Disclaimer: Own Nothing.

Summary: Under the willow tree by the lake far from prying eyes many changes occur in the fabric of time.

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The moon shines brighter than it has in a long time, a full moon on a cold winter night, the snow-covered world reflecting back its borrowed light. And he walks alone, this will be the last mission he will have returned from until the ice melts and the earth thaws, and then he’ll leave again for that world of deception and lies. On a whim he turns away from the castle to face the lake and there he sees the sight that awakens those buried memories.

He remembers how it used to be, she used to say she couldn’t understand him, why he had to be so arrogant, so sure of himself, why he always managed to hurt her in every step he took towards her, and as always, he would be there to console her under the willow tree by the lake that stood there still. He remembers how it used to be, after all, he was the sensitive, caring one, the one with all the answers and she wasn’t the only one who came to talk of her troubles or what ailed her this week. There had been another, the first one who had ever touched him in a way that he had never been touched before.

She had been the first to meet him by the lake under the half moon and the first to tell him her troubles, the other came later and with her there had always been a distance, he knew he couldn’t ever touch her. But the first he remembered still. She was a year younger and so full of life; so curious to know why he sat there alone, watching the lake. Only later he found out that she had gone against everything in her to approach him and start the thing that began everything else.

And the throbbing pain from the wound he received while under attack on his way back to report to the Order distracts his thoughts of the two women that had been girls when he had known them. He watches the young lovers now under that same tree, they ofcourse are worlds apart and trying to make the best of it. Their timing isn’t right, there’s a war going on and they’re both on opposite sides, each bound by family, loyalty and tradition. Ofcourse they are young and to them, even the tiniest cut is a fatal wound and the world exists around them.

The pulsing of his lifeblood reminds him of the bitter hurt that still exists within and it tells him that he is old now; weary of the burden he has carried for so long. The others are all gone now, he’s the only one left to bear the grief and the guilt that sways him still, that keeps him from faltering.

He had been so young when he had met her, he had tried so hard to understand her troubles, tried so hard to make them disappear, and yet he could not change her destiny. The fates hadn’t meant for them to be one. And the other, the one who aroused such deep emotions, the second to ever do that to him was already in love with someone else. All he could do was listen to her as she poured out all her troubles all he could offer were his shoulders to cry on. Both had been denied to him because he was cursed to live the half-life that was his only saving grace. And as he watches these young lovers battle the unseen forces of space and time, he feels nothing but sympathy. Soon they will have to make a choice.

But he knows this time it will be different, he can see it in the boy’s eyes, eyes that had been hers once, she was dead now in all the ways that counted. The girl, with that same look of wonder on her face, it intrigued him that she looked so much like that other one, maybe that was why he remembers her still, maybe that is why he can remember that they were alive once and enjoying their wedding day with friends and family even as darkness loomed over them. It’s ironic how the exact vision of these young lovers looks just like that of the two who now existed only in photographs and his mind.

Sadly, things like that never last forever, that first one under that willow tree by the lake had already been betrothed to someone she could not love because her heart belonged to him and still did, as he liked to hope. She lived in another world now and those eyes on her son that expressed such joy and happiness would never reflect the same in hers again.

The other died a few years into her womanhood, named for a delicate flower. Both led such tragic lives, her death he always saw in his mind’s eye every time he watched her progeny. He had never really seen her die, only two had and they weren’t willing to discuss it just yet, but he had always imagined it in his head, it kept him from giving into self-pity, it kept him from being selfish. Her son’s green eyes that even now revealed her to him and still made him remember that she had been alive once all those summers ago as she told him of what the other had done to vex her.

Now as he watches the other’s child, a man now for all intents and purposes, he realizes that first one he had met under that willow tree by the lake had lived if only through her son. She is alive he knows, but not in the ways it counts, he had always wished that his love had been the one to help create her progeny.

So he watches the young lovers that had first caught his attention, they are there under his willow tree by the lake and he thinks of those two women, both he had loved, both denied to him, one now would be sure of the happiness she never had in life and the other watching somewhere from the heavens would always grieve for the son who realized his love too late.

And so with that thought, Remus Lupin turned back towards the castle, there was no chance of him becoming a werewolf tonight, Snape’s latest project had seen to that and as he turned away from the first full moon he had seen in a long time, he realized that where one love had been denied another had been revenged. Tomorrow he knows Ginevra Weasley, who looked so much like Lily Evans, young and in love with James Potter; he knows that she will have to face her family and tell them that she has found the man she wants to spend her life with. Ofcourse her family’s reaction will be anything but pleasant but he will help this along as well as he had Lily and James and as he never could with Narcissa, who’s son now stands under that willow tree by the lake with Ginevra’s hand in his while Harry Potter watches longingly from the tower window.

Remus remembers what it felt like to be on the outside looking in and he knows that he has to comfort the boy who never realised love until it was too late. And he knows that he will have to stand by Draco Malfoy’s side and give him the strength to see the love of Ginevra through, because he knows that all that Narcissa had been denied, all that she had ever told him under that willow tree by the lake and all those troubles of his that she had took on her shoulders for him, he must repay that debt. For he knows that the difference between the two women had always been that, where Narcissa had loved him and listened to him, Lily never had. It is the only reason why he pities Lily’s son now, Harry never knew how to listen to someone else and where James and Lily belonged together, Ginny and Harry never will. And that girl who had first approached him under that willow by the lake has been avenged in the love that her son has found…