Sorrow
With your long blond hair and your eyes of blue
The only thing I ever got from you
Was sorrow, sorrow
22nd December 1973
Lupin Farm had a magic to it, difficult to find anywhere else in Wales.
It wasn’t the largest chunk of land by any means. A fact made up for by the commitment of its owners to planting crops upon every patch of land they could. It was a miracle the roots hadn’t all overgrown each other. Some magic to their planting that the others could not figure out.
The family that owned it were a little odd, but very pleasant. The man of the house, Lyall, travelling to the market each day despite the trek (they were never quite sure how he got there) to sell his produce. He had a brightness, difficult to find nowadays, even if there was always a little sorrow alongside it.
The people of Wrexham found that most life had a dampness to it, nowadays. The pits kept being closed, and there weren’t enough factory jobs for the amount of men in town.
Maybe that was why Lyall was a welcomed sight.
He’d figured a way to keep his family afloat, through trade and kindness. It was something they wished to see more of.
Especially as he brought around his son, the younger Lupin fellow a bright and friendly boy (if a little shy and sickly and scarred). He had some blood condition, Lyall explained once when his son was about six years old. After Remus had fainted from too much noise as the stalls were closing.
It wasn’t until his son was eight that Lyall admitted his son’s condition came from an injury by some former enemy of his. A poisoning of his blood that was untreatable and led to Remus sometimes harming himself in ‘fits’. Still, the boy was bright enough to get some fancy scholarship to a boarding school. The same Lyall had gone to, apparently, before his life had turned to shit.
By the time his son was thirteen, the townspeople had figured that much for certain. That Lyall had once been something of a great man, and soured it all with his own ill reputation.
Perhaps that explained why his wife rarely joined him out in town. Why his son sometimes looked to him with shame, with regret that no child should have felt.
No man was perfect anyway.
——
The clock hadn’t moved since Remus had come home.
The one on the mantle, by Lyall’s old award from the Ministry and her cross-stitch of the exterior of their home. A little wonky in places, but still a sound depiction of their home.
Hope Lupin remembered when she’d put it up, better than her own wedding day. Remus, only six and already full of self-loathing, had simply told her that it was perfect. For a muggle in a world that she hardly understood… she’d really needed to hear that.
She could make perfection, without any magic in her bones.
But she couldn’t get the clock to tick anew.
“Mam?” Her son’s voice broke her thoughts, Hope smiling as she faced the growing teen.
Each time he came home, he was a different boy. Taller, hair a little shaggier than she’d have allowed were he living at home. A new scar on his cheek, one long one across his left forearm. He carried himself a little taller, especially as he spoke of his friends. The mischief of the boys in his dorm, the calm and laughter of the girls he studied with.
Remus drowned in a bright red jumper - gold stitching along the cuffs - and his heavily belted jeans. A soft smile in his eyes, twinkling as his lips twitched upwards.
“Yes, my Remus?” Hope smiled, tucking an errant lock of hair behind her ear.
“I was wondering if you wanted a hand with anything.” He asked, blushing bashfully as he tugged on his sleeves.
“Oh, don’t worry, my love.” She smiled, stepping closer to place a hand on his cheek - stroking it softly with her thumb. A gesture she could only do when Lyall was absent - the man too afraid to even touch his son’s skin. “Go on and read that new novel of yours. I know you’ve been dying to.”
“Mam.” He groaned, embarrassed as she placed a great kiss to his forehead.
“Oh, go on, Remus. Enjoy yourself.” Hope laughed, parting from her son with a final stroke of his face - her fingers soothing the scars across his cheek. “There isn’t much to do around the house today, anyways. That boy from the farm next door already offered to help me move the sheep later, and I believe I can manage mending your socks without input.”
“Alright.” He smiled, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “I’ll be in my bedroom.”
The days at the farm followed similar routines. Chores around the fields, tending to the livestock and picking vegetables for dinner.
And yet, every time she checked that clock, it stayed still. Unmoving as the rest of the world carried on. She tried to hit the side of it, to no avail.
With a sigh, Hope Lupin decided to busy herself with making dinner. Cutting vegetables and searing meat - folding flour and eggs into pastry.
Perhaps she ought to take the clock round to the key makers. They mended shoes and timepieces, she had seen on a sign outside the shop. How different was a clock to a watch, really, beyond a magnification of the pieces?
