An introduction
Remus spends so long being the adviser, the rational, poised, and token voice of logic of his friends, that he doesn't notice himself slowly slipping into delusion and denial and irrationality.
(Or in other words, we always try to draw attention away from our deepest flaws, our achilles heel, and Remus has spent too long pretending. Eventually, with time, the small chips and cracks in the facade leave a gaping, ruined hole.)
They are adults now.
Hogwarts feels like a lifetime ago. It wasn’t, though. It wasn’t a lifetime, it’s been a year.
A gruelling, dark, year.
Remus and Sirius live in darkness, partly because they don't have the money to pay to keep the lights on, partly because they live in the threat of war, and partly because Remus is sick and dying and no one is quite sure how to make him better.
It's ignored, it has to be. James and Lily serve him broth when they have them over for dinner and the rest of them eat Lily's lovely lasagna and no one bats an eyelid. He chokes it down and they all pretend his grimace is a smile.
-
Sirius remembers hearing Remus gag in the dormitory bathroom during third year and cringes as he notices the same sound coming from the shower in their shitty little apartment.
Maybe he could have helped, but he didn't. And no one has any time anymore.
He tries, anyway. It's 6:30 am and Sirius opens his eyes to Remus fervently writing in his booklet on the side of the bed. He catches a glimpse of '50 blueberries- 40 calories' and closes them again. Pretends to not hear the frantic noise of pen on paper.
-
They're shouting at each-other the morning of Lily's baby shower and Sirius wonders when it was that Remus became the hothead and he became the logician.
He must not be a very good logician, because he breaks.
And he’s screaming.
"You're killing yourself Remus! And God I- for fuckssake."
He bursts into tears halfway through this endless charade. Trying to reassure him that, no, he doesn't think Remus is delicate, and yes, he's sure Remus can take care of himself.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Remus spits, before gritting his teeth and hitting the contents of the counter beside them in a sharp swipe, glasses and ceramic breaking on the floor.
Sirius dutifully wipes the conversation from his memory and the wetness from his face.
Neither of them clean up the pieces that morning, a stark reminder of everything they’re not, and everything they are.
Remus doesn't end up going to the baby shower.
Sirius, naïvely, expects to find him curled up with a book and some tea by their heater as he opens their door.
Maybe once upon a time he would have, or maybe he's always been the delusional one.
He spots the wrappers bursting out of the kitchen bin and his gut sinks, they're not strewn about the kitchen like usual- though the ceramic shards remain. There is a certain kind of muted resignation panging in his chest.
He heads straight for the bathroom, but, maybe not with as much haste as he once would have. He hears the sobs well before he's anywhere near the door.
At least he isn't unconscious.
Sirius opens the door quietly and slowly sits cross legged behind Remus' hunched figure. He rubs his hand over Remus's back and tries not to hesitate as he feels the bones of his spine jutting out like mountains.
Neither of them say anything at all, and Sirius desperately wants to, but he waits for Remus to calm down and then he coaxes him to the shower.
Remus is so clearly out of it Sirius isn't certain he'll remember half of this. It's just as well, he probably wouldn't want to.
Sirius's own body seems to be on auto pilot too. He's done it enough times.
Somewhere in between turning the shower on and making himself a coffee he loses time, but they both end up in their warm bed in the dark of their room and Sirius tries to ignore the reason behind Remus's violent shivers. He reaches over and brings Remus's body closer to his own and it's hard not to wonder which type of sickness the large scar his fingers brush over is from.
Some days are better, and Remus visits Harry for the first time without a hitch.
There's snacks and a sit down meal and music and Remus has an ease to his face and a glint in his eye Sirius has not seen in a long time.
He feels such overwhelming relief and even, perhaps stupidly, tests Remus's patience like they’re 16 again. Teasing him the most he has in a while. Crude jokes and wry comments.
Remus glares at him, but the slight smile gives it away. Sirius must really be the delusional one, because he lets himself believe everything will stay okay.
James grins in his direction, clearly believing the same. Peter seems to be completely oblivious.
(If you were to look close enough, you would find Peter’s ignorance not to be born of true oblivion, but rather a wilful kind of aversion.)
None of them notice Lily's nervous gaze as Remus cuts his carrots into thin slices.
If anyone does notice, well, she's a new mother, she's bound to be anxious. That's all it is.
Remus collapses shortly after, and Sirius hasn't seen any wrappers in the kitchen for a long time.
At this point, Lily begs Dumbledore to put him in a hospital, and Sirius half expects Remus to be utterly destroyed by the entire situation.
To cry, to scream, to beg, to go absolutely mute. To storm off the sofa that Sirius had carried him onto and smash his way out of the house and go and jump off a bridge or something equally extreme. He has watched his partner dedicate his life to this exercise in destruction, surely, surely he is going to react. Is he going mad?
Remus calmly reassures Dumbledore that he's fine, and is so convincing that Sirius almost actually believes him.
Almost wonders if he's simply been imagining the fraught weeping in the bathroom, or the frantic, desperate, pacing in the living room.
