Sometimes he felt as though the wolf didn’t leave him between full moons. Sometimes it felt as though there was something evil inside, this overpowering force that poisoned his mind and clouded his instinct. Sometimes he thought that there would be one day, one transformation, that he wouldn’t recover from, one where he would switch, and even if he looked human, his brain would be human no longer. He used to be human, as a kid he was normal. He could enjoy playing with his friends and didn’t have to worry about thinking the wrong thing. He didn’t walk around paranoid about what others thought, tormented by his own voice, his own body, trying to pull itself away from him and his control. He longed for those days, for that innocence and freedom, for that unbridled joy that was so far away he’d forgotten how it felt.
Whenever he was left alone, his thoughts his only company, he could feel the shift, the way that the lack of distractions pulled away the veil and seemed to reveal who he might become. The twitchy nature that sprung awake with every sound, every whispered voice that might attack him. The way that sometimes he had these urges to hurt himself, those around him, to cause irreparable damage for reasons he couldn’t understand. Those times where he forgot how to breathe, or walk, or function, and instead gritted his teeth and forced himself through the pain. The corporeal ache that seemed to follow him, every single bone groaning from life and every organ collapsing from sentience. The way he would almost be thankful if his ribs, his face, everything that covered the small wolf instinct inside, would have sloughed off the second he was bitten, ridding himself of this inhuman shell. The want to tear his soul from his body, reaching deep inside of himself with bloody hands and scratching nails and rip his heart from its arteries and stop thinking stop hurting.
One week he wanted to bash his head into a brick wall and keep going until his brain stopped working. Pour it out on the ground and revel in his freedom. Slam himself again and again at death until he was painless and unrecognisable, until he felt cold air inside his skull and a breeze surround his heart, whispering the sweet tunes of tranquillity and wrapping around him a blanket of death. Another week he wanted to take a baseball bat to Snape’s arms and legs, his own arms and legs, James’ arms and legs, everyone, until all of the bones in the world were broken and splintered, until his ribcage cracked open and bore his rotten heart to the world. Last month it felt as though his jaw was unstoppable, a need to bite, to gnaw, to tear his life apart from inside out, a caged creature gone insane with capture, a need to grip on the bars and pull until his teeth flew out of his mouth and could bit no longer. After his Christmas transformation last year he had tried to tear his skin off, one of the urges he gave into, nails dragging down his legs, his back, everywhere on his body marked with scars, marked with life, digging in deep until blood ran in rivulets down his arms and stained his nails red.
Now, and most of the time, he just wanted to scream until his throat went hoarse. Let out all of his pain through an animalistic bellow, stand on the tables at breakfast and shout, curl in on himself and weep, find some release and watch as this monster left his body, scream his soul away in front of the entire student body. Normally he wouldn’t want to draw attention to himself under any circumstances, but if he were to scream, he would want everyone to see, everyone to know his pain, to see his monster and how it would overwhelm him. He would scream until his throat went dry, until it turned into sobs, until he’d used up all the air in the world, until he was able to stand up no longer, and even then, collapsed on the ground, he would cry, leave his mouth open and heave until the life left his body, until he was certain there was nothing inhuman or otherwise left inside of him, until he was cleansed.
It’s not like they knew but James, Sirius, and Peter all helped, little conversations to tear his mind away from its thoughts, small distractions that brought him back to their world, placed him like a puppet in their lives. It was like some part of him knew the stage, played the role they needed him to play, pretended human, just so he could keep his part, this false identity that was the last thing keeping him alive. He sees their notes and he smiles, he listens to their voices and feels alive, he kisses Sirius and feels like this was what happy feels like.
And then he’s alone once again. Detention, quidditch practice, classes, all of these things seemingly designed to drag them away from each other. He feels like a child again with no object permanence, the second something is out of his sight he forgets that it’s a possibility. He packs the notes away in drawers to keep them safe and forgets that he’s able to smile, he hides in the corner desperate for solitude and the life drains from him, he stops kissing Sirius and remembers that happiness is too far away from him.
Those nights in the shack when he transforms alone, the others unable to shake off the school that early, it feels like welcoming an old friend. A dark secret only he can know, a love affair with evil, self-destruction that tastes so sweet. Finally he can stop pretending, he can leave his mind, no longer human in his own entirety. The wolf can do all of the things human Remus cannot, the wolf can think all the things human Remus cannot, the wolf doesn’t care about a heart or a soul, the wolf can be destructive, hateful, aggressive, suicidal, loud, in all the ways human Remus cannot.
And yet all of those things the wolf brings with him, do not leave when Remus becomes Remus again. This ongoing burden that gets harder to carry every moon. One day he knows he will break, snap, he’ll attack someone and regret it, whilst another part of him rejoices. He finds himself free from the thoughts, urges, and wallows in regret, that he held no power over them, that he buckled and gave in, that he wasn’t strong enough to fight back. He’s not sure if he’ll ever be enough.