The production of a silence: James Potter and the strings of thinking space

Oxford circa September, 2018

A paper must be written within a line. A precise structure James can see with his eyes closed, so familiar it comes to him as easily as breathing. First, an abstract. 

Upon the first encounter, the idea of love never crossed Regulus’ Black plans. When you have been deprived of it for most of your life, a word becomes merely a word and a concept as abstract as it can be. But love inquiries questions and these are questions whose central premise needs to be challenged. James Potter was a builder of words and therefore, there were multiple James: all dynamic, all fluctuating, all becoming, and all contested. These are the James that continue to circulate and reformulate across the strings, sometimes breaking boundaries and transgressing limits but never disregarding a challenge, when faced. There is only one danger in crossing a line: crossing it alone. And for all concerns and conclusions, James and Regulus were not alone.

Then, the first section: An Introduction.

The story begins like this. 

James Potter’s writings in the 1970’s and 1980’s were central to the production of its own specialty within the scholarship of International Politics and Literature. Part of a wider disciplinary reaction against mainstream ideologies in his field of knowledge, James Potter had been elevated and/or denigrated to a status reserved for a select few. Potter’s writings were a key locus in the initial articulation of critical positions and a continuing reference point in their later evolution. 

In one of his precise writing, Potter questioned who are we? and who are we not?¹. He believed his answer was in the silence between words; in the things we erase continually throughout history with meaning or not. Within the academy, we are taught to look for silence – as a noun. However, there is a sort of tension with the other face of silence, when it assumes the form of a verb. 

Foucault says ‘Silence itself – the thing one declines to say, or is forbidden to name, the discretion that is required between different speakers – is less the absolute limit of discourse, the other side from which it is separated by a strict boundary, than an element that functions alongside the things said, with them and in relation to them.’

But there remains hope. 

Next, the one argumentative section, where you expose your initial approaches. James would title this ‘Departure (noun – the action of leaving, especially to start a journey.)’

Oxford circa December, 1989

Wolfsnow. 

That’s what they called it. A dangerously, heavy, swirly, wind-driven snow.  

That morning, Regulus had said. 

‘Lux Brumalis.’

James was not even awake yet. ‘Hm?’

‘Lux Brumalis. Latin for the sweet tender light of the pale winter sun,’ he whispered, kissing tenderly at James’ hairline. ‘Croozling. It means snuggling under a duvet or into a blanket so as to stay nice and warm. That’s what we are doing.’

‘Regulus, it’s six in the morning, why are you being a walking dictionary?’ James asked, trying to awake himself enough to formulate words out of his mouth.

‘I thought you liked that about me.’

‘Not at six in the morning!’

‘Stop being illiterate James. Knowledge doesn’t recognize our measures of time.’

James took a very deep breath. There was no sleeping when Regulus had awakened himself.

‘Wolfsnow,’ James said.

‘A wolf who likes snow?’ Regulus tried to guess.

James chuckled. ‘A dangerously, heavy, swirly, wind-driven snow.’

‘I love when you talk dirty to me,’ Regulus said, smiling and kissing him in the mouth, his voice so vulnerable in those sweet hours of the morning. ‘But today is a Lux Brumalis day. The snow is set, there is no wolfsnow.’

‘Regulus?’

‘Hm?’

‘It’s the last day of classes. What are we going to do when there are no papers to read and tests to grade? What does a professor do when he is on break?’

Regulus laughed against his neck. ‘You still have to finish your book. Also, write me some poetry. Read me some poetry.’

‘Demanding.’

‘Always.’

James finally opened his eyes. 

Regulus was right. Through the window, he could only see the pale golden light of a winter morning. 

Lux Brumalis. 

He was the fourth person to know. Somehow, Remus was the one to find him. 

When James dismissed his classroom, wishing a good winter break for all of his tired undergraduate students, Remus was standing at the door staring at the empty space like a lost little kid who did not know where he was.

‘Remus,’ James mentioned for him to come in. ‘I’m almost ready. Just need to take these papers to my office and we can go home.’