Sirius looks Remus in the eyes and considers what to say. He could ignore it, like he always does. Or explode and admit the truth, like he occasionally does. He chooses somewhere in between. And somehow, that's the most frightening option.
"You're terrifying me, moony," he whispers.
"Sirius, I know you’re worried.” Remus pauses.
“…But I know what I'm doing. This doesn’t have to be so dramatic. The order needs me, I need to be okay, to be able to fight. So i'm making sure that I am fit enough-"
"Remus Lupin, stop it."
"Padfoot" Remus half pleads.
"Fucking stop it. You do not know what you're doing! Fit?"
For one, Sirius is at least certain he isn't imagining the growing panic in his partner’s eyes.
"Remus. Lily is… she’s right. I need to ask Dumbledore to help you. There’s no one else that knows what to do! I certainly don’t."
"What?"
"You need help! What are you doing? "
"Sirius," Remus hisses, he opens his palms and gestures wildly-
"You know full well we don't have time for that. You know full well the kind of person that bastard man is. And you absolutely know full well he would rather a useful and fit soldier, not some blasted fat monster confined to a bed."
"Fat? Fat?”
Sirius feels his heart stop.
He can’t recall hearing that word ever leaving Remus’ mouth. Doesn’t even understand how that could possibly make sense.
“Remus, that can’t be what this is about, you look-”
The panic seems to drain out of Remus, and is swiftly replaced with certainty.
"Don't disappoint yourself, Sirius,” he cuts in. “It's not every day his Order get their gloved fingers on such a perfectly obedient mutt, and I assure you, they sure as hell aren't losing that leverage now."
"Moony-"
"Come on, I'm okay now. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again. More than anything I'm just stressed, we all are. Is it really so surprising my appetite is-”
Remus seems to almost choke on the words.
“-Unusual. Let's just go eat some dinner, yeah?"
Before, this would have lit Sirius up like a child on Christmas morning, a naïve child, because that’s what he was.
Naïve.
Remus agreeing to dinner with him was so rare and frankly nonexistent these days that, truly, who could blame him for clinging onto any and all shreds of hope like pieces of driftwood in a whirlpool?
(Sirius wonders if it was better to have been delusional. Is it better to cling for survival and know that it’s futile, or let yourself drown and save the pain of the struggle? Does it matter?)
He makes a point to follow Remus to the bathroom afterwards, and Remus at least has the decency to hesitate for a moment, before muttering out a short 'I'm going to have a shower,' in which Sirius pointedly turns to leave.
He should’ve known.
-
In a cruel imitation of irony, Sirius feels another piece of himself shatter when he notices Remus smoking outside their front door.
He's not a hypocrite, he's smoked himself for a long time. But Remus always hated it, he pretended to hate it more than he did, but he disapproved all the same. It's not Remus.
Not the person that Sirius has known. Something is wrong. But there’s a nagging question in the back of his mind.
Not the person I know, or just the person I have refused to truly see?
Sirius mentions it to Lily and he thinks he can physically see another part of her break, just as it did in him.
She explains that cigarettes curb appetite, and suddenly Sirius feels sick. It feels so trivial, so insane, that this is what he's going to break down over.
Remus can eat himself sick and shove his fingers down his throat and starve himself for days or pace for hours and Sirius will pretend it has never happened but Remus takes up smoking and suddenly he can't handle it anymore?
Somehow, it feels like a wake up call for something he's been avoiding for as long as he's even known Remus Lupin. Makes him realise that Remus collapsing should've been enough and it wasn't.
He has been letting Remus's delusion infect him and he's been letting his own cowardice get in the way of truly addressing the problem.
It's become so normal that admitting it is not, makes it so, and it's so much less painful to pretend it isn't a problem, that it's fine.
(But look where denial so extreme it becomes delusion gets you. It won’t stop you drowning.)
(Maybe you’ll feel better about it, though.)
She embraces Sirius and they talk for well into the evening. The more Lily explains the things she has noticed, the more Sirius feels the emptiness in his chest growing into a black void.
”Everything’s fucked lily. This is all so fucked.”
“I know,” she laments, quietly. “But nobody seems to… I wonder if we are far, far too late.”
When you’ve spent so long avoiding a problem, finally acknowledging it can feel like you’re putting in all the effort in the world. But admission is not the solution. And you are not.
-
James returns home to Godric's Hollow and Sirius hates to say it, but he does.
He is nervous about Remus's physical state but crucially, he's also worried about his state of mind.
Lily blanches at the insinuation for a moment and James inhales a burst of breath and Sirius clarifies quickly that Remus would never betray them, but his mind is sick,
(I think we all are, he does not say,)
His mind is likely easily broken, and he knows Sirius is secret keeper.
He will regret those words for an eternity.
And so.
Peter Pettigrew betrays the Potters, Sirius Black goes to Azkaban, James and Lily Potter are murdered, Harry Potter survives, and Remus Lupin can't handle himself around food.
Sirius breaks, again and again and again.
Until anything that could have ever been referred to as Sirius Black is ground into a fine dust.
He lets James and Lily and his innocence play on his mind over and over again and refuses to think even passingly about remus.
