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In my younger and more vulnerable years , when he still found himself amongst the living, my Father supposedly offered me a piece of advice. Mother passed it on from him, and it was such: “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.” And in all my mother’s certainty of Father’s wisdom, that has to be the largest pile of shit I’ve ever heard. Who would tell that to a baby werewolf is beyond my understanding.
Mother never said much else, but I believe we found ourselves unusually communicative in a reserved way . She offered her nuggets of advice like gold, and I twisted and turned them in the sunlight until I deemed them pyrite, and we would move on about our days, like flies trapped in cages of tar. Regardless, after some time it became evident I could live in that house no more, and left to search for something else to be intolerant of – and in that search it was that I found New York City – the pinnacle of all I hated and a monument to the sins of les enfants terribles . I found my old friend, Cissa, and her new husband, Mr Lucius Malfoy, in some tabloid – they had finally moved back home from their tropical adventures – and as the poster children for the sodomic mess that was our roaring 20s, they moved to the American Sodomy.
Only Vayle, the man who gave his name for this recollection, seems to me to be exempt from this loathing, though he is, undoubtedly, a perfect representation of everything it is that my heart detests. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. Yes, Solus Vayle was a man of great delicacy and tact – and I must admit, I found myself equally infatuated with his person as any other unassociated bystander. Of course, I was not a regular bystander. I was much more to Vayle, and Vayle became much more to me. But of that later.
First and foremost, I found myself his neighbor, an outsider observing, looking in upon his world of goldspun frenzy each Saturday in that castle of a house, as though a god in his heavenly parlour, and I a mortal, looking in from my condo in Elysium. One afternoon, as I tended to the immediate business of the morning paper, I was startled to see Solus Vayle himself standing at the edge of his yard, waving over to me. I approached him tentatively, taking a closer look at this heavenly thing.
To call Solus Vayle a beautiful man would be to say an ocean is wet. Like the tides, his magnificence could never be condensed into something so arbitrary as words – and thus one considers it suffice to call him-decent looking, in his soft-pink suit and sparkling eyes, eyes that promise memory of a time long past, something you feel the need to remember, something you forgot – or perhaps never knew at all.
“The grass needs cutting,” he said, and I looked down. His side was perfectly mowed, mine overgrowing. “I’ll get someone to do that.” I raised my eyes back to his, locking brown with black. “My name is Solus Vayle. I believe we are neighbours.”
“Yes, that would appear to be the case.” I nodded, starkly aware of the almost ironic disproportion between the two of us – a god that lived in a castle, and a werewolf living in a hut of an estate. “I’m Remus Lupin – got a job in the Ministry recently.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“Not likely.”
“Don’t you want to change it?” Vayle tilted his head, a strange glint shining in his eye. “I happen to know of an opening in my line of work.”
“Is it what people say it is?”
“People say a lot of things about me, Mr Lupin.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” I shook my head. “I have no intention of getting on the wrong side of the law, Mr Vayle. But thank you for the offer.” He smiled.
“Come over for the party this evening,” he said, walking away from me and back to Heaven. “I would really love it if you came to the party this evening.” He didn’t wait for my response, and I assumed it to be obvious what it would’ve been regardless. And so, it happened that I became acquainted with Mr Vayle.
~~~~~~
Some ungodly force drove me to visit my old friend Cissa, and in her place I was acquainted with her son (little Draco – a beautiful, babbling little thing, and a perfect little fool, for the time being), and stolen away by her husband to meet his mistress. The train compartment that held me and him in it was a cramped compartment of the metaphorical sort, and smoking was prohibited, and I wished to leave for a breath, but I could not, for Lucius’ ego smoked up the compartment adequately without me even opening my cigarette-box.
