[Fic] Letting It Matter

[shimotsuki]

Back in the saddle again: Here's my first attempt at a DH-compliant fic -- although it's actually set Marauder-era. It's a last-minute entry for the Tales of Whiskey and Regret challenge at redandthewolf.

Title: Letting It Matter
Author: shimotsuki
Summary: Remus decides to give up wanting things, but Lily won't let him go through with it.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mild profanity, and a failed attempt at getting very drunk
Word Count: 1273
Author's Note: This ficlet is DH backstory, inspired by the infamous Chapter 11, but it's not a DH spoiler, because it won't give anything away unless you already know what to look for. (I can't promise spoiler-free comments, however.)

Prompts -- | Drinks: Firewhiskey, hot toddy, and butterbeer | Regret: taken a chance
| Lyrics: Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see
   It's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out
   It doesn't matter much to me -- The Beatles, Strawberry Fields Forever

Letting It Matter
The warmth and noise of the Leaky Cauldron welcomed Lily in from the cold. Her cheeks were flushed, partly from the sharp December wind, and partly from the exhilaration of going Christmas shopping for the first time as a career woman, not merely a student on an allowance from home. Her expedition had been so successful, in fact, that she could barely squeeze herself and her parcels past the pub's heavy door.

She was early—she still had nearly an hour before Marlene, Alice, and Dorcas were due to meet her for a post-shopping hot toddy. But she was tired, and the parcels were heavy and too magically complex to shrink, so she'd come here planning to have a quiet butterbeer and read while she waited.

And then she spotted Remus, sitting alone at a small table in the far corner. Lily broke into a wide smile at this unexpected encounter. He was so busy at work these days that it seemed she hardly ever saw him. She waved, trying to catch his eye, but he was too intent on his tumbler of Firewhiskey to notice her.

Wait. Firewhiskey?

Didn't Remus usually stick with butterbeer, or maybe ale or mead?

This required closer investigation.

Lily strode across the room, dumped her parcels in a jumbled heap, and claimed the other chair at his table without waiting for an invitation. "Hello, Remus!"

He looked up slowly at the sound of her voice.

"I wouldn't have thought I'd see you here at this hour," she said, studying him carefully. There were grey smudges under his eyes from the last full moon, only three days past, and the strong drink had put a bit of colour in his cheeks. Other than that, he was oddly expressionless. "Aren't you usually out observing Graphorns at the preserve about now?"

"Not anymore." Remus lifted his glass and swallowed, wincing slightly at the burn of the Firewhiskey. Even his voice was indifferent, almost lifeless. "I've been sacked."

"No!" Lily felt as though she'd been punched in the stomach. All of her friends had done all right for themselves when they left Hogwarts, but no one else loved their job the way Remus had. Even after six months, he'd never stopped looking a bit awestruck at his great good fortune—as though he hadn't earned the nine Outstanding N.E.W.T.s, or the glowing references from Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Kettleburn, that landed him his position at the British Institute for Magizoology. He'd been spending his days immersed in the habits of rare and interesting magical creatures, gathering information and writing papers. Lily had read two or three of them, and found them fascinating; Remus had a lucid, engaging voice and a knack for explaining difficult information simply. It was the perfect job for him.

Or at least, it had been.

She shook her head helplessly, failing to find words. All she could do was to give his hand a brief squeeze. "What happened?"

Another swig; another wince. "I was out ill just a bit too often." He dropped his voice to a near whisper. "And just a bit too regularly." His lips tightened. "Llewellyn told me that if I resigned of my own accord, he'd let the matter drop without going and having a look at the Registry."

Lily drew a shaky breath. Exposure—his worst nightmare. "Oh, Remus. I'm so, so sorry."

He took another mouthful of Firewhiskey, swallowing it deliberately, like medicine, and shrugged. "Doesn't matter, really."

"What?" She thought of the month he'd spent pacing in the common room, waiting for a reply from the Institute. His excitement last summer when a Tadfoal had hatched right in front of him one day. The pride in his voice when his first paper was accepted for the Annals of Magizoology. "What do you mean, it doesn't matter?"

"It doesn't. It's over. Nothing to do with me."

He met her gaze, and his eyes were hard. Lily was a little frightened—who was this hostile stranger, and where was the Remus she'd known for more than seven years? She'd seen him close himself up, hide his feelings, withdraw inside himself, time and again. But never had she known him to be cold.

And then, she saw it. For the briefest of instants, the stony facade cracked to reveal the desperation of a heartbroken little boy who'd just lost everything in the world. It vanished almost immediately, but now she understood—he'd simply hidden himself away much further than usual.

Lily bit her lip. Remus needed someone to pull him out of...whatever this was. And it wasn't Lily that he needed, either, it was James. Or better yet, Sirius—who, for all his meticulously cultivated air of world-weary detachment, always knew how to say exactly what Remus needed to hear.