The thought of Remus would scatter his powdered remains until he was totally unrecognisable. Until he didn't recognise himself. Until he didn't recognise reality because he just couldn't accept it. The one time he should have trusted him, and he didn’t. He can’t decide whether to be angry at Remus, sometimes, sat on the cold floor- angry that he seemed so untrustworthy. Angry that he couldn’t just. Just be sane. Why couldn’t he just control himself around food? Why did he have to seem so broken!
And why did Sirius never truly ask?
If he couldn’t trust Remus to be home on his own- lest he gorge upon their pantry and cultivate the mould their toilet further, if it seemed his priority to disappear in body and in mind, flesh strapping itself thinner and thinner to bone. How could he have-
He’s not terrible. He’s not. He wasn’t wrong to think Remus’s mind could be easily- fuck.
If Sirius had to hear the words “fat monster” exit his lovers mouth- his decidedly, terrifyingly, thin partner. Someone so competent, logical, book loving, down-to-earth. It wasn’t evil to assume Remus was sick in the mind, was it? Was it? He was. No normal person does what Remus did, and god, what is he doing now? Remus is going to think Sirius gave away their location.
Why didn’t Sirius just talk to him?
(Because he thought it was better to ignore it.)
He can’t think about this. He can’t. Peter and his betrayal. Remus and his delusions. The intertwining of both.
Better to ignore it.
(As if he hasn't done that enough).
-
For a moment, in all his grief and distress, Remus imagines a world in which he will take care of Harry, raise him and teach him as best he can and send him to Hogwarts.
He will make James proud and be as close as he can to a father figure and he will have found a purpose, he will grieve his closest friend’s death in the best way he can.
(And he will never think about Sirius Black ever again.)
Remus doesn't bother asking Dumbledore to allow this.
It's the lycanthropy that first pops into his mind, as to why he'd never be able or allowed to take care of a small child.
He quickly accepts the slightly more disconcerting reality.
There's no one to fool anymore anyway.
He's sick in the mind. The lycanthropy would endanger Harry physically, but somehow, that doesn't feel as bad as passing on his psyche into his best friend's child.
He wonders which curse would be more damning.
And so.
What was bad before becomes much worse.
(Time doesn’t just heal wounds. But exacerbates untreated infection, and that’s what this is, isn’t it? Time marches forward, and will continue to do so after your death.)
Remus isn't a stupid man, he has a disease. It consumes him entirely, so much so his fear of food consumes much more of his thoughts than his lycanthropy or his friend's murders.
Maybe that's always been the point.
A year after James and Lily and Peter are murdered (by Sirius Bla-) Dumbledore apparates right into the middle of Remus's kitchen as he's cleaning up some maniacally dispersed wrappers and copious amounts of discarded food, it had been his first episode of this in two months.
Brilliant timing, Dumbledore. He thinks wryly.
(And very intentional, no?)
Dumbledore cuts to the chase fairly quickly. He wants Remus to infiltrate the werewolf packs again. Says it bluntly and in a tone suggesting something that Remus doesn't have the energy to dissect.
But he’s tired, and a part of him is so, so, desperately angry-
He doesn't think, he grabs a plate from the mess in front of him, smashes it into his head, and loses consciousness.
-
In St Mungo’s, Dumbledore pretends to be surprised at his physical state.
Remus has the overwhelming urge to either brutally murder himself, everyone in the room, or go on a homicidal rampage and then kill himself.
Dumbledore is staring far too intimately into his eyes and Remus has half a hope that the man has no idea of the murderous rage he's in, but he probably does.
The eyes are the window to the soul, right?
(And why should he care anyway?)
Remus' history of 'disordered' eating, which he contemplates as the most fitting description he’d ever heard for it, is somehow recalled by Dumbledore, despite the wizard having never hinted he actually comprehended it was an issue.
They lament over his ‘low’ weight, his apparently insufficient heart, along with the significant amount of scars all over his body, which do not make the situation any easier.
Disordered eating- how ironic, it seems all I do is relentlessly try and attain order. Of course, I am useless. And so unsurprisingly, they assume this to be in the nature of dis-order. I wonder if-
He allows his thoughts to continue their stream of consciousness, but brings his attention back into the room.
All that dis-order, and the fact he knocked himself out with a china plate in the first place, leads to the healers recommending, and then insisting, he stay.
Remus wonders if Dumbledore had been hoping for something like this. In fact, he becomes certain of it.
He is under no illusions about the situation he has been placed in.
Remus starts off calm when the healer tells him they need him to remain, but he ends this in hysterics.
He knows that this is achieving nothing, and for all the use this is he may as well be handing Dumbledore a stack of bargaining chips.
But he is far too consumed by the panic of his present situation to do anything about it. He's portraying himself as someone consumed by sickness and he hates it, he is losing himself to this fear.
They keep him there for five weeks and Remus fights it the entire time.
It is still all darkness and panic and agitation and now they are actively making it worse for no real reason at all. Why would they try and take this one thing away from him- do they understand what he would be without it? They don’t know what they’re talking about.
He is fine. Merlin, he is fine.
