Remus Lupin was hardly born a coward.
When Remus was eleven, he had been considered brave and chivalrous enough to go to his second choice of houses, Gryffindor. In fact, it was his chivalry that pushed him to Gryffindor rather than Ravenclaw.
That was where Remus met his best friends, his brothers, and the love of his life.
For a long time, Remus felt content in his life. Remus had everything he could ever need… why would he be unhappy? There was a war, that was painful and stressful, but as a young man Remus often felt invincible. When he was surrounded by his friends, his Sirius, he was all the more so.
They were the heroes of their story. They were the good guys, off to fight the bad. Who could ever go against them and win? Stories, the stories that became masterpieces and were studied in schools, always ended with good triumphing over bad.
When it all went so bad, so horrifically bad, was it any wonder that Remus no longer considered himself to be good?
The first war ended and left Remus’s heart in tatters.
Sirius, Remus’s best friend, the love of his life, the man he considered to be his soulmate, had betrayed him. Not just Remus, but their family of Marauders. Remus doubted – no, he knew – that he would never again find the kind of connection that he had with Sirius.
Who could compete with the friendship they shared? The closeness that led them to become lovers? Who could outwit Sirius? Make Remus laugh as he could? Who would see all the darkest parts inside of Remus and accept them as Sirius had?
The betrayal weighed heavily on Remus, for a variety of reasons.
Even when Sirius freed himself from Azkaban and told Remus that he didn’t betray James – he had still betrayed Remus.
Sirius didn’t trust Remus enough, he didn’t love him enough. If he had, he would have told Remus that he and James switched the secret-keepers. If Sirius trusted him fully, as their years of love should have supported, then he would have told him.
Instead, Remus was left with a broken heart and a deep belief that he had lost his one true soulmate.
After some time, Remus began ‘moving on’. It wasn’t that Remus thought that he would ever find what he had and lost, it was just that Remus missed that feeling of companionship, of connection.
It would never be a grand and true love, but that didn’t mean that there couldn’t be love for Remus.
Remus saw a few people, here and there. He had a noncommittal sexual relationship with a pretty and vivacious witch, Nymphadora Tonks. That relationship had healed Remus, somewhat. Neither of them were seeking out anything long-term, only a mutual friendship with pleasurable benefits. Nymphadora was fun and – if they were both different people, more healed, less hurting – he imagined that they might have had a true romantic future together.
Instead, they ended their sexual relationship when Nymphadora found a romantic partner and remained friends.
If Remus only sought out a sexual partner, he was never lacking. Remus could show up in any pub and find someone willing to return home with him for the night. Often, during the stressful times of the second war, Remus did just that. They were never worth remembering their names, only that Remus never promised to call and they never asked for it.
When Remus did decide to attempt to pursue a mature, committed, relationship that would lead to a lifetime of partnership and love… it left him quite scarred, truly. There were many signs that should have warned Remus away from Severus Snape – not the least of all because it was Severus – but Remus thought he was only being picky.
Or did a part of him know from the start that Severus would never offer Remus what he thought he wanted and so he was a safe choice? If Remus knew that it would end badly, end in spectacle and shock, then he could feign commitment while knowing that he would be blameless for the ending.
Remus’s fault? When he put forth such an effort? When Severus was clearly deranged and needed psychiatric care? Nobody could fault him.
It did end badly, as perhaps Remus knew it would from the start. It had been as poisonous of a relationship as nightshade and Remus would prefer to never see Severus’s face again, for as long as they both shall live.
Remus was, once again, alone.
A part of Remus thought he preferred it, really. It gave Remus the freedom to make decisions undeterred by a partner or spouse. Remus traveled; he saw some of the world that he never considered visiting before. Remus also began writing, mostly as a hobby. Remus wrote about the first war, then the second that had just ended. Remus put shadows of his own life experiences in stories and he shared them with others – giving away pieces of himself over and over… then occasionally receiving back new pieces when others reached out to say that they read his words. Not only did they read what he wrote, but they felt it.