But James and Sirius weren't here. She was the only one.

Fine. She frowned in concentration. What would they do?

All at once, as she watched Remus lift his glass to take yet another joyless dose of alcohol, she knew.

Lily reached across the table, snatched the tumbler from his fingers, and slammed it down. Firewhiskey sloshed over the edge of the glass, licking at the worn tabletop with ephemeral tongues of soft blue flame. Remus looked up at her, startled. Good, dammit—she'd got his full attention at last.

"This does matter!" She didn't shout, not in the middle of the pub, but she glared at him and gave her voice a razor's edge. "Remus, you have to let it matter!"

"I can't." His voice was a hoarse whisper. "It's too much." There was a pleading look in his eyes now, and it made her heart ache, but at least the horrid cold stare was gone. "I never should have let myself believe that I could want a career, just like anyone else."

"Of course you—"

He cut her off. "I'm finished. I'll never find another job I'd actually want to have."

"Don't say that! Look, the Institute didn't expose you, not publicly anyway. You've got experience, and you've published papers—it's just a matter of finding the next position."

Remus sighed, looking too old for his eighteen years. "Not without references, and I obviously can't ask Llewellyn for one."

Lily set her jaw. "We'll figure something out. We can get James and the others working on it, too. But you can't just give up. We won't let you, none of us."

He was quiet for a long moment, staring into his Firewhiskey. Finally, he gave her the wry grin that was so very Remus, and the knot in her stomach loosened, even though there was still something a little shaken behind his eyes.

"You're right," he said, very softly. "I didn't make it through Hogwarts to end up a quitter. It's just—it's so easy to start thinking that I shouldn't let myself want what I know I can't have."

She reached over and squeezed his hand again. "Don't be daft. If you stop wanting things, then you won't have them, but it'll be your own fault."

"I suppose there's something to that," was all he said, but his eyes told her he was grateful that she hadn't given up on him.

Lily poured the rest of Remus's tumbler of Firewhiskey into the spindly potted plant lurking behind their table (which hiccoughed a bit as the liquor found its roots) and ordered them each a butterbeer. Then she pulled that day's Prophet out of one of her shopping bags. "Come on—let's see if anyone is advertising for a bright young man with N.E.W.T.s in just about everything but Potions."

. * fin * .

Comments

[annuscka.livejournal.com]

As a big fan of the infamous chapter 11, I really liked this! And it makes me so sad that, pre chapter 11, everyone who would have kicked this sense was dead.

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

it makes me so sad that, pre chapter 11, everyone who would have kicked this sense was dead -- That was what I was thinking as I wrote this. But if Lily's combination of shock and sympathy was the right answer, then Harry and Hermione between them may have done a pretty good job...

[ravnclw-lioness.livejournal.com]

This is really sweet without being angsty. Lily is perfect, stepping up in the place of James and Sirius when they're not around. At times like this, both the reason of her friendship with them and her Gryffindor courage are obvious and poignant. Perfect!

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the comment -- I'm glad you liked Lily here. (I wanted this scene to foreshadow another case where someone has to step in and fill Marauder shoes.)

[bratanimus.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love this. This fic is so full of fun little details (Tadfoal, ha ha! and the hiccoughing plant, hee!), nice moments of levity within a darker work.

You've got a great Lily voice (loved Good, dammit), and I love that she's just as much a Marauder as her husband, i.e., knocking some sense into her friend when he needs it. And Remus is fantastic, taking his Firewhiskey shots like medicine, poor guy. :(

I adore the job you gave him, and it's a great precursor to his work with Dark creatures in DADA. I also love that you have him submitting research papers and getting published; that strikes me as VERY Remus. Loved this: Remus had a lucid, engaging voice and a knack for explaining difficult information simply. Of course. ;)

For some reason this bit really stuck out for me: "I was out ill just a bit too often." He dropped his voice to a near whisper. "And just a bit too regularly." His lips tightened. "Llewellyn told me that if I resigned of my own accord, he'd let the matter drop without going and having a look at the Registry." It's so Remus, and also full of the atmosphere of fear under which he has to live.

Just fabulous. I'm very glad you got this posted before midnight! :D

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the thoughtful comments! I'm glad I got this posted in time, too. :P I'm glad you liked Lily here. We've seen so little of her in canon that it feels like a challenge to write her. (Although I guess there's a bit more Lily canon now, heh.)

I'm afraid the Tadfoal is JKR's, from Fantastic Beasts (they hatch into a Hippocampus). But I enjoyed coming up with tie-ins to Remus's creature-heavy curriculum in PoA, and there's actually going to be a small plot point regarding Annals of Magizoology in my OotP-era WIP.