Dumbledore suggests this could go on for months, even years if Remus continues to remain in such a ‘terrible state of compulsion’, and Remus transcends panic right into a state of complete flight-mode.
He has nothing left. And they will not take the last part of him standing- whether it is sickness or not.
With no time to think or feel, Remus suggests working for the order so that Dumbledore can keep an eye on him.
“Of course- I trust your judgement, and I could be of much more use in this way. Perhaps if I am able to occupy myself, this affliction will lessen. And it’s… it’s about to be a full moon, Albus.”
Neither of them openly admit what that means- but Remus is unregistered. He will never leave the clutches of the ministry, if he turns here.
(He needs to get rid of the calories they shoved into his body and his soul and somehow that seems more important than the concept of being mauled to death on some pithy Order mission, he also does not say.)
Dumbledore smiles slightly, Remus sees absolutely nothing malicious or evil in his face, but he does spot that fucking glint, in his eye, I know you. It says. And I have won.
He is enraged, but swallows his hatred. Albus is his way out. And there is one thing he hates more than him- this particular subversion of his autonomy.
The healers do not recommend it, Remus hasn't progressed even nearly the way they wanted him to. Remus rather thinks they’re delusional themselves.
“Mr Lupin” Spoke the timid healer that had taken on the majority of the coordination of his torture,
“I’m afraid I cannot allow you to leave just yet, this- your eating disorder is destroying your health, you’re so young, do you understand? You could die. You will die.”
“Oh take a rest. I have far more important things to do, that do not include listening to another word about my dis-order, truly, go fuck yourself.” He snaps.
Dumbledore goes outside to speak with him and Remus leaves alongside the wizard an hour later.
-
He spends a long year working for Dumbledore, the Order is disbanded, had been before Remus had even suggested working for it again, and he isn't even sure what exactly the point was. But he does it anyway.
Because he also gets what he wants.
It doesn’t quite feel like a victory.
-
One day, in the quiet cold of the crescent moon, he realises the full nature of this useless endeavour.
And so he leaves, does not tell Dumbledore, and they do not speak again for another 10 years.
-
It's a harrowing ten years, one consumed with sugar-free tea, the smell of bile and long, achingly long walks. The lights are still off, but at least he's alive.
At least he's alive! It’s the kind of thought that makes his throat burn, or leads to it.
He can't wish he wasn't. It wouldn't be fair. Is it worse to know that if James, Lily and Peter were alive he would have jumped off that bridge already by now?
If Sirius hadn't betrayed everything that they were, he might've betrayed them just the same, just in such a different way?
Sometimes he wishes that this eating disorder, as they called it in St Mungos, had killed him when he was 15, instead of chipping him away year by year until he dies at 33 or 43 or 53.
But he’s already gone 20 years with it, what's another 20?
It feels like a sick joke. Which is probably appropriate, because that is exactly what he is.
It's embarrassing. Wholly, unbelievably embarrassing. and no one even knows. Save for Albus Dumbledore.
He spent so long revelling in this destruction in his teens and early 20s, people looked at him and he hated the pity, but oh to just be seen again!
Even if it came with all that uncomfortable trepidation, that tentative concern.
Who is he even kidding, though?
No matter how concerned the people around him were, they did not do a thing.
Not successfully, it was perhaps only Lily and Siri- Sirius. Sirius murdered Lily and James Potter and their son is god knows where and Remus is starving himself in a shitty, dark, cottage in Yorkshire the same way he was in the shitty, dark apartment he shared with Sirius.
Remus Lupin has an eating disorder.
He would be a liar if he said he hadn’t looked into the thing.
(It sounds so trivial, doesn’t it?)
(Eating disorder. A problem with his eating. Like he’s a picky child or one of those esteemed actresses spiralling in tragedy and narcotics, a fad, reserved for insecure teenage girls or pressured people wrapped in fame.)
Yet if he truly thinks about it, those people don’t actually exist, do they?
There must always be something deeper.
But Remus Lupin is a grown man obsessed with numbers.
It's so chaotic, too chaotic, and he finds it only gets worse with time.
He wishes it was about total control, the way the healers in St Mungos suggested it was. Desperately. But it was always in the name isn’t it? Dis-order?
He didn't have the heart, nor a single piece of him actually willing to admit he had this sort of problem in the first place, to tell them how much he wished it was true. But that this was not the case.
It'd be easier. If it were. Was. So controlled.
-
He goes through all kinds of cycles.
Maybe if he was so completely successful at this thing he could convince himself it wasn't a problem. But he’s not. And, well, that’s the problem.
Eat a small amount of calories, go on a walk, and continue with your day. It should be simple- but perhaps if it were, it wouldn’t serve its purpose.
If he did not lose control, if he did not decimate his own kitchen and spend the next few days feeling nothing but sticky guilt, pacing and starving- well, is it not likely he would simply feel guilt that can’t be managed? Is this not, in the end, a pick-your-poison scenario?
(After all, you cannot starve away the guilt of your past.)
It's a desperate grapple for control in something that cannot be anything but chaotic.
It's always a losing game. The only way to win has always been not to play. And he began playing a long time ago.
