The Reason For Winter

 

 

 

Under the harvest moon
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.
 

--Carl Sandburg, “Under the Harvest Moon”

 

*

 

An early frost had crept in overnight, so that the grass crunched when Remus walked across it and the sides of his sneakers went damp.  He purchased a coffee and a newspaper from a Muggle vendor on the street, whose smile was a little too friendly when their fingers brushed against the hot Styrofoam cup.  Remus looked away, not coy but discouraging, and wondered why the vendor’s blue eyes looked gray in the mid-morning light.

 

The post had not arrived yet, Remus noted without surprise when he returned to his flat.  It wasn’t as if he even had much mail, except bills, and even those were relatively rare.  Those who had written to him in the past were dead, or as good as, and they wouldn’t have bothered with Muggle post anyway.  Tucking his newspaper under his arm, Remus unlocked the door with his key, as he had done for the past howevermany years.

 

Remus lived in a tiny flat with faulty plumbing, just around the corner from the grocery store he worked at, putting cans on shelves for ₤4.50 an hour.  The proximity of the two places was convenient, allowing for Remus not to have to worry about taking any one step too far into the real world.

 

Headlines of The Times, Remus found, were far less interesting than those of The Daily Prophet, even if the former was now far more pertinent to his life than the latter.  While he still read the newspaper from front to back, the words trickled across his skin like water and evaporated just as quickly.  Whatever had compelled him to read The Prophet every day since he was thirteen, despite how it depleted his already low funds, had been more than a sense of a duty and a need for routine; he had actually cared about the wizarding world because he had felt that there was a place in it for him.

 

This was no longer true — not in the magical world nor in the Muggle one.  Even that one place he had thought he would always belong — among his friends — was now closed-off to him, except in death, a route he was too cowardly to willingly traverse.

 

A sting came to his thumb, and Remus watched a few drops of blood leak onto the corner of the headline three killed, one survivor in auto accident.  Frowning, he realized he had a paper cut and stuck the finger in his mouth.  He could hear his mother:  ‘That’s a bad sign, Remus, a paper cut on the morning of the full moon.  Salt over your shoulder, dear, and keep a rabbit’s foot in your pocket.’

 

Mary Lupin was a superstitious woman — or she had been, before her death in his seventh year at Hogwarts, just before he was set to take his NEWTS — and she had, upon learning of it, embraced the wizarding lifestyle and all its so-called miracles.  Her favorite topic of discussion had been omens, and she had squandered her money on bogus cures for lycanthropy and charms to turn around the family’s ill fortune.

 

His father had died the year after, and Remus could remember standing over the grave with a dry throat and dry eyes.  Something like acceptance was nestled like a clutch of eggs in his stomach, already desensitized in the face of so much death.  There was an arm wrapped around his shoulders and a face buried in his neck.  Sirius Black — mass-murderer, betrayer, and infamous dark wizard — had cried for John Lupin when even his own son could not.

 

*

 

“C’mon, Moony,” Sirius says, stretching out on his four-poster bed.  He is, Remus thinks, a walking paradox:  a catlike dog, a doglike boy.  Letting out an absurdly large yawn, Sirius glances over at Remus — lying on his stomach with his elbows propped up, studying.  “This is boring.”

 

“Boring?” Remus says, glancing up from his thick book.  “I’m sorry.  I wasn’t aware I was supposed to be entertaining you,” he remarks dryly, unaware of the smudge of ink on his cheek that looks like the black remnants of a woman’s lipstick.  There is a challenge in his raised eyebrows.

 

They are alone in their dormitory together because James has managed to earn himself detention for ‘unsporting behavior’ on the Quidditch pitch after a bad game.  Peter, meanwhile, has joined the chess club and spends all his time defeating half of Gryffindor house and collecting his winnings.  Remus has taken to warning Peter’s opponents not to underestimate him, but no one ever heeds his advice.  On the other hand, Sirius merely snorts and says Peter just has good luck, but everyone knows he’s really just sore over being the first to lose to Peter.