‘James…’

‘Really, what a semester. I don’t know if I have ever been this exhausted. I’m telling you, mate, I need to book a three-month vacation to some island with Regulus and forget about academia,’ he mumbled, finishing gathering his papers under one pile.

‘James…’ Remus said, louder. Suddenly, as if he was struck by lightning or simply adrenaline, he walked inside and stopped right in front of James, seemingly out of breath, and said, with finality. ‘James.’

James does not remember many things about that day in December, 1989, but he remembers this: he never once saw that look in Remus’ eyes. It did not seem as if he was breaking down but as if everything around him was destined to be disassembled and he knew he was the only one who had to be strong enough, sober enough, to gather the pieces because if not him, there would be no one else.

It was not Sirius. No, if it was Sirius, Remus wouldn’t be there. It was not Peter because if it was, Sirius would be there too. James was a very smart, astute person. It got him into Oxford, into academia, into numberless prizes and awards. Because of this, he also knew it was not anyone else in his life, otherwise, Regulus would be there. There was only one question left, then.

‘Where is he?’

It was a very simple question, one that James was sure he could follow the answer. His job was to build words, to learn and relearn about them. However, to this day, James remembers only a few of them coming from Remus’ mouth.

‘...driving…’ 

‘almost at the school…’

 ‘the storm…’

 ‘an ambulance called you…’

 ‘emergency number?...’

 ‘Sirius… with him…’

‘...no oxygen…’

‘...to the hospital…’

‘…so sorry James…'

‘...dead…’

‘...too late…’

too late.

                                                                                                                            too late.

                                   too late.

                                                                             too late.

               too late.

                                                                                                              too late.

Many things happens at once. 

There is a memorial, arranged at James and Regulus’ house. James doesn’t know who arranges it, how they got the keys, how many people was invited, who made the bed from that morning. He sits and stares and sees but he cannot make sense of the world around him.

Even with the storm, people come. James’ colleagues from the faculty, his parents, all of Regulus’ friends from college and grad school, his colleagues from his work. Then, more. All the kids he teaches at kindergarten comes with their parents. There is no more space in the house and still, people come. The phone rings and it’s the parents of the children he used to teach last year and the year before and the year before that. They want to say how much Regulus changed their kids lives, how it made them not exactly better but kinder and softer. 

In the living room, kids leave paintings they made this year, with little hands and stars and butterflies. A home. Three cats. For teacher Black, they write, I will see you on the moon, they write. It probably means something to them, an inside joke James will never know because he cannot ask Regulus anymore. 

The phone rings and rings and rings. It doesn’t stop ringing and James doesn’t know who answers it every time, just knows it’s not him because he cannot say anything anymore. He cannot look Sirius in the eyes or offer any kind of comfort for him because there is nothing to say. There is no comfort when the pain is this much. James always thought that when losing a loved one, he would scream and try to burn the world to the ground, redeem the absence of them with sounds. He never imagined this silence; could not bare this endless — boundless — absence of words and sounds. He was empty, empty, empty.

The pain was not loud, it was heavily still and burning cold.

The old couple who runs the flower shop downtown comes and they sit in his house and speak of Regulus in the past tense. He used to come every week, they say, their voices carrying so much tenderness, and buy a flower. Said it was for his favorite poet. They speak and speak and James doesn’t know when this nightmare will end, doesn’t know how it began. 

One day, he would be able to look back and see how much love was surrounding Regulus on his deathbed. How many lives Regulus had touched. But this day would take a long while to come and for now, James was there, in silence.

A subsection, to increase arguments in your paper. Titled: ‘The words of silence: Counter-memorialising Regulus’

James understands things now as short phrases like little red pills prescribed to cure sore throats. For example, Sirius is mad at James. Sirius is mad at him. Sirius is mad. Why is Sirius mad?

Like a child.

‘You are disturbing me,’ James says, which is true. Sirius has lodged himself in James’ house like a parasite that refuses to leave. It’s annoying. 