It made Remus feel less alone, to share himself with others. It was easy, even. Remus didn’t have to write, he didn’t have to talk with others who found meaning in his words. Remus had the freedom to reply, to not reply. It was liberating for a man who spent much of his adult life second-guessing every interaction he had, often only after he had it.
Remus didn’t need to risk sharing his heart with one person when he could share his very essence with so many people. If a thousand people read what Remus wrote and even ten of them said that they understood, they empathized, they could see themselves in the characters that Remus created… then Remus was building connections every single day.
And that was enough. That was all Remus was brave enough to share. Sirius had ensured that Remus would never truly give his heart away again, he couldn’t survive it being damaged so badly again.
Or was Remus a cold and isolated person who used the betrayal of his once most beloved person as an excuse for the horrible acts he committed? Was Remus suffering from long-term consequences of heartache or was there always a beast within him that latched on to the key to its freedom?
While Remus would occasionally get a drink with someone, often his coworkers from the shop he worked at in Diagon Alley after the war, he never made it past a second date. His friends, those that he shared his love of reading and writing with, often found it to be entertaining how Remus refused to commit (“I swear it gives me hives,” he would say dryly over a cup of tea). Some of Remus’s dates were so outlandish that they could only be written as fiction, because surely who brought their emotional support ex-boyfriend to a date?!
It was Remus’s string of dates and his small and nearly snuffed out romantic hope that there had to be someone who Remus could love and be loved by for the rest of his life that sent him out again and again. Remus would go on a date, believe that he had found someone that he would be with forever, and then Remus would end things within weeks. It was an endless cycle and it drove Remus mad as much as it comforted him.
Remus could always find a partner, and he could never be hurt as he refused to become attached. It was heinously unfair to the partners, who were usually nothing but lovely people, but Remus suspected that he was heinous and unfair.
Then Remus met Hermione Granger.
Hermione was a setup through a dating service. Remus had been wary about using it, but saw others with success from it, so he took the leap.
And that was how he began chatting with Hermione on a daily basis. Hermione was clever, interesting. She saw the world in a very different way than Remus did, but shared her view in a way that he could relate – if not fully understand. Hermione was calm, centered. She talked about how she tried to be a good person, Remus acted as if he tried the same.
Perhaps she would make him a better person? If Remus were loved by someone good, then he would be good. If Remus could make himself want to commit fully to someone, she would have been who he would choose.
Hermione was kind, funny. She listened when he talked and she read his stories, as silly as he felt when he shared them with her. They only went out twice, though they talked daily about anything and everything. Remus was smitten.
Then Remus pushed too hard and set himself back. When Remus invited Hermione to a holiday event he had agreed to attend, she had been happy to agree. They set up another day to see each other and Remus left that second time in high spirits.
Remus would be like every other adult he was friends with or a coworker to. Remus would have stories about his partner, they would grow together, they would love another. Remus wouldn’t return home to an empty apartment, to a cold bed. It would be lovely.
Remus would have to give up much of his time he used on his own hobbies – such as writing and the miscellaneous hobbies he occasionally picked up – but that was fine. It was a sacrifice, but the reward would be worth it. Right? Right. And, yes, when Remus received a message from Hermione it began feeling more like an obligation than a pleasure to reply, but Remus needed to just push past that… he could, he would.
He didn’t.
Remus’s messages from Hermione piled up one day and it made him anxious, it made his skin prickle and his stomach to twist until he felt sick seeing them. How could he reply to an entire days worth of messages with the excuse of ‘he didn’t feel like replying’? It would make him seem cold, careless. Not replying was easier, but it added weight to Remus’s anxiety. If Remus could see her as something to be added to his life, it would be entirely different. But when Remus thought of her, he began to see her only as someone who would take things he loved away from him.
His time, his independence, his freedom.
She changed from a light to a shackle and Remus – as the coward he was – continued to hide from her.
Hermione was so kind, so concerned.
I hope you’re well?
I’m a little worried about you, this isn’t like you.
Please reach out when you can.
Remus wanted to tell her that he changed his mind, he didn’t want an obligation a relationship after all, but it made him feel terrible. Surely Hermione would want an explanation and then what was Remus to say? ‘You expected too much of my time’? When she had asked for none of it yet? No. Remus didn’t want to hurt her, she was too good of a person for that.