[bloodrebel333.livejournal.com]

"Don't be daft. If you stop wanting things, then you won't have them, but it'll be your own fault."

:)

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Thanks. ;)

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

*Definitely spoilery comments ahead*

This is such a good foreshadowing scene; I love Lily revelling in her Happy World, thinking of herself as a career woman, and spending so much on Christmas presents, then being brought up short by the sight of how it isn't always such a kind place to everyone else. Not only does it show a possible beginning to the spiral of hope and disappointment that Remus will face over the years, but it seemed to me to pre-empt PoA a bit as well - Llewellyn told me that if I resigned of my own accord, he'd let the matter drop - because isn't that what he insists on doing there...

I also liked how you managed to incorporate both Hermione's sympathy for his plight, and Harry's fury at him, into Lily's reaction; as well as Remus seeming cold and retreating into himself to try and stop caring as a kind of coping mechanism. I have to say that years of facing this kind of fear and rejection (and on his own, when the others have gone) would grind anyone down, and certainly leave you feeling that: "it's so easy to start thinking that I shouldn't let myself want what I know I can't have." Which appears to me, at least, to be very near what he's saying in chapter 11.

Really enjoyed this and great to see Lily sort him out. She is, indeed, another no-nonsense Marauder and woman. Oh and a Tadfoal conjures up a wonderful image!

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed this, and I'm grateful for your thoughtful comments.

a possible beginning to the spiral of hope and disappointment -- I wanted to play with the idea that the prejudice and hard times wouldn't start the instant he stepped out of Hogwarts, because surely he'd have had excellent credentials to begin with. But he knows that every time he has to leave a job it's going to be that much harder to find the next one, since he can't explain why he's had to leave.

Remus seeming cold and retreating into himself to try and stop caring as a kind of coping mechanism -- I really wanted to write something to try to put Remus's DH Ch 11 behavior into some kind of context. We know his usual response to stress or emotion is to go mild and bland; I think it makes sense to see the apparent coldness as a more extreme version of that withdrawal, when there's more at stake and it's harder for Remus to handle. But then, is simply losing a job worth this reaction, if it's Remus's most extreme response and we never see it from him in PoA, OotP, or HBP? I'm thinking that Remus spent all of Hogwarts expecting instant disaster as soon as he left, so when he got his dream job, he was almost giddy with relief, thinking he was actually going to get away with having a normal life. So the sacking hit him very hard, because it's not just the loss of a desirable job, it's a sign that all the negative things he's grown up expecting really are lying in wait for him after all. (Hmmph. I obviously wrote this fic far too fast, because clearly I should have found a way to make him communicate these thoughts to Lily. Maybe if I revise this for posting somewhere, I could develop that aspect a bit more.)

[paulamcg.livejournal.com]

You show Lily’s situation in a wonderfully vivid way at the opening, and I’m ready to feel the evocative contrast when we see Remus in his aftermath of the sack. Of course, this has to be limited to the level of emotions as the financial consequences are not visible yet.

Since I haven’t been thinking about DH much or read it more than once, I can only guess and try to remember what the chapter 11 scene you refer to could be and how Remus’s reactions were shown in it. (The one in which he attacked Harry and looked – surprisingly enough – even more out-of-character than earlier or later in that book or in HBP?) In any case I regard the way you show his reactions here as convincing, albeit startling. I can actually relate to that notion about learning not to want what we can’t have (and yes, it is included in a later chapter of my novel).

It’s also natural that he doesn’t talk more about what the loss means, and that a lot of what you say about that here is Lily’s guesses. Perhaps some added brief lines of dialogue could convey how he had unexpectedly got a reason to believe he’d lead a life like anyone else, and how all hopes had now come crashing down. Here he still talks about never getting a job he’d like – but perhaps he’s realising (what is too much to bear) that he won’t be able to keep any legal job at all. I’m happy for your Remus that he initially had this chance (unlike mine, in whose Hogwarts certificate his part-human status was mentioned) – to properly find out what kind of magical career he’d like.

It’s both lovely and sad to learn that Sirius knew so well how to give him what he needed. (I doubt my Sirius was always there for my Remus like that, even though theirs was not just friendship love.) Sad because I realise that your Remus didn’t lose much less than mine. I still dare assume that he didn’t go downhill as low as mine did (partly because I’ve been hopelessly fond of describing rather extreme poverty).

I love the idea that Remus is a good writer – and that Lily appreciates it. I quite love your Lily, too. The way she talks to Remus, while she finds it far from easy to substitute for the other Marauders.

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Once again, I am grateful for your thoughtful and detailed review!