‘When are you going back to your job?’

James breathes very deeply. ‘I’m rich, I don’t need a job.’

Sirius looks frustratedly at Remus, who is sitting on James’ kitchen table, reading from the morning newspaper as he waits for James to finish making him tea. Remus promptly ignores him.

‘James, mate, I don’t know how else to say this but you, for some miracle,’ he says, pointing at Remus to indicate Remus was the so-called ‘miracle’. They already had this discussion at least twenty times in the last seven months. ‘...still have a job. A job you used to love. You used to love this job when you were filthy rich in your twenties. I know you are an old-family-money bloke. I don’t care. You went to grad school because you could not shut up about academia and now… what? You are never going to properly work again?’

James poured the tea for him and Remus and served milk on his, taking a long sip just to see how much he could still irritate Sirius. Then, simply, ‘Yes.’

‘And what are you going to do in the meantime?’ 

‘Serve tea to my dear friend Remus, here,’ he reaches up to pat Remus’ shoulder and they both smile at each other.

‘Don’t indulge him, Remus,’ Sirius hisses, exasperated. 

‘Sirius, he doesn’t want to write.’

‘James,’ Sirius turn to him, once again. ‘You need to finish your book. You need to finish it by the end of this year. Listen, I know…’ he pauses, and oh, how James hates this part. ‘I know you miss him, James. We all do. But it’s been a year and you are going to lose your job if you don’t work properly.’

‘Sirius,’ James says, with a somber voice that crushed all challenges. ‘I go to school, I teach, I come back and I make tea for whoever is visiting me this day and I water my plants and I feed the cats and I clean the house. I make all of this because If I don’t, no one will. I am doing my job and I don’t need your daily reminder that you think I’m not.’

There was a certain quality to James’ voice these days. He spoke very shortly because every time he was not teaching and needed to speak longer, his voice faltered like he was on the verge of swallowing a very big rock. It was painful to talk, so he remained silent. For this, he hated when Sirius made him stand for himself when he could barely keep breathing, keep the rocks where there was supposed to be, and not lodge on his throat.

Sirius knew, then, that the conversation was over.

And so it became a yearly tradition. 

Sirius gave up on the second year because as much as he liked to talk, it was too painful to point out why James wasn’t writing. Regulus’ absence in Sirius’ life was a missing lung he tried to ignore everyday because if he looked at it and saw the empty space left in his body he would figure it out he could not breathe. 

Then Peter, who came every Saturday religiously, sometimes with Lily and Pandora, most times alone because the girls were living in London, building their own lives. At first, James appreciated his presence because having someone at the house meant making tea and giving his attention to anything else that wasn’t himself. After a while, however, Peter’s presence only highlighted Regulus’ absence. 

It came, after Peter, the many phases which was the worst part of grieving for James. One day he could not bear looking at any photograph of Regulus and he would take every portrait around the house and put them into boxes in the attic and a week would go by where he would wake in the middle of the night seemingly unable to picture Regulus’ face. That was followed by a manic frenzy of unboxing all the photographs and hanging each one of them around all the walls so there would be no space and moment where Regulus’ face wasn’t in James’ mind.

There was a year particularly hard where he isolated himself because only mentioning Regulus’ name would send him into horrifying panic attacks, followed by years where he would roast dinner parties after dinner parties with all their friends so they could talk about Regulus all night and make sure they could remember each other of all the details time was so determined to erase.

Do you remember that one time he came home smelling like cat pee when he decided to chase a cat down the street because the little animal looked sad and he wanted to adopt it?

Do you remember when a kid painted pink flowers on his cheeks and he was stained for days?

Do you remember – this was said by Barty, laughing so hard he started crying – in college, when he was so drunk he went to James’ dorm room, and then you were what? Dating not even by a month? And he decided to just serenade him with a love song which turned out so horrible and he didn’t talk to us for weeks because we didn’t stop him from doing that?

Followed by And all of James’ neighbors woke up and started helping him.

And That was the first time he said he loved me. I said it on our second date but it took him a month and many beers to say it to me. Then he never stopped.

