much as he isn’t feeling.  He is — or he would be, if he had the capacity for anything but void — terrified.

 

It is assumed that he will be here forever, in the empty space between stars or the hollow spot between molecules.  He will always remain in the perpetual expanse of a skipped heartbeat.

 

*

 

Remus wears Sirius’s old socks for reasons more practical than sentimental.  His own socks have been darned both magically and the Muggle way more times than he cares to recall, and his funds are as limited as ever.  And even if they weren’t, it seems a waste of good socks (nice, thick, navy ones, the quality kind that Remus has never dared to buy) to just throw them out or pack them away.

 

When Remus hangs his curtains, his hands don’t shake and his eyes don’t well up.  He does bite his lip a little when he realizes he hung them a bit unevenly, so that the right side is two inches longer than the left, and then he sits down to drink a cup of a tea.  Oolong, this month — a gift from Dumbledore.

 

The fringes of summer blend into autumn in a slow, languorous way, and Remus passes the time drinking tea and wearing socks and locking himself in a cage once a month.  He receives a letter from Harry in October, a few scribbled lines with a tentative postscript:  “I really wish you’d visit, Professor Lupin.  No one’s seen you in ages.”  That day, Remus sits at the window and watches the leaves fall from the trees.  His books go untouched and his tea goes cold.

 

*

 

The loneliness includes me unawares —

 

It is the first thing Sirius has felt in so, so long, and it is like static and fingers against his spine.  The association tethers him, and, for a moment, he feels alive and sixteen instead of endless, endless, endless.

 

The voice resumes, soft and faraway, And lonely as it is that loneliness —

 

Quiet and precise, the voice has a steady rhythm.  Iambic, or trochaic, or one of those words Remus had taught him when they were still at Hogwarts and reading Shakespeare together because Remus had loved poetry and Sirius had loved Remus.

 

Will be more lonely ere it will be less —

 

Recognition sends another shock through Sirius, and he saysshoutsthinksfeels, Moony.

 

*

 

Setting his book down, Remus walks calmly to the kitchen and vomits in the sink.  He contemplates for a moment that he managed to throw up at all, as all that he’s bothered to eat for the past three days is weak tea and the occasional piece of blackened toast.

 

Remus supposes he must be crazy, and he isn’t as surprised as he probably ought to be.

 

I just heard Sirius, he says, or perhaps thinks, it’s difficult to tell when he’s not actually speaking to anyone.  I just heard Sirius.

 

Yes, says Sirius, and Remus feels his breath rush out, you did.

 

*

 

Dumbledore has his theories, chief among which is that Sirius is caught between worlds, unable to let go but unable to truly hold on.  “He’s waiting for something,” Dumbledore tells Remus.

 

Filling in the blanks, Remus says, “He’s waiting for me.”

 

“You are connected by your emptiness,” says Dumbledore with sad, knowing eyes.  “If you were to rejoin society, Remus, I suspect the connection would break, and Sirius would have no choice but to move on.  Even now, even here, talking to me, you can feel it beginning to weaken, can’t you?”

 

Remus looks away, because he understands the choice Dumbledore is asking him to make.

 

*

 

It is an imperfect existence.

 

Remus aches with loneliness, and Sirius aches with nothingness, and they both ache with the knowledge of what is really best.

 

I love you, says Sirius, and it echoes in Remus’s mind like a song.  Don’t you dare forget.

 

Me too, is all Remus can manage to say, because he does have a body, and tears, and this is the third time he’s had to lose Sirius.

 

I feel like I should say something monumental.  Something you’ll always remember me by.

 

Remus chokes, Sirius, you don’t have to, we can just —

 

Shush, Moony, this is better, of course it is.  But still.  I should say something.

 

Padfoot, don’t—

 

Ah.  Of course. 

 

Remus’s throat hurts so badly, raw with tears and clogged with the words he never said.

 

Sirius says, voice guttering out like a candle, Mischief managed.

 

*

 

Autumn arrives, and Remus Lupin, cusping on seventy, looks out his window and drinks his tea.  He has just finished a letter to Harry, congratulating him on his promotion as well as the birth of his second child.  His smile is tinged only a little sad, these days, because he can feel what his bones are telling him, and he knows.

 

There is the low murmuring of voices at the back of his head now, and he can hear among them Sirius, laughing and hooting, calling, C’mon, Moony, there’s much fun to be had!

 

That night, a passing breeze takes with it the last gold-tinged leaves on the oak tree outside, and Remus, watching, dies.

 

Fin.