Why had it even stopped? Days of silence, bleeding nearly into a week of timelessness. If Hope Lupin were a more easygoing person, she might have embraced the stillness.
Regrettably, she was not easygoing. And the silence and stillness was simply too much to cope with.
“Everything alright, mam?” Remus’s voice broke her thoughts, wafting down the stairs with a faint Welsh tilt that even Hogwarts could not shake.
“I’m just popping the pie in the oven!” She shouted back, shutting the oven door.
“Do you want me to fetch some kale for dinner?” Remus called as he jumped down the stairs - thumping each step with each movement, as teenage boys do.
“That would be lovely, darling!” She shouted back, a faint smile twitching at her lips as he greeted the old bust by the door. Some old wizard from Lyall’s line, forever stuck on a shelf by their front door to greet them as they left home.
She wondered if one day, Lyall might end up the same way.
A portrait or bust, stuck in some relative’s home - it’s only company a boy that was often away.
It wasn’t as though she could have the same, Hope thought a little bitterly. It was the crutch to her life, to being normal in a world of magic.
Wizards lived longer than muggles. Lyall had told her that, a year into their marriage. They had been in bed, whispering through plans and promises. And she had asked him to promise they’d grow old together.
He had told her that their children would outlive her by an entire lifespan. She would be a blip, some muggle that raised them. A story her son would forget in time.
God, she hated it. Watching him grow up and knowing that she would be gone too soon. How long would her son be alone? How many years did she have to love him?
“Mam?” Hope silently chided herself, hastily wiping her eyes as she spun to face her boy. “Are you alright?” Remus asked, eyes full of worry, a bundle of kale in his hands.
“I’m just thinking of how big you’ve gotten.” Hope admitted, sniffling. “Won’t long before you’re taller than your father.”
“I’m taller than the other boys in the dorms.” Remus spoke proudly, though a little nervously under the sight of his mother’s sorrowful mood at that fact.
“I’m sure your friend Sirius isn’t too happy with that fact.” Hope laughed, thinking fondly to her son’s natter about his best friends at Hogwarts.
“Ara says he won’t shut up about it.” Remus chuckled, his shoulders softening. “Apparently, their family never grows taller than five foot ten.”
“Poor boys.” Hope giggled. “You’re certainly lucky for my genetics. My father was six foot seven!” She laughed, brushing his hair off his forehead. “And his father was nearly seven foot tall.”
“I hope I don’t get that tall.” Remus frowned slightly.
“I’m sure you’ll grow to the perfect height.” Hope reassured. “Six foot three would be perfect for you.”
He let her alone after their little chat, setting the table as she washed the kale.
It was as if Lyall had an alert for when dinner was only five minutes away. Every night, as she finished up their dinner - Lyall would appear as though summoned by the scent, however far away he may have been.
“Pa!” Remus smiled shyly as his father came in through the door - a boy again as he sought the man’s eyes.
It seemed to be a good day for Lyall. He smiled back at his son, stepping over to ruffle his hair as he took off his own hat. It was the only gesture he could tolerate, Hope knew. Any more and Lyall feared infection; foolish despite his education.
“How was town, love?” Hope asked, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Absolutely splendid!” Lyall smiled a little wider as he began to recount his trip to the market that day. As the chickens had been a little more productive than usual, and the cabbages had grown perfectly, he’d ended up being able to simply pop himself on the end of a friend’s stall and sell his wares to the townspeople. Then, he’d been paid for his help in sorting through the shelves at the local library by the kind librarian. “Fifty pounds, love!” He exclaimed in finish. “That’s enough for a nice dinner out and a trip to the films, don’t you think?”
“That would be lovely, darling.” Hope smiled as she walked to him and leant down to kiss his cheek. He seemed very pleased by her gesture and she could not hide the way her smile stiffened slightly under his hopeful eyes.
Remus saw it. He saw everything, she thought. Noticed it all and sat with it curled close to his chest - a hand of cards he would never play.
She knew what he thought of her. She simply knew it.
That awful fact that Hope Lupin had once been radiant.
She had been revolutionary.
Before Lyall put his foot in his mouth and ruined it all.
But how could she leave the man that kept her son safe each month, in spite of his fault in the matter? Who kept the family afloat? How could she even hate him properly?
And when he came home happy, how could she not smile back?
Unheard in the sitting room, the clock began to tick again.