Finally, we found ourselves in the Valley of Ashes, and soon I was being ushered into an apartment somewhere high up, one that seemed relatively cheap on the outside, the sort I’d rent out, but soon proved rich to the point of sickening, adorned in silver and green, colours I almost remembered to hate. I cared not to see Mr. Lucius Malfoy’s side thing, and made haste towards the bar. From there, a man smiled at me – Mr. Chapman, I learned to be his name – with a new-fashion camera. He grinned toothily, and took a photograph of me, and for a second I could’ve sworn I knew eternity, in the warm gaze of his eyes. I poured myself a drink of firewhiskey, noting the moon phase (still waning, I had all the time in the world), and pondering the matter of Mr. Chapman.
I know not how much time passed — between whispered rumours about my neighbor ( “I heard he once turned an entire auror division into solid gold with one of his potions…” ) and half-hearted conversations with Mr. Chapman ( “My wife’s somewhere over there. She… she doesn’t know half of me, I think.” ), I hadn’t much occasion to see exactly who Mr Lucius Malfoy was taking out – until a loud smack brought everyone back to reality, and a smash of glass on the carpet ushered them to leave for their own. As the crowd shimmied awkwardly towards the exits, I saw a flash of black, and an alarmed man, whom Lucius seemed to be cradling in a gentle manner. I honestly do not even recall the moment I found myself entering the elevator (awful joints from the full moons – something awful I say!), nor the moment I found myself alone in there with Mr. Chapman. Still, when Mr. Chapman offered I take a look at how the negatives are developed, I felt it to be rude to decline, and found myself entering his apartment, following him into his darkened room.
…
I sat on the edge of the mattress, lighting a cigarette. Mr. Chapman, clad in his white undergarments, was still asleep, face to the rising sun. I took my leave as gently as I came, mind taken by the mystery of Mr. Solus Vayle as I abandoned the Valley of Ashes alone, the blinding-blue eyes of Professor Dumbledore judging me silently from up on his billboard in the gray skies.
~~~~~~
I had become somewhat of a regular at Mr. Vayle’s revels, but this one was somewhat of a special occasion. Miss Pandora Lovegood, Cissa’s friend from college who was living with them, was adamant I should take her with me this time around, and I was not one to deny Pandora something she asked me for. And so, I found myself clad in an ivory suit, days before the full moon, arms linked with Pandora, in her stunningly white sundress. The party, as I said, was a special occasion. It was being held for Midsommar — or so I had been told, for I found it hard to believe a man like Mr. Vayle hadn’t any ulterior motives behind holding such lavish festivities – and there was to be a band playing, and actors putting out a play, and much illegal drinking. I for one, could not wait.
Cissa and Mr. Malfoy had decided against the party, but I could’ve sworn I saw the dark-haired man from the Valley of Ashes somewhere in the crowd. After a moment’s thought I stopped looking for familiar faces, worried I might find one I didn’t wish to. Instead, I left Pandora to her own devices and plots, and made haste towards the sound of merriness and intoxication, knowing my own solace to be somewhere at the bottom of one of Mr. Vayle’s bottles of contraband nectar.
“How are you enjoying the party, Mr. Lupin?” Mr. Vayle’s intoxicatingly white grin appeared beside me, like a cheshire cat glowing in the dark of the party.
“Fairly well,” I nodded. “You make good of your law-breaking, Mr. Vayle.” He laughed at that, in a bold way, and I felt my heart skip a beat from the intoxication.
“Yes, I do, don’t I?” He looked around himself, before returning his god-like eyes to my own, turning his laugh to a whisper. “Would you like to see something, Mr. Lupin?” I nodded, and he took me by the hand. I felt giddy from the forbiddenness of it all as he pulled me upstairs. A stupid joke pushed itself onto my lips as I wondered if he was taking me to see how he develops negatives, but I decided against it as he led me to an observatory. He didn’t let go of my hand, and I felt no urge to do so either, instead waiting for him to speak.
He took a deep breath in and exhaled. “This is my favourite place in the house, you know.” I didn’t respond, and he turned to look me in the eye. “How well do you know your constellations?”
“Not hardly, Mr. Vayle.”
He sighed. “It’s a shame you call me that, Mr. Lupin.”
“What would you have me call you?” I asked, and he looked back to the stars.