 

Remus pretends to scribble notes on his parchment when he’s really waiting for Sirius’s inevitable reply.  He glances out of the corner of his eye to see that Sirius has rolled onto his side and, alarmingly, seems to be scrutinizing Remus.  Heat pools at the base of Remus’s neck like a rash.

 

“Of course you’re supposed to entertain me,” Sirius says as if only two seconds have passed since Remus last spoke, rather than two minutes.  “Your job description is as follows:  dutiful student, loving husband of about three thousand books, occasional carnivore, and personal jester to Sirius Black.  That last one is, obviously, very crucial.”

 

“You’re an idiot.”

“You love me for it.”  Sirius blows a kiss to Remus, who is staring determinedly at his book.  Both of the boys know that he isn’t reading.

 

Remus says, keeping his tone even, “Whatever delusions you may have, at least admit that you’re going to fail the History of Magic exam, unless you inherently know the ins-and-outs of Greek mythology, and its impact on magical rituals today.”

 

“Well, I am a modern-day Adonis.”

“No, you’re just unforgivably brilliant.  However, even you, O Great One, can’t pull completely unlearned information out of your arse.”  Remus thinks that perhaps this is untrue — Sirius has been known to accomplish greater miracles than good grades — but he says it with certainty anyway.  Sighing tiredly, he rolls onto his back and puts the book over his face.

 

With a characteristic smirk, Sirius rises and saunters over to Remus and, unhesitating, straddles him.  “O Great One.  I like the sound of that.”

 

“Get — off — me,” Remus gasps, a flood of something terribly unfriendly rushing downward.

“I think,” Sirius says, ignoring Remus squirming beneath him, “that you should teach me.”

 

“Teach you?”

 

“The wonders of Greek mythology.”

 

“You — don’t — actually — care,” says Remus, each word punctuated with an ineffectual shove against the unyielding mass that is Sirius Black.

 

“No,” admits Sirius softly, “but I don’t mind hearing you talk.”

 

There is something in Sirius’s earnest face that makes Remus stop struggling.

 

*

 

For lunch, Remus had tuna sandwiches and weak tea, both of which were mostly flavorless.  The rim of his teacup was chipped, and the side was cracked, and he’d spelled it together at least twice now.

 

After lunch, he began rereading a collection of O. Henry’s stories before falling asleep on the small cot he had purchased in lieu of a bed.  His sleep was mild and not very deep, and he awoke an hour later to the blaring of a car horn outside.  He supposed his dreams had probably been bad, but he couldn’t remember.  Forgetting was a skill he had learned over the past few years.

 

He ambled tiredly to the bathroom around five o’clock, and he could already feel the stretch in his bones.  The water in the shower was cold and dribbling, lacking both heat and pressure, as usual.  He felt the droplets slide along his bony shoulders and pool in his collarbone, slipping down the curve of his spine and between the cleft cheeks, traveling the expanse of his skin the way Sirius had, but less intimate, less warm.

 

“I’m a fool,” he whispered, wishing that the shower was loud enough to swallow the sound.  He was not surprised to be disappointed.

 

*

 

“On the night of the Harvest Moon, Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and taken to the underworld,” begins Remus, now that Sirius has settled beside him rather than on top of him.  “Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, the goddess of the Earth and harvest.  Hades took Persephone while she was picking flowers because—”

 

Smirking like the time he found a stash of dirty magazines under James’s bed, Sirius says, “I assume he did it for the same reason any well-hung god abducted any rosy-cheeked virgin.  And his own niece, too!  When it comes to depravity, those Greeks could give the Blacks a run for their inbred money.”

 

There is a line of heat where Remus’s leg touches Sirius’s.  “I think you’ve always exaggerated the incestuous nature of your relatives.  I mean, you turned out fine.”  This is a gross understatement, and they both know it.

 

“Yes,” says Sirius, resting the back of his hand oh-so-tragically on his forehead.  “We hide the truly hideous ones in the dungeon.  I’ve actually got another brother, but his third nipple forces us to keep him away from the masses that would be shocked — shocked I say! — to see such disfigurement in an honorable family like the Blacks.”