He steps on the scale, acknowledges a number he knows is far, far too low, and he breathes quietly. 17 year old remus lupin would find it so exciting. So damn satisfying. He would feel so accomplished.
33 year-old remus lupin just goes to make a coffee.
Black, no sugar. Maybe it's a reward, maybe it's a punishment. He waits for death in the dark swirling of his drink, and in the dark of his living room.
-
Death does not arrive- but Dumbledore does, again.
Remus has had enough of sick jokes.
But thank Merlin he's not clearing any wrappers, this time.
Unfortunately, he cannot escape the fact his throat is still raw and his knuckles are red.
One quick glance at them from Dumbledore and suddenly his cheeks are slightly red, too.
How does a man that old and so far removed from the afflictions of the occasional teenage girl know anything about what the rawness of his knuckles means?
Remus isn't a stupid man. And yes, he spends a lot of his time ignoring it, refusing to acknowledge it for what it is. But Time has been demanding in his thick loneliness. And so he has no real reason to drive headfirst with delusion as his helmet.
There is no one anymore but himself to lie to.
-
(‘Anorexia, binge-purging subtype’ the library's search engine is screaming at him. People that are severely unwell often present-)
He turns it off. The routine of searching for information on his own infliction has become a sordid one.
He particularly dislikes that the statement unwell implies he could be well, in the future. It is a false assumption.
It's funny, the way it's so circular.
In his early years he was desperate to look unwell, to be unwell, for people to notice.
To be a large and unavoidable (or rather, as small as possible) red flag- I am wrong, I am broken, stay away.
Over time, he becomes so certain that he's not unwell, not when it comes to this. What a ridiculous notion! He just is.
Anyone suggesting even a hint of concern is threatening his very identity. And how dare they? Was young-adult Lupin’s mantra. This is what it is to be well.
And now he is certain of it. Of what it is.
(Will he ever stop lying to himself?)
He doesn't even want it but… he can't have anything else. He needs it. It has him.
He has gotten what he wanted and he hates it, he loves it, it’s everything to him- his thoughts, his joy and his shame.
He is sick and he is out of control and he doesn't have a choice anymore. No. He is perfect - thin, all sharp angles and the image of control. He's disgusting. He looks disgusting. Feels it too. How could he ever find satisfaction in this? How could he ever find satisfaction in anything else?
He cannot change, he will not change. It's better to tell himself that. That he won't change, that it's his choice.
(It doesn’t matter what he tells himself, because in the end, it won’t change the hole he is in.)
He has no one in his life to spur it on- if change were possible. It incurs a specific type of ache in his heart, this line of thought. James and Lily, Peter, Siri- no. James and Lily and Peter never got to know him in a state where he no longer wanted this. So he pretends that reality could have never existed. That he still does.
But. Maybe they could have helped him?
Ah. No, but they couldn't have.
You always think the grass is greener. If he tried to climb over the fence, Remus would probably come racing back to this side. Or leap over entirely into the abyss.
(On some level he does long for that concern. Maybe because he wants to be different, maybe because he wants any sort of acknowledgment at all, that this isn’t right. Maybe it’s a selfish desire for shallow and pointless attention. Maybe the pain isn’t worth it, maybe it needs to be, maybe, maybe, maybe-)
-
Dumbledore is about the least muggle person Remus has ever met.
So how could he possibly know anything about this? Perhaps he's specifically looked into it, had some sort of experience. Which, if Remus thinks about it, maybe isn't actually that far fetched.
He’d be a hypocrite to think it difficult. It was, in the practical sense, a fairly simple crusade for knowledge.
And it is ignorant to think he's the only one in the world with this. He knows he's not. Dumbledore works at a school full of teenagers. Such is the age group for this type of thing, apparently.
(Remus could almost guarantee that if he were paying attention he would have noticed others like him, could sniff them out like a hound. It's likely more of a problem in Hogwarts than he had ever thought, Merlin, he could never go back there knowing this. Thank god he's 33-)
"I want to offer you a teaching position. Defence against the dark arts."
-
Right. Of course Albus wants to offer him the role of the cursed professor.
-
Remus hesitates. Thinks about teaching classes of teenagers and being seen. He was a good liar 10 years ago, brilliant actually. How could he not have been?
Nobody seemed to notice, surely that's because they didn't know. He can do that again. He can just do that again, yes.
He briefly ignores the reality that it was more of a nobody-wanted-to-notice issue and not an i'm-brilliant-at-pretending-i'm-okay thing.
Things may have changed in the 15 years he hasn't been at Hogwarts.
People might be smarter. Or less selfish. Or more insistent to be involved in things that have absolutely nothing to do with them.
There's something vaguely exhilarating about that. Being noticed even while shrinking from view.
Not that he would be, he's gone about as far as he can, he can't really shrink any-more than he has already.
This has become less about his weight and more about food in its entirety. Of course he'd be frantic if he did get bigger.
Visibly.
But even the 2 or 3 kg he ‘gains’ after eating everything within his damned sight doesn't phase him as much as it once would have, anymore.
