Hope Lupin
January 29th, 1965
The woman with the chestnut brown hair had never been so afraid in her life. And Hope Lupin had many reasons to be afraid in her life. For example, she was the wife of a wizard. Or perhaps the fact that her wizard husband was fighting dark creatures was considered more frightful.
She sat on the couch of their small apartment in London, eyes darting between the door and the room of her five year old son.
She hadn’t seen Lyall since she’d sent him off to trial against the feral werewolf.
And the same cold dread seeped through her that it did all those years ago. Hope had always been one for paranoia.
Ever since her father died, she just couldn’t help the impending darkness that always seemed to hang over her head.
If it was spreading a bit more sunscreen than needed, or checking under her son's bed, because maybe little Remus wasn’t the only one who worried about monsters lurking in the corners.
Lyall had always complained about that. The fact that she feared every small sound or that too often she had withheld her son from playing outside with the other kids, or ordering from restaurants because she didn’t know what was in their foods.
She tried to calm down. She tried to repress the feeling of looming dread that something would soon go terribly wrong. She tried to lull herself to sleep with soothing hums or the sound of her son's peaceful snores from the room beside her.
But it didn’t work.
She’d always find herself creeping up to check if Remus was safe in his bedroom. That his heart was steady and that nothing horrible had happened while she wasn’t looking.
She’d try to not read the news or watch those television shows depicting crimes and violence and more horrible things, but she’d always find herself peeking over the wizard’s Daily Prophet over her husband's shoulder.
Because if horrible things happened in the normal world, what types of tragedies occur in the ones filled with magic and torture devices?
Reading those didn’t help either.
They only fed that looming fear in the pit of her stomach, begging her to hold her son as tight as she could because if she didn’t, the boy would slip through her fingers.
And so she sat on the couch, imagining the horrible things that could’ve happened to Lyall while he was away. Perhaps he was rotting in a cellar with the soul-sucking monsters, or hunted down by angry zombies. She imagined the blood pouring down and his screams echoing off the walls and the crack of his skull…
“Mam?” a small voice asked from the shadows, making Hope jump. Her heart hammered in her chest and for a moment she thought she saw those bright yellow eyes- “Why are you crying?”
“Remus,” she whispered, urging the boy to come closer. “Don’t scare me like that.”
The boy seemed confused. “Sorry.”
She took a deep breath to collect herself before asking gently, “why aren’t you asleep, annwyl?”
“I think there’s a monster under my bed.” There it was. The godforsaken fear in the pit of her stomach, rising up her chest. That knowledge that soon enough, everything was going to crash down and something dreadful was going to happen.
But she couldn’t give in. Because what would Lyall say?
What would Lyall say when he came back and learned that she gave in again? That she once again passed on her paranoia to her son, and failed to teach him to be a man. To be brave.
She looked into his eyes and ruffled his hair. Chestnut, just like Lyall’s. “You need to be brave, annwyl.”
“I don’t want to be brave,” he pouted.
She sighed, her heart rate calming. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing is going to happen. “You need to be a warrior. Dad will be so proud of you when he gets home.”
His small face lit up with all the stars. “Really?”
She forced a smile. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing is going to happen. “I promise.”
He swallowed. “I’ll fight the monster. I’ll be brave.” And he walked back to his room, closing the door shut behind him.
She glanced at the door. Nothing is going to happen. It’s going to be okay, she told herself, putting a hand over her racing heart. She should count down. Yes, counting down would help.
One, two..
Scream. An ear-shattering wail.
Her heart pounded against her ribcage.
Remus. Remus. Remus.
Her head was dizzy. But her feet were moving and Remus’s door had opened. She didn’t know if it was she who opened it or if it was someone else. A shadowed figure stood at the door.
A loud, wolfish howl. Big blurred teeth.
Her blood pounded in her ears and everything around her was crimson. Everything was so blurry and dizzy and red. As she looked down at the floor, Remus was red.
All of him.
He had stopped talking and he was all red. She could barely see his small figure within the pool.
Another scream bounced off the walls, though the monster was long gone. Maybe it was hers.
“Annwyl,” she whispered. She didn’t know when she landed on the floor but now she was also red. “Annwyl, I’m sorry.”
Her knees hurt and her throat burned and her vision was blurry but she lifted Remus. Now he was on the couch. She didn’t know how Remus ended up in bandages or how the floor got cleaned or when she did it.
She couldn’t tell you exactly what happened then because she didn’t remember it all herself.
The howls rang in her ears.
Every time she glanced at Remus she saw him covered in blood, and every time she glanced at the door, she pictured Lyall, with his muscular hands and gentle touch.
Telling them that everything was going to be okay, like he always did. Telling her that it was just another one of her bad dreams.
But he wasn’t there yet.
Hours pass, and Hope stays wide awake, glancing anxiously at the door and wishing that she didn’t have to be there to see her little boy all bloody and bruised. Wishing she didn’t have to wake up to her new son. Wishing that perhaps this was all a dream, a figment of her anxious imagination.
Lyall never came back after that.