[p.o.a] some thoughts from r.j lupin to h.j potter and few from him to you
the world is not kind.
remus lupin learned this too young, but too late. he is five years old when he's bitten by fenrir greyback, his memories for six years after that are filled with little other than pain.
his mother tried, truly, she did. but hope lupin was a muggle woman in a world that spits on her existence; she pulled and pushed but nothing moved.
his father was different. lyall lupin hated what he is, not that he hates his son, no of course not. it just it's not you, he said, it's just, he motions with his hands, you understand don't you? lyall lupin did not hate his son, but remus lupin knew he did.
suddenly, he turns eleven and a letter with green ink falls in his path. 𝘩𝘰𝘨𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴, his father whispered oddly. remus lupin knows why. he feels bad when he's shocked his parents take him school shopping.
on september first, 1971, he boards the train with more unease than excitement. remus said goodbye to his parents with the empty promise of writing. that day he meets james potter, who has little regard for the future and flames of mischief dancing behind hazel eyes. he also meets sirius black, who sits like a pureblood and hides weariness with the thin veneer of humour. they're the beginning.
remus walks through the doors with the knowledge that he's just another face in the sea of students, but has a tree planted for him. he's a gryffindor, one of the house of the brave.
he doesn't feel very brave.
but he sits across from sirius black, who's riding off the high of a consequence-filled rebellion, and smiles.
james potter, sirius black, and remus lupin share a dorm with one peter pettigrew.
they get into lots of mischief. and the story unfolds.
it's september first, 1991, and it reeks of deja vu. he's picked a seat in the back, hoping that no one will disturb him during his countdown to the full moon later that day. he's wrong.
harry potter sits down next to him. of course, he doesn't know that yet, but he wakes up to a high-pitched ringing that leaves his head, well, ringing. and without any shame, or thought to his own childhood of mischief, remus eavesdrops on the rest of their conversation. the train stops and dementors board and yes, he takes care of it. he comes to learn, though, of the trouble a one harry potter has gotten himself into and realizes that this might be the last moment where harry will let a teacher protect him. teachers are the biggest gossips after all, especially with such a calamity as harry potter in the school.
this is supported further after the boggart accident, and yes, he really had no clue why he thought putting a fear-feasting, embodiment of madness in front of a bunch of thirteen-year-olds was a good idea (it wasn't that's why). when harry sat down in his office and asked about why he hadn't let him face the boggart. remus thinks that his eyes shine with questions in the same way his mother's did, but they didn't. remus sees less of a redhead challenging approval and more of himself as a young werewolf prodding in all the places he could reach.
remus expresses his worries about voldemort appearing and harry remains silent for a second. fleetingly, harry glanced at the walls like there was a terrible memory embedded in the wallpaper.
"i remembered the dementors," he says blandly and remus, for all his lack of experience with people, cannot tell if he's lying.
dementors. huh.
remus remembers a simpler time, where war was war and your enemies were not your friends, that of course had changed. and maybe the years have got to him, maybe even remus lupin has fallen to the delusions of the boy who lived, but this is not what he expects. instead he says:
"your greatest fear is fear itself, that's quite something, don't you think?"
wrong. wrong. wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong
in harry's head things are much different.
he thinks of quirrell's rage-twisted face and lockhart sitting away, locked in the permanent resident's ward in st. mungo's. he thinks of a young tom riddle whose sneer is twinged in the slight haze of insanity, of all those terrible things that have come from insanity. from freakishness.
because it's not, harry thinks, it's madness
(oops)