Remus J. Lupin

I began these drabbles (Sirius/Remus) a while back, but never got to finish them until tonight which is why they're being posted. They're part of a meme, but I decided to turn it into a prompt response as well. The meme is as follows:

1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a ficlet related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the ficlet; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten of these, then post them.

Prompt: "You do not choose the life you will experience ahead of time. You may select the persons, places and events — the conditions and circumstances, the challenges, the opportunities and options — with which to create experiences. What you create with these is your business." - Neale Donald Walsch


1. The Beatles - Let It Be

And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer.
Let it be.

Every time the moon passes, Remus is exhausted beyond what anyone can truly imagine. The exhaustion seeps into his bones, draining him of every bit of energy.

On days directly after the full moon, when his energy is at his lowest, when he's laying in the hospital wing because his body is bandaged after spending a night clawing and biting at himself, he sometimes wonders if it would have been better if he would have died. He should have died, isn't that what the Healers had told his parents? He shouldn't have made it. He shouldn't have survived.

Yet, here he is.

As he stares up at the ceiling, an arm bandaged to his chest so it can heal, he doesn't notice the fact that Sirius has slipped into the hospital wing. He doesn't notice, in fact, until he takes his hand in his and gives it a small squeeze. Remus turns to him then, and Sirius smiles just slightly. There are no words between them, but Remus knows what he wants to say. Whatever comes, he'll be there. Whatever happens, he'll be with him.

Suddenly, he realizes, he doesn't regret surviving too much. He's not alone to endure whatever it is that life has stored for him.



( 2-10 )

ooc note: So, I tried to do something different for this one. And...I'll admit, I'm a little nervous about it because it's the first time I really do this for a canon character. I still have a more 'canon' version of this somewhere in my head, but the canon I will be writing in this piece is the canon/backstory that I have for my Remus. It's vaguely? inspired by the prompt that was once in the_bigshow community of "Just for fun, create an NPC for your muse, someone who would interact with your muse in a way that no one else does. What would they be like, and what would their connection be to your muse? How do you think they would interact with the other muses in your character’s world?," and the current one at writers_muses of "A kiss can be a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point." - Mistinguette.


1986.

It had happened out of nowhere. One minute he had been eating dinner at the little pub since he had enough money for it, and the next he was talking to the woman behind the counter. Remus hadn't started the conversation - if anything, he had been about to leave almost as soon as it started. It had been her. It was her pub, she had explained; she had inherited from her father after he had passed away just recently, so she liked to get to know the people that came in and out of it. That is what happens when you grow up in a place like these, she had half-joked, it becomes a part of you. Instead of leaving, Remus started with small-talk. Something to remind himself that he could still talk to people and not just the customers he helped at the bookstore where he worked. Soon he would be leaving again anyway, he figured; small talk never hurt anybody and she seemed friendly enough.

Evelyn, she told him before the night was over. Her name was Evelyn.

( I'm on the road to who knows where? Look ahead, not behind I keep saying, there's no place to go where you're not there. On your rope, I hold tight but it's freeing. And I take everything from you, but you'll take anything, won't you? Run away, run away, like a prodigal; don't you wait for me, don't you wait for me. So ashamed, so ashamed, but I need you so, and you wait for me and you wait for me. )

Set in grownhp6words, the night he moves to Hogwarts after his conversation with Harry.

It's late. He knows that much, but as he stares at the streaks of moonlight coming into his room, he realizes that he doesn't really care. It really doesn't matter.

It has been a few hours since Remus has moved into one of the apartments at Hogwarts, and already he's itching to go back to the house where he had been staying at. The one that had actually been comforting, because here in the castle he feels lost. Misplaced.

And he's a threat. He's a threat to the professors. He's a threat to the children. He had proven that on the full moon, hadn't he? He had woken up with blood all over.

As if on cue, his stomach churns and twists at the thought, but he ignores it by bringing the cigarette he's smoking up to his lips and taking a drag. A long drag to cloud what he's feeling. To feel the burn in his lungs. To try and get rid of the nausea and the thoughts that make him feel even worse than what he already is.

There are three cigarettes left in the pack Harry gave him earlier, and even if he knows he should probably stop smoking, and instead he should eat and sleep, he can't. Whenever he tries to eat, he feels sick again. Whenever he sleeps, he wakes up shortly after. He should probably go to Poppy, or even Severus for a potion but what is he supposed to say, exactly? He needs something for his nightmares? He needs something to get rid of the guilt that keeps sending his head spinning?

So, instead, he's sitting on the floor, back against the wall, and smoking as he stares blankly at the rays of moonlight that are coming into his room since the curtains are in the same place where they had been all day.

Tomorrow he would have to start pretending. He would step out of the room and face the students in the hallway. He would face the professors. He would face the rumors. He would face it all, and he had to come up with a way to not show what he's really feeling. He'll hide that helplessness, that panic, that fear, and that guilt deep within him. He will look worried as the rest of the professors do, but not panic. He would not give himself away.

But that's tomorrow.

Tonight he cannot face it all. Tonight he feels panicky. Tonight there's a helplessness so deep that he just smokes through another cigarette as if hoping it'll ease everything he's feeling.

Tonight he just sits on the floor, staring at the moonlight. Maybe this way he'll remember.