19 year-old Remus would be completely and utterly desperate to lose it as quickly as possible. Cemented in the belief that everyone can see there's too much of him now and unless he eats nothing for the next week it'll completely ruin everything he's ever done.
He must simply make sure he stays.. sick. Or small, or thin, or whatever it is he wants to be.
Remus isn't even sure there's a word for it. Or maybe thin suffices, but it's the kind of description that women want for themselves and Remus is a grown man. He's not supposed to want that. He acts too much like a woman already.
33 year old Remus is too used to this.
And so in such an event- the increase in the number, he goes and makes himself another coffee as he does on any other day. And vacantly does what he always does after this. Cigarette, walk, blueberries, coffee, cigarette, repeat. For the next 2 days or so. Often longer, until he simply can't.
And his version of can't is not passing out in the middle of nowhere anymore. After those 3 days, it becomes less predictable. But that doesn't worry him. Is it unpredictability if you can totally predict it?
He considers whether his lack of worry is because there is little to worry about, or because his mind is starved entirely of feeling. Either way, this is as it is.
Nobody is around to see these failures, and if nobody can see it is it even really happening?
And if you don't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist. That's what it's always been. Would Remus be like that? If saw himself as an 11 year old, first scraping his throat raw? Ignore it, hope it goes away?
No. He wouldn't. He'd be more hesitant if it were an adult, certainly. If he saw himself for what he is now he'd be completely out of his depth.
But a child? No. He would not let this happen to anybody else if he could help it. In fact, Remus half thinks it's not anything to do with his own experience. He would do it anyway. And it is this train of thought that brings him to accepting Dumbledore’s offer.
And it’s money. He doesn't have a lot of that.
But for the first time in a while panic builds in his chest and it might be half excitement but really, it just feels like terror. What the hell is he going to do about his full moon problem anyway? You know, the one in which he turns into a murderous monster?
Dumbledore says that Severus is the potions master and Remus cringes, but he also says he would be ‘willing’ to make Remus wolfsbane.
Remus is honestly more relieved at the idea of Snape being fairly civil than he is at the idea of being less of a danger to himself or less in pain. But he is fairly certain ‘willing’ probably consisted of a thinly veiled threat and begrudging acceptance.
People don’t tend to change.
And actually, he's a little bit relieved about the idea of that too.
He accepts. And tries to avert his gaze from the pity in Dumbledore’s eyes, as they still stray towards the calluses on his fingers. They don't talk about it. But they don’t have to.
Dumbledore is staring into his eyes again and for once Remus doesn't have the energy to seem defiant. Hasn't had that energy in years.
In any case. They both know there's no use. If Dumbledore did anything now it would far too obviously be a manipulation, even for him.
They wouldn't be able to pretend it wasn't like they did this a decade ago. Besides, accepting this cursed position negates the need.
He’s a pawn and always has been, and this isn’t really an offer.
When Remus steps foot onto the Hogwarts Express for the first time in a decade and a half, there is a poisonous sinking feeling in his stomach and lungs.
It might just be his heart, though. Might also be related to Sirius Black escaping from Azkaban. Probably not.
He quietly cringes at the terrible condition of his clothes as he settles into the carriage and his lips curl upward at the thought of how loose they feel, before curling downwards again as he realises it doesn't exactly scream professor and maybe that should be more along the lines of what he's going for- rather than a malnourished vagrant.
He doesn't even remember when he gives into the lull of sleep, but he does. And is unfortunately awoken by… Harry Potter?
The boy is sitting directly opposite him, asking him if he needs any food from the carriage. Remus almost outwardly laughs at the irony, but that could have very well turned into dry sobs, and he'd like to avoid that.
Remus chokes out a 'no thank you' and is so thrown off by the absurdity of James and Lily's son sitting across from him that he can't really do anything except try and go back to sleep and avoid any potential conversation, so he tries.
A girl next to Harry whispers, "He's looking awfully rough isn't he?” After about 2 hours of Remus attempting to shut off his brain, and miserably failing.
He suddenly knows for certain that he is completely out of his depth, exactly as he feared. He's 12 years old again on his way to Hogwarts and his throat is still burning the same way. His teeth still feel brittle.
Grief hits him all at once, and for a moment he doesn’t question it. But then he sees them.
The dementors come. He shoots out of his chair and his heart thumps in his chest as the beast brings flashes of Sirius and their bathroom and guilt. He almost collapses in the overwhelming dread. He deals with it in a haze.
Comes out with the most flimsy patronus to exist, offers some chocolate to Harry and his friends while trying to ignore the strange anxiety that comes with not having the food close by.
“It’ll negate some of the effects,” he mutters, as he hands the bars over.
“You should have some, professor- you look a bit shaken,” the bushy haired girl suggests, eyes baring a hole in his soul.
“He’s a professor?” The boy, no doubt a Weasley, not-so-covertly whispers in her direction.
Remus quite non-covertly pretends not to hear her, turning to the red-head, “Defence against the dark arts,” he smiles. And turns to leave the carriage.
He spends the next part of the journey trying not to revert into a weeping panicking mess. Panicking about what exactly, he isn't sure. But if he was, he would be on the floor, so it's probably best he doesn't think about it.