“Sirius.” He said after a moment, with a smile. “It’s the person I was born as, and the person I would be if not everything along the way.” He looked back at me and spoke softly. “Call me Sirius Black.”
I nodded. “Very well, Sirius.” A smile crept onto my own face. “In such a case there is no true reason for you to continue calling me Mr. Lupin, is there?”
“No, I suppose not, Remus.” His smile widened, and he led me back into his house.
~~~~~~
“What brought you to New York, Remus?” He asked me, arms wrapped around my shoulders. I took a drag of my cigarette and thought about it for a moment.
“I suppose it was Cissa, at first,” I mused. “But there was no need to stay once I met Mr. Lucius Malfoy, and little Draco.”
“Why did you stay, in that case?” He drilled on and I laughed.
“Doesn’t your wife mind us spending so much time together, Sirius?” I adjusted my position on the mattress.
“Please,” Sirius chuckled. “She’s too busy with her mistress to mind. You know her wedding bouquet was lavender, don’t you?”
“Of course,” I nodded. “Well then, what brought you two to New York, Sirius?” He fell silent for a moment, and I wondered if I had offended him in some way.
He spoke softly, and if I were a different man I might not have heard it. “We came looking for people.”
“And did you find them?” I asked him, and he turned away, with something like sadness in his eyes.
“Yes. Yes we did.”
“And who are they?” I pushed further. Sirius sighed.
“I came looking for my brother,” he admitted. “Alice, her past love – my dearest cousin.”
“Oh.” I nodded. “Can I meet them?”
Sirius laughed bitterly. “Not likely. Narcissa got herself a blood-supremacist of a husband and Regulus found himself a comfortable little apartment downtown.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” He shook his head. “Except the apartment is a coffin, and downtown’s a cemetery.” I nodded slowly, taking Sirius’ hand in mine and allowing both of us space.
And we were silent, and the silence was breathtaking, because it was a silence I shared with my love.
~~~~~~
I regret to say, but the crucible of my tale took place on one terrible full moon. I, stolen away by my monstrosity, was incapable of witnessing these events – and so, I was forced to seek the guidance and knowledge of an outsider. Mr. Peter Pettigrew was a fellow welshman. He was friends with my friends, back in the United Kingdom, and came to New York similarly to myself, searching for something to substitute what we had back then. He found his substitution in the form of a café, situated in the heart of the Valley of Ashes, and neighbor to the Snapes – Mr. Severus Snape and Mrs. Snape.
As it turns out, Mrs. Snape knew nothing of the affair between Mr. Snape and Mr. Malfoy – bah, she never thought her husband to be of the queer type at all. Mr. Pettigrew recalls shouting, screaming, and Mrs. Snape walking out, locking Mr. Snape in the apartment. Hours passed, and no cars passed, except for a blue one I knew to be Mr. Malfoy’s. Mr. Snape found his way out – and he ran out into the street, straight under the wheels of a yellow car (and I must admit, my heart stopped when I heard it was yellow, but I knew Sirius to be otherwise occupied at that time and that calmed my mortality). A woman was behind the wheel, he said, and in the passenger seat was another, and I knew in my heart they had to be Mrs. Malfoy and Mrs. Vayle. When Sirius learned of it all, he didn’t say a word, only that he needed to go out for a smoke. I didn’t see him any more from that moment onwards, and assumed he had gone to visit his brother, thinking none the more of it.
Oh, blessed ignorance. How I hate my heart for falling for a Prometheus like Solus Vayle.
Mrs. Snape had a gun – of course she did – and Sirius had a death wish. It was only natural how this story should change. Mr. Malfoy disappeared from the world, or at least he did for me, and Narcissa Black (as I learned her true name to be) followed his lead, taking a dead man’s wife with her. Mrs. Snape, akin to Judas, shot herself after killing god, and I found no reason to stay any longer in New York City.
And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world , I thought of Black’s wonder when he first came to this sodomic pit. He had come a long way, and his family must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know at first that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. He did not know it was gone without return.
Vayle believed in a new dawn, an orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...And one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.