Yes, DH Ch 11 is "The Bribe," the one where Remus finds Harry and the others at Grimmauld Place and has his extreme breakdown. I also found that scene quite out of character for the Remus I thought I had come to know, but after thinking about it, I decided I could take it to be what happens when Remus is really devastated and pushed farther than even he can handle. So I wrote this little story partly as background for Remus having that type of reaction.

Perhaps some added brief lines of dialogue could convey how he had unexpectedly got a reason to believe he’d lead a life like anyone else, and how all hopes had now come crashing down.

Yes! That's exactly what I think this still needs. I may revise it sometime for posting at PhoenixSong, and if I do, I will add something like this in.

I still dare assume that he didn’t go downhill as low as mine did

Quite possibly not, heh. (I know I haven't made a lot of headway reading your short stories yet, but I definitely will be doing so, and I look forward to it.)

Anyway, I'm very happy to know that you liked this version of Lily, and her friendship with Remus, as well as the idea that Sirius (in this version) was a very loyal and determined friend.

[paulamcg.livejournal.com]

I can only admire you for tackling that devastated!Remus so wonderfully.

And now I have to ask what PhoenixSong is.

I’ll be happy to read more about your Remus’s friendships with Lily and Sirius. (And to hear more about how you like my Remus, whenever you’ve got the chance to meet him again in the long story or a shorter one.)

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

PhoenixSong is a fic site that I found when I was first starting to read fanfiction, before I was so involved in fic communities on LiveJournal. I started archiving there because I liked the quality of the writing (although it does happen to be a canon-pairings-only site). I still submit things there from time to time, and I may start putting Kaleidoscope (my major R/T series) there when the first draft is finished.

I have a small collection of Marauder-era stories mostly centered around Remus; the links are collected here (http://shimotsuki.livejournal.com/3273.html#cutid2) if you're ever looking for them!

And, I see that you've been quite active posting things over the last week or so! Congratulations -- and I'm hoping to have some nice quiet time for fic-reading this weekend.

[paulamcg.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the information – some of which you’ve probably given to me before, too. My mind is slippery – while I’ve also ended up reading different fics by you without choosing from your Master Story Index. But now I’m more determined again to soon follow the links and read particularly those Marauder-era stories.

And thanks for the congrats! It is always quite an elating achievement for me to complete a new small fic – even if it’s just a 100-word drabble or a single piece for an all-month prompt community.

Damn LJ ate my comment!

[hogwartshussy.livejournal.com]

I hate it when it's hungry!
Anyway, I found this via a recommendation from paulamcg at a brand new community called, accio_marauders.
What an interesting way to correlate Remus' seeming breakdown of morality in DH! (I find that fanfiction was needed to put that one in perspective for me.) I could totally see your tale play out and I was devastated for Remus over his loss of a promising career. And your Lily is exactly what he needed then in the absence of his other support.

Re: Damn LJ ate my comment!

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for reading, and especially for persisting and commenting in the face of a hungry LJ! I'm glad you thought the characterization worked here.

What an interesting way to correlate Remus' seeming breakdown of morality in DH! (I find that fanfiction was needed to put that one in perspective for me.)

Amen to that -- I found that the only way I could understand Remus's behavior in early DH was to decide that circumstances must have pushed him too far, too fast. Most of my DH Remus-oriented stories have been working in that direction, anyway... And this one is designed to give his behavior a little historical precedent.

[hooves.livejournal.com]

This was a very good story. Lily can be hard to write, but I think you did her justice, here. She's a bit like Harry but also her own person. She definitely cares about her friends and isn't about to let them wallow in self-pity even if it is well-deserved self-pity.

This is a pretty good setup for a future Remus in DH who will act quite unlike himself. Though I also think that people forget that, just because someone hasn't acted a certain way doesn't mean under the right circumstances they won't. I don't mean drastic differences but it'd be a bit naive to think that someone who is usually very mild-mannered would never lose their temper, for instance. I did think DH Remus rocked it out a bit more than I would have thought, it's easy to see how he's just been pushed and pushed and pushed closer to a breaking point pretty much all his life. I'm definitely not making excuses for his behavior because it was pretty bad (Oh, Remus, why did you do that? :() but at the same time, this fic especially shows us that he's capable of, well, being pushed too far. If that makes sense.

I also like how the tone of this shifted from super happy teehee career woman yay to fuckdammit I lost my job this sucks. It does set us for a decent tone that sort of...explains...or rather, foreshadows, his spiral into poverty (or near-poverty, whichever your personal headcanon might be).

That said, I like your Lily. And in what I've read from you, I also like your Remus.

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! I'm glad you liked the characters here. I like to think of Remus and Lily as having a strong friendship, especially if they were Gryffindor prefects together.

And you've said exactly what I think about Remus in DH -- he's been pushed and pushed past his breaking point until he finally snaps. So I did want to show a kind of foreshadowing of that with this story.