Pain
December 23, 1971. 1 am. Remus
Remus walked around his new room, taking it in. It had maroon walls, a large bed, a light grey ceiling, and a large walk-in closet. As well as a large bathroom.
He was about to try the deep blue coloured bed. When a knock at the door sounded, Remus jumped. Remus had been so preoccupied that he hadn’t sensed the person coming up the stairs.
“Hey, um, you kids in there?” Fleamont’s voice was slightly muffled from the thick wood of the door.
The twins hesitated, then answered, “Yeah.”
“I was wondering if you guys wanted to be fixed up a bit. You heal fast, but you’re both still injured,” he replied.
Remus didn’t trust him. He even bordered on hatred. But… there was no real reason to, except trauma. And over the holidays, he had decided to pierce his earlobe again, adding a second hole next to the first one. Sadly, it had been ripped out during the fight. He looked over to Romulus, who was touching his bruised side with a wince. They walked towards each other, and started whispering quietly in Welsh.
“What do you think about it?” Remus asked.
“I’m still on the fence about him, but the bruises and the cuts hurt, and if he tries anything, we fight,” Romulus replied. Remus nodded thoughtfully. He didn’t like to hurt, and he was hurting a lot right now, internally and externally. He could guess Romulus was feeling the same.
“Sure,” they said in English.
Fleamont walked in then, wand in one hand, potions kit in the other. He looked at them both, seeming to gauge their injury level, before walking to Remus first. He reached his wand out, and Remus flinched, his hands coming up as if to block himself from whatever Fleamont would do. Fleamont looked confused for a second, before understanding came over his features.
“I’m not doing anything bad, or wrong, or anything else your father did to you both tonight. I just want to heal you. I have a hard time seeing people in pain, especially young people. That's why I became a healer in the first place, to help people. Maybe you could have me do something minor?” Fleamont asked Remus, making eye contact with him. Remus didn’t like it.
Remus thought of his ear again. The torn lobe, from the middle of his ear, down until it was almost torn in two.
“If you could fix my ear, but not close the hole where the piercing was, that would be great,” Remus said, acting nonchalant, but internally his nerves were all over the place. He was surprised that he wasn’t vibrating with it.
Fleamont leaned over him, and using his wandless hand he tilted Remus’s head to the side so he could see his ear better. He then pointed his wand at the torn flesh, and slowly knit the skin together until there was nothing but the small, circular hole that was the piercing. Flemont then pulled away, and grabbed a bandage and a small, light blue potion bottle from his kit. He flattened the bandage, put a few drops of the potion onto it, and put the bottle away again. Remus noticed it had turned to a dark purple stain against the white cotton of the bandage.
Remus felt the cold of the bandage as Fleamont wrapped it around his ear lobe.
“It’s enchanted so that once you don’t need it anymore, it will remove itself,”Fleamont explained to him. Remus touched his ear in curiosity.
“Won’t it close without the earring in it?” Remus asked.
“No, the hole is completely healed now, but still clean it regularly,” Fleamont advised.
“Yeah… okay,” Remus said, still slightly bewildered. Remus was still watching Fleamont with this new… emotion? What the hell was this? Why was he trusting Fleamont?
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December 23, 1971, the morning after. Romulus.
Romulus woke with a groan, sore from the events of the previous night. Fleamont had patched them both up, but that didn’t mean their joints and tendons were too keen on moving.
Romulus felt Remus stirring on the opposite side of the bed. It was rare that Remus slept in. He usually liked to stay awake and observant for the most amount of time possible. Sleep was a necessity for him, not a pleasure.
Romulus got up, cracked his back, then his fingers. He went to grab some clothes to put on, then remembered that the only thing he had was the pair of ripped jeans and the white, blood-stained T-shirt. He growled to himself, running a hand through his hair, then walked out into the hallway, probably looking like an absolute mess.
He descended the stairs slowly, taking note of all the popping, creaking, and starbursts of pain with each step. He then awkwardly shuffled into the dining room, sensing the Potters plus Sirius at the table. He stayed out of sight for a while, listening.
“-should really go into Diagon alley. Those two boys need clothes, if nothing else. And there’s no way I’m sending them back to that house to grab them,” came from Euphemia Potter.
“I agree, but we need the boys to come with us, to choose clothes as well as get their sizes. They also need shoes, soap, and whatever else. I’m 90% sure one of them has a knife, I don’t know why, but they do,” came from Fleamont.
That was when Romulus made his presence known, walking into view. “That would be Remus. He usually has a knife on him, foldable or not,” he said.
They seemed slightly startled by his presence, and he could smell a slight amount of fear off of Mr. and Mrs. Potter. It made him want to single out the weakness, and he had a brief moment where he gauged Fleamont’s capability in a fight. He shook it off, slightly angry with himself. So what if they didn't like him because of the wolf? Wasn't like he could control it. Wasn't like he liked the wolf. Wasn't like they were trying to find a cure. They could hate him all they wanted, but it didn't change anything. He was still stuck here, stuck with this condition, stuck with his own mind. Trapped in it, even.
“We can head back to the house and grab our shit. Not like Lyall’ll fuck with me if I have a Black, two trained magical people, and Remus with me. Sorry, James, you’d be a bit useless in this situation,” Romulus smirked at James, and he rolled his eyes at him. Romulus flipped him off.
Romulus felt his brother approaching behind him, and sure enough,
“Ble mae'r uffern yw fy nghyllyll?” Well, that wasn’t what he thought he would say, honestly.
“Have you tried… looking for it? That's usually what a sensible person would do, though I guess you aren’t a sensible person, so…” Romulus trailed off, looking at Remus with a smirk.
“Honestly fuck you,” Remus said. He looked at the rest of the room then, waved in a way that was somehow sarcastic, and walked back upstairs.
“What was he looking for?” Mrs. Potter asked.
“His knife, like a lunatic. I think when he was thrown across the room yesterday, he suffered a brain injury,” Romulus responded, smiling to himself. When he looked at the other people in the room, though, they didn’t look amused.
Don’t make jokes about your trauma. Noted-Romulus thought to himself. Romulus rolled his eyes. All these Potters, with the perfect life, the perfect son, having the audacity to judge him on his coping mechanism. Why weren’t they laughing? Remus would have laughed. Remus always laughed. Romulus shook his head, and walked towards the table, asking silently if he could sit down. No one responded, so he sat somewhat hesitantly.
“Romulus, what exactly happened last night?” Sirius asked, looking concerned. Romulus saw his eyes flick to the stairs, then back to him. Of course, he cared more about his brother than him. People often did. Everyone worried about Remus, with his explosive attitude, and panic attacks, and a perpetually angry face. What was up with him today? Why was he so jealous, so spiteful. Romulus had never liked eye contact and flicked his own away.
“Lyall hit mam, and Remus wasn’t having it," Romulus didn't mean to be short with him. What was going on?
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” Romulus replied shortly. He stood again, and walked upstairs, looking for his brother. Right as he was to enter their shared room, he heard James speaking.
“They’ve always been so strong. Something really bad must have happened if they both broke.”
The last things Romulus heard were hums of agreement before he slipped back behind closed doors. Back to safety. Back to his brother. Back to where he could be himself. But was himself really a good thing?