If You Could See What I See
“I think you’re making a big deal of nothing.”
Wrong words. I regretted them as soon as they left my mouth.
“Of nothing?” you growl. “Let’s say I somehow survive into my eighties. That’s hundreds of transformations I have to go through. And if I’m unlucky enough to live to a pureblood sort of age… that’s a thousand transformations.”
“I didn’t mean it was literally nothing, Remus. I know how painful and inconvenient it is, and how much embarrassment comes with it. But you have medicine now.”
And you have me, I wanted to say, but that part hadn’t been true for far too long. Staring at full moons through the cold sliver of an Azkaban window for twelve years had done as much to me as the transformations themselves did to you. But there’s no good way to explain that.
“Yes, yes, that’s right. I have my medicine,” you say moodily, dosing some out for (y)our rough night ahead. “I rely on this, you know, so I don’t eat people.”
Your self-hatred hurts me as much as it hurts you, just in a different way. And if you knew that it hurt me, you’d only hate yourself more.
We’re both too old to play guessing games, so I ask you outright, “Do you want me, or do you want to be alone tonight?”
You answer by guzzling down your meds and locking yourself in your room. I pass the time reading Arthur’s secondhand Daily Prophets.
Something in the Life & Culture section catches my eye.
Moonbows Spotted in Lake District
From the article, I skim “recent weather changes” (they’re referring to dementor mist) and “rainbows appearing at night from lunar light.” I’d never heard of moonbows before, but I do know that I’m going to find one for you.