These dinners, of course, almost always ended up with them crying because how could they not? 

It took five years for Remus to take his turn, which turned so ugly they barely talked for a month after it. As his colleague, Remus was the one who saw firsthand how James was not the same – his teaching was still excellent but he lost all joy in writing. Writing has been James’ passion since a kid; he wrote poems before he could even read poems, it’s what his mother used to say. So when year after year passed by and James hadn’t written a single word, Remus could not take it. 

‘Everything you wrote was revolutionary, James. You need to come back.’

‘I won’t.’

‘James…’

‘No, Remus. Listen to me. I won’t write again.’

Which was followed by accusations and hurtful words. On some level, there was a deep sense of wounding James could not understand but that Remus knew perfectly. There is a kind of intimacy in being the person who destroys another’s world. Because when Remus told James that Regulus died, when he said he went to the hospital and it was too late, he knew there was no coming back from it. Of course, both of them understood it was no one’s fault. But still, how can you look someone in the eyes when delivering them heartbreak and still expect to be able to see happiness in them after it?

He never told anyone but in those first years, he could only keep going when he enrolled himself in Regulus’ clothes when it still smelled like him, and only then, after sobbing on his pillows, he could get up and go to school and teach, come back and make tea for whoever was visiting that day and water the plants and feed the cats and clean the house. He saved every blouse and coat and cardigan for as long as he could and still, it was not enough. After it, the absence of the smell was as unbearable as the absence of the body and James didn’t slept for months. How can you look at someone's eyes and explain to them that this was more important than words on paper?

Regulus’ friends also came to him. They all knew how much Regulus loved James’ writing, how he would not like for him to stop writing, ever. But Regulus was not there to tell him that himself so how could James be sure? Then, after so long, after the world had gone through horrific things, after one decade turned into two, people still came. Colleagues, on their breaks, patting him on the back Still not writing, mate? His mom, calling and saying she saw one of his old poetry collections in a bookstore in downtown London and How do you feel about writing more, love? Or an e-mail from an overseas student, saying how much she admired his work but Where can I find some of your recent research, Professor? I saw your last published paper was in 1989 and I was wondering If you could send me anything you are working on right now. Your theoretical approach to the silence in literature as a reflection in global politics was mesmerizing. Please let me know when you publish anything else.

But what James never told them was this: After meeting Regulus, James understood the world in lines. Tiny pale golden threads and strings that connected everything, that encapsulated words as if protecting them, transforming them over the centuries, pushing silence around. He came to recognize the silence between words was the loudest he ever heard. He also understood that everything he wrote since meeting Regulus was his sound, his waves of motion folded into letters. Without him, James had only one string left, only one line. If he crossed, he crossed forever. If he crossed, it would be without Regulus. That, he would not allow.

Then, conclusions. You bring back your central argument and the facts shown in the last two sections. You conclude your thoughts.

Oxford circa September, 2018

Grief is a strange companion to share your life with.

Dearest Regulus, he begins reading.

The sun is shining in a way that is very rare for Oxford at this time of the year and there is no one to notice James sitting by the grave. He ought to think no one would bother him, since his appearance in the cemetery was as constant as the seasons. There is also a light breeze that passes through the trees and like muscle memory he thinks Regulus would like this sound, as if it was so simple as to pick up a telephone and ring Regulus, say love, listen, nature is speaking to you. 

James will not cry. There are sounds in tears that are louder than words and he promised Sirius he would not. No tears, mate, Sirius had said, you are old and fragile and too much heartbreak can kill an old person. If you leave me alone with only Peter I might just have to kill the bastard.

So he breathes deeply, appreciating the sun that bathes his face, the wind that smells of fresh grass and rain chilling his body and thinks not much of heartbreak. 

Dearest Regulus, he tries again.

I believe I should start by saying I missed you ardently these days. I miss you like this always but recently, especially, you were missed. There should always be someone in the room that would tell Sirius to shut his mouth and call him stupid when he becomes too much. Since Remus, no one has the heart to say anything. The silence now is unbearable. 