A part of him screams in the corners of his mind, to pay attention to Harry, to acknowledge his clear absolute terror in the dementors presence. To help him and to be empathetic and to go back and talk to him- but he can't.
Remus Lupin is a bad person, he is sure of it. And maybe it would be okay to get to know a bad person if all you are is surrounded by good people. Sort of like a pre-warning, or maybe reassurance.
Look at this! He’s out of his mind! Thank god we're not like that. Do not ever be like that, Harry.
But, if Harry's slight frame and clothes almost torn to pieces- matching Remus' own, mean anything, Harry potter has not been surrounded by good people. That and the fact that the boy is rendered almost incapacitated by a dementor at, what, 13 years old? Remus isn't about to add his poisonous nature to the mix. So he doesn't.
He eventually finds an empty carriage in his sleep deprivation and just closes his eyes. He waits for oblivion to come and tries not to think about food or James or Lily or Siriu- no, Remus decides. Better to think about food.
-
He did not expect this level of panic, teaching a class of 16 year olds in his first hour of being a professor. Stress, maybe. Anxiety, sure. Not overwhelming panic.
He keeps his behaviour stoic, voice level- even cold. It's not how he wants to present himself, but the boys and girls in front of him in their colourful robes and Hogwarts uniforms are launching him into memories that he does not want to revisit, no matter how positive they may have seemed at the time.
Remus Lupin will not spend another second thinking about the past.
(Unfortunately, it’s not a decision he has much control over.)
He moves on to his next class- a group of slytherin and gryffindor seventh years. 17-18 year-olds.
Memories and thoughts threaten to bubble to the surface but Remus beats them to a pulp in his mind. Unfortunately, living in the present isn't much better than ruminating on the past. And remus' gut sinks slowly in his body until he can feel it churning in his feet.
There is something wrong. It's not surprising, of course it's not surprising. Remus has wondered every so often for years, decades, how many people live in his specific kind of chaos.
How many people are wrong like him?
Now he knows for certain. As his eyes skim over a room of children grinning falsely and fidgeting under their desks, different shades of darkness swirling in their eyes. Too many.
He finishes his second class and as his feet drag him to the entrance of the great hall, he is greeted by that sea of despondency once again.
He just can't seem to escape it.
He considers trying, anyway. As he always does.
But he's not 12 anymore, sitting in that hall and feeling the dread in his chest, the trepidation in his bones.
And he's not 17, refusing to go into the hall at all, or frantically making his way to the kitchens and then slipping into some prefect bathroom.
And he's certainly not 20 anymore. Drowning in his apartment in a sadistic kind of certainty. Lights turned off, fingers bleeding, weeping on the floor of his shower in anguish.
He tries his best to look casual as he puts one foot in front of the other and makes his way to Dumbledore, who seems to be the only professor seated so far. It's not anxiety that worms its way into his chest at the sight of the headmaster, it's anger. He sits as gracefully as he can with his muscles so tense, bringing his eyes to the empty plate in front of him.
Remus has cried, cries even, regularly. Always in the dead of night or in the terrible cold of the bathroom or over his morning coffee, but never, not once in a decade, have tears threatened to fall in company.
He keeps his eyes on the plate and doesn't move as he waits for the stinging to end. He can't cry, and he won't, but this state of in-between feels worse than if he were to simply let the tears fall.
More children begin flooding into the great hall and Remus desperately wants to shift his eyes to the Gryffindor table, perhaps irrationally, but he can't move them. Dumbledore gives a nice speech, Remus is sure. Nice if you're a child not consumed with cynicism, and children rarely are, but for remus- perhaps it's better just to tune it out.
There's clapping and commotion and Dumbledore gestures towards Remus, and immediately the panic now threatens to spill out of his throat and all over the table. He stands out of his seat. Feels the weakness of his knees before the dizziness, and tries his best to introduce himself, before the world goes black for a moment. Abruptly sitting down in that ocean of complete black, Remus bares his teeth and runs his fingers over the wood of the table. At some point Dumbledore sits, and conversations explode throughout the hall.
"Professor Lupin, are you alright?" His vision is restored but so, so unfocused, and the stinging near his eyes is beginning to become unbearable, but he turns to look at his former, favourite professor.
"Mcgonagall! Yes i'm alright, how are you?"
She purses her lips. "I am as I always am, Remus, the greater question is- where have you been all these years? Since-"
"Yorkshire"
"Yorkshire?"
"Yes. I have a cottage in Yorkshire." He tries for a smile. It doesn’t come close to reaching his eyes.
"I’m sorry, i know it must be hard after-"
"It's alright. Professor Mcgonagall. I'm happy to be here," he tries for a more genuine expression, he is happy to see her, if perhaps it brings more pain than joy.
"I'm happy you're here as well, and please Remus, call me Minerva" she says, before diverting her attention to the man on her right. Dumbledore.
Remus grits his teeth as he feels the time melting away, second by second, while students and professors choose their lunch and begin eating, and he stares at an empty plate.
He can't not eat. He wants to eat. Merlin, he wants to eat. But he hasn't done this in years.