 

It is a little frightening that Remus almost believes Sirius.  Except, of course, if it were true, Sirius wouldn’t be laughing in that maniacal way he does whenever he insults his family, drunk on the taste of rebellion.

 

“Anyway,” Remus says over Sirius’s laughter, “if I may continue my story.”

 

“Go ahead, Moony.  Let’s hear the rest.”

 

Remus jumps a little when Sirius’s arm curls around his shoulders, but recovers enough to say, “Yes.  Well then.”  He clears his throat.  “Hades took Persephone to the underworld, and Demeter was overcome with loneliness and grief.  The world became barren, and the earth began to die.  Trees ceased growth, crops withered; life no longer flowed into the world.”

There is a frown tugging at the edge of Sirius’s mouth, and he says, at Remus’s pause, “Is loneliness so terrible a thing?”

 

“I imagine so,” replies Remus, because though he’s been isolated most of his life, it is different from losing everything you love, as Demeter had.  “Let’s hope we never know.”

 

A grin splits Sirius’ face.  “Of course we won’t, you nonce.  We’re Marauders.  We stick together.”

 

Relief streams like hot cocoa along Remus’s esophagus.  Smooth and mild, but tinged with lusty and bitter dark chocolate, far too decadent.  Remus tries hard not to think about it too much.

 

“Zeus sent Hermes to retrieve Persephone, but before Hades released her, he tricked her into eating three pomegranate seeds, binding her to the underworld for three months a year — one month for each seed.  Thereafter, when Demeter and her daughter were together, life on earth flourished and crops grew in abundance.  The three months Persephone ruled as Queen of the Underworld, the earth froze over and died, and winter came.”

 

“I think,” announces Sirius, “that Persephone was an idiot.  Didn’t she know any better than to take candy or fruit from a strange man who’d abducted her?”

 

Remus shakes his head, fighting the laughter and affection which threaten to overwhelm him, and the arm around his shoulders tightens.

 

“You’re brighter than that, aren’t you, Moony?”

 

“I’d hope so.”  He doesn’t add, 'But, then again, I was the little boy who approached the giant ferocious wolf in my backyard.'  He does say, “Not so sure about you, though.”

 

With a little more force than strictly necessary, Sirius headbutts Remus, and then Sirius kisses him.  It is the moment Remus has been hoping for since he first began to notice the lines of the muscles in Sirius’s stomach, the warm, dark edge of his laugh — it is a moment that will change everything, but Remus is in too much pain to really care.

 

This was probably Sirius’s plan all along.

 

“You know,” whispers Sirius, his lips moving against Remus’s throbbing temple.  “If someone tried to take you away from me, I’d trick you into eating magical pomegranate too.  Well, for you, I’d try chocolate.  It would require less trickery.”  Remus can feel Sirius’s mouth curving into a smile.  “But still.  I’m a selfish bastard, and I’d make you stay with me, even if — ”

 

“You’re so extreme,” Remus mutters, his voice cracking.  “You wouldn’t have to trick me.  I’d stay anyway.  No tricks necessary.”

 

They kiss again and wonder what it means.

 

*

 

The smell of the Shack was familiar — blood, and Wolf, and indelible scent of the pack:  stag, rat, dog.  Remus hated that he had nowhere else to go, unable to risk a transformation in his flat, and with no friends to turn to anymore.  So each month he Apparated to the Shrieking Shack at the last possible moment, just before reality slipped away and he couldn’t be troubled to remember what once was.

 

He knew without seeing that the Harvest Moon was rising outside, luminous and orange over Hogwarts Castle, and he felt the first bone crack, his spine lengthening, sinews snapping and regrowing, as his humanity morphed into monstrosity.  And then, for the first time in a month, he felt nothing.

 

When he awoke, blood seeping from the wounds he had inflicted, he wondered why the air smelled like loss and pomegranates; winter’s claim on a lonely heart, and a first kiss in the back of his mind that would never end.