Instead, he did nothing. He said nothing. If he had to, he would say he never received her messages and – oh – wasn’t he as surprised as she was?
Hermione though, brilliant and kind Hermione, didn’t even consider that Remus’s silence was his viewpoint on their blossoming romance. She thought he was unable to get a message to her – though he couldn’t imagine what she thought when he didn’t show up for the tentative date they had set up. When she did track him down, at the place where he shared his writing and shared his stories, the one place he wouldn’t hide from, Remus was unsurprised by her tenacity. Though it made him feel sick to have to hurt her with his own words instead of allowing his silence to do it for him.
At his core, Remus was a coward.
“Hi.” Hermione stood before him, smiling in relief. “I thought you were hurt. It’s silly, I know, but when you disappeared I thought that something horrible must have happened.”
Remus tried to smile, it came out in a grimace. “Ah,” he said, hesitating to say the words he knew he had to say.
Hermione’s smile faltered, she must have been able to sense his reluctance.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Hermione, I…” Remus stalled, trying to come up with just the right words to say. ‘It’s not you, it’s me’, was a terrible cliché, but was it not also the truth? Hermione was wonderful, any person would be lucky to have her smiling at them, but Remus saw her beautiful smile and only thought of the ways that his life would no longer be under his sole control if he followed her smile. Sure, maybe it would be lovely, but Remus was happy as he was. Remus had learned to be happy on his own, he became independent, he found outlets.
It truly wasn’t her, but him.
“I see.” Hermione took a step backward, away from Remus, and she looked just as hurt as Remus hoped she wouldn’t be. Remus didn’t relish in her pain, he didn’t want to be the cause for the shuttering of her eyes. Remus only wished that he could go back in time before they began talking and tell himself what that path held. If it were only Remus to be hurt, it would be acceptable. But hurting Hermione caused the guilt and the disappointment in himself to overflow.
"This is how you want to end this?" she asked, likely referencing to the way that Remus stood so stiffly, unable to so much as meet her eyes.
Why was he the way that he was? What made some men born brave enough to wield swords against evil and Remus was unable to look a person in the eyes and tell them that he was no longer interested in a relationship with them?
“You deserve better,” Remus told her, knowing it was true and hating the use of another cliché.
Hermione only stared at Remus with her lips curved downward sadly and an almost pitying look in her eyes.
“Then why couldn’t you be better?” she asked softly, quietly, acceptingly.
Remus had nothing to say as she turned on her heel, turned away from the darkness that Remus tainted every person with, and she stalked away back to the warmth of the sunshine.
That moment, Remus hoped, would be a reminder to him that no matter how lonely he got in the future, no matter how much he craved a romantic love in his life, he could never do that again. Remus could never hurt someone with his apathetic lack of interest. When Remus moved on, thought later that maybe it was only a bad match and maybe he could find someone that wouldn’t feel as if they were taking things from him, he hoped that he thought of Hermione and how he hurt her.
Hermione hadn’t been in love with Remus, that was ridiculous. Hermione had only been treating Remus as he treated her – with respect and mutual affection. It didn’t hurt Hermione to see the end of a short and unlabeled relationship, it hurt her to be disregarded with no indication that Remus did respect her, he did admire her. She hadn’t been a game to him, not in the beginning certainly.
Remus told himself that it was the sick waves of anxiety that kept him from ending their relationship in a way befitting that respect, but what if it wasn’t? What if Remus wasn’t anxious, depressed, and bored in equal cycles but someone who didn’t carry basic human compassion? Was Remus sick or was he a monster?
Because there was quite a difference between the two concepts.
Did Remus hate hurting Hermione or did he hate standing there, alone, feeling like a monster? It was forgivable to regret hurting her, it was heinous to regret it for the sake of how it made him view himself.
How much of Remus's - immaturity? emotional blockage? inability to communicate properly like an adult? - could be blamed on his past and how much was only who Remus was as a person?
Why couldn’t he be better?