He can feel people's eyes on him. The beginnings of real terror start to set in, the kind that leaves him incapacitated in his living room, tears streaming, consumed by memories of his friends and his childhood and Dumbledore and that ward in St Mungo’s with those healers’ hands holding him down and the guilt and Siriu-
"Lupin"
Did someone say his name?
"Lupin, have a drink of water" Remus turns towards the sound.
"What?"
"Have some water before you die at this table" Snape says, dryly.
"I'm quite fine-"
"Oh, I'm sure you are. Have a drink for heaven’s sake"
Remus furrows his brows, but reaches for the goblet in front of him. The cool liquid moves down his throat and he feels it settle in his stomach.
He turns to look at Severus, who has turned away, giving no indication he had even spoken. Remus spares a glance at his plate. It's barely even been ten minutes. He then looks for a moment, completely on impulse, towards the table he spent so much of his time. Perhaps not nearly as much as he should have- towards the table that induced so much fear and the table where so many conversations were had with the people he loved.
And he sees the focussed eyes of a girl with curly brown hair, staring right at him. The girl from the train. Harry’s friend.
Numbly, he reaches towards the bread basket in front of him. Bread. But everything else on this table is cooked goods, he could try and estimate, but why bother when he can eat something in which he's fairly certain of the cost? He takes a piece of baguette and is suddenly hit with the realisation that this might even look more abnormal than eating nothing. Who eats a slice of a baguette on its own? And now he has to grab something else.
He grits his teeth and reaches towards the soup on his right, and pours himself a bowl. Soup is low isn't it? Well, some are. The stuff he eats is.
Merlin knows what's in this.
It's fine. Of course it's fine. Everything is fine. Why is he so nervous? He eats this amount usually. Maybe not in one meal, but he can even eat more than this and be fine.
Why on earth is he so nervous? Why is he acting like this? It's so, it's just so unplanned. Impulsive. Why didn’t he account for this? He's never been one to act on impulse. That’s not his thing. Right?
(Perhaps not entirely right.)
He picks off bits of his bread and leaves it scattered on the plate, before reaching for his spoon. This is fine. 10 spoonfuls yeah? He can spread them out over the next half an hour. One every three minutes, alternating between sips of water.
But he looks so odd not talking to anyone, there is nothing to busy himself with, and that girl is staring at him and no doubt others are too and Severus Snape is sat right next to him and Minnie is sat on his right and oh god.
Oh god they're going to notice immediately. Of course they are, they were there when he was a teenager in this forsaken school, of course they know.
He needs to strike up conversation, he looks so pathetic, and it's not that he cares about that but there's such a sinking feeling in his gut and such a striking fear of being seen that he can't think of anything worse.
Can't even handle being back for more than half a day of teaching and he's already cementing an image of being broken. No.
He glances towards Severus, who seems to be quite comfortable with his goblet of... Something dark and murky and his meal of, what? Some slices of chicken and sauté potatoes? Remus feels a spark of resentment ignite.
Snape is so fucking lean. So comfortable at this table. How dare he? Severus doesn't appear to be engaging in any conversation whatsoever, Remus purses his lips. This is not how he wanted this to go. But he opens his mouth.
"Teaching potions now are we?" Severus glances in his direction for a moment.
"We? I'm certain there's no 'we' in the matter."
"No I-"
"In fact I believe you are teaching defence against the dark arts. Helping the younger generation keep themselves safe I suppose. How ironic. "
"Ironic?"
"Hm, yes. Irony. Ever heard of it, lupin? Something quite… paradoxical, even-"
"Of course I know what irony means," Remus snaps.
"You asked me the question," Snape drawls and raises an eyebrow.
"I wasn't asking for the bloody definition," he hisses, quietly. All too aware of the amount of children, and, merlin- Dumbledore, in the vicinity.
"You want to know what's ironic about it?" Snape murmurs, rather patronisingly.
"Don't talk to me like that, Severus"
Snape leans in for a moment, not too close to be obvious, but close enough that Remus feels the intense urge to flinch, or violently sock him in the face.
"Your soup is getting cold, Lupin"
Remus looks at the bowl in front of him and bites his tongue before gritting out, "I suppose I have lost my appetite."
Severus goes to turn from Remus as he whispers under his breath, somewhat exasperatedly, "I'm sure you have."
I need a fucking cigarette. Remus thinks, as the students flow out of the hall, soup long forgotten and cold in front of him. Standing from the table and fighting through the rush in his head, he ignores the careful eyes of his colleagues as he makes his way, as quick as he can without drawing attention, through the double doors and into the corridor.
As he hurries through, haste bordering on total panic, he passes two bathrooms.
You could- no. No, why would he do that? Why would he do that? In a student bathroom no less? He can't be doing that here, he has no reason to.
His feet ignore the conflict in his mind and continue taking him out into the grounds, fingers fumbling for a fag and his lighter. There's a sort of satisfaction in not using his wand to light his cigarettes, if he's going to indulge in a whole host of morbid muggle habits, he may as well go all out, right?
(That, and the fact that magic requires energy.)