I ought to say this letter is the beginning of the end. I do not like to rush endings, as you may remember, but I tried to be brief in my conclusions. You always said I elaborated too much on them so I believe this sort of improvement would make you smile.

The ending starts like this:

I’m moving to London. When Remus died and Peter was away, it was only me and Sirius here in Oxford. The weight of a missing person is unbearable at all times and I fear if I pass or Sirius passes and one of us becomes alone here, there would be no sense left in life.

But if you allow me to be honest here, love, it has been twenty-nine years since the absence became too much. I loved Oxford because we were in it, together. I stayed in Oxford because I knew no other home from here but there was not a day in the last twenty-nine years that I have not been haunted in every corner of these streets. You know I tried to bring new meanings to the places but there was no happiness big enough to obscure the shadows you left behind. 

However, leaving Oxford meant leaving you and I could not bear it. Before Oxford was our home, it was also mine, and Sirius, Remus, and Peter's. When Peter left for London and we stayed, we still had Remus. But now it’s me and Sirius and neither of us wants to see Oxford when there is only one of us standing here.

When we went to visit Pandora and Lily's for the birth of their grandchild and the vision of a new life, I knew I could not be back here without breaking. There have been so many good memories since you left us, love, so many and to this day I cannot understand a world that keeps moving without you in it. But taking the train back I realized Oxford was not home anymore, it was a place haunted by ghosts and ghosts are only lovely if you don’t have to face them every day. 

So we found a little place in the outskirts of London, close to Marlene and Dorcas by foot and close to Barty and Evans by car. We will share the neighborhood with Lily, Pandora, Peter, and Mary because even them now cannot keep up with the motion of the big city. We are all settling, surrounded by friends – those who have left – and new life. I’m not completely sure I will not go to sleep listening to Sirius grief but how can I blame him when I do the same, until this day? But I know with certainty that we will wake up on weekends with the sounds of children's voices in the house next door and the radio in the kitchen. At least there are us, at least this. Life will have sounds again, love, and I have not been listening since you were gone. I’m listening now.

I will come to see you. Someone has to bring the news from the capital from time to time. I’m sure to share with you all the headache Sirius is causing me – from being old and annoying – and all the pleasantries of being surrounded by children who have yet not known the pains of life.

You know I can almost hear you saying something mean right now. Tell Sirius to stop being senile, your voice, I can hear it. He is rubbing the Black family madness on you, James. And you are not old, you still have at least a good decade on you. Now stop doddering around my grave and leave me to rest. Being dead takes a lot of effort. I would laugh and you would kiss me and call me a fool for liking you. I miss this. 

You always hated endings and I don't know if I like them very much anymore. Endings, however, are the only things I’m sure of now. There is a certain beauty in them – a beauty in a tragedy like this.

I miss you Regulus. I don’t believe our story was a tragedy, not at all. I got to love you and be loved by you. There is no greater love story than this. Still, I miss you. Everyday, like these twenty-nine years meant nothing, as time meant nothing. I still can feel you here, with me, like it was yesterday and I still miss you like it was yesterday. I won’t spend a day without missing you. Still, I don't believe a word with four letters can encompass the silence of your absence. 

There is no divine explanation for my missing you. It’s like a daily prayer. 

So I must go now before Sirius marches into here and talks to you. You know I cannot remember the last time he came here. I don’t think he can. You and Remus, he cannot come here without breaking apart, so I understand him. I’m sure he finds other ways to bother you in the afterlife.

Goodbye now, love.

I will see you soon. I will see you down the road.

Yours,

James.

—————————

notes:

¹ Potter spent most of his adult life searching for this answer in academic texts of History, Philosophy and in the stars. The meaning of the ‘I’ and the collective ‘we’ were a very hunting subject of his. If he had continued writing after 1989, his answer would be that the ‘I’ could not be isolated from the ‘we’; there were no self without the ‘other’. In simpler words, there was no